XTERRA Czech
Race Equipment,
Setup & Nutrition
1st Endurance Visor
The first of a three race trip to Europe this year started
at XTERRA Czech, it has been on my list for a while as the former
Czechoslovakia is part of my heritage, however after break up to Czech Republic
and Slovakia, my family came from Slovakia.
It is a unique race course as it is the only net downhill bike course
that I am aware of on the XTERRA circuit, there are a couple net uphill bike
courses with Mountain Champs in Beaver Creek and USA Champs in Ogden.
The swim is in a beautiful lake about 15km from the town of
Prachitice, though the water is the color of ice tea it is refresh and
clean. The water temp allowed for the
use of my 2XU X:3 wetsuit and I smartly positioned myself next to Ben Allen on
the start line and took off trying to hold his and Braden Currie’s feet. There were two amateurs that started fast as
well in the mass start and I was behind the one that started to fade and lost
contact with the front three. Ben got
away and had a lead out of the water with Braden second 20 seconds back and I
was about 1min back from him.
I started hammering on the bike and felt like I was riding
pretty decently until Ruben Ruzafa and Alexander Hass rolled up on me about 8k
in to the bike and they were flying. It
was a flatter dirt and road section and I jumped into the draft, then on the
next hill though they looked effortless and I felt like I was pushing a tank up
the hill. Josiah cruised by shortly
there after in pursuit and the hill was open enough that I could see Ben and
Braden just ahead and we had definitely closed the gap down on them. I was unable to maintain contact with anyone
on the hill but kept the pressure on but the legs just weren’t turning over and
I didn’t feel like I was producing the power that I have. On the second half of the course I struggled
on the few steep climbs and Jan Kubicek caught me just as we peaked out before
a fast traverse on a road before the last descent back to town. I managed to stay with him using the descents
to my advantage but he would slowly creep away on any hills.
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| Old WWII Pillbox on the bike course, a different one that I didn't know was there till I saw the pic. |
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| One of a couple fun very short fun bits on the bike. |
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| 2014 XTERRA Czech SRM Powerfile |
We hit T2 together and headed out on the run with a couple
other guys right on our heels. The legs
were moving well but the other guys were just a touch quicker out of the gate,
Jan and one of the other guys continued to pull away but the third guy was
struggling a bit on the uphill but was able to open thing up on the
downhill. I knew that I needed to stay
close and make a charge on the second lap of the run on the uphill and get a
slight gap. I slowly closed and was a
couple steps behind but just couldn’t get by the last little bit and I couldn’t
keep pace on the downhill back into town.
It was a tough struggle and ended up crossing the line in 8th.
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| Little log jump on the run course. |
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