Marcus Barton

I raced the XTERRA Panther Creek Tri back on August 1st.  I know, I know.  That was 4 weeks ago.  After some pestering from a few of my buddies who wanted the low-down, I figured I would post it anyhow.  Plus, with going into my next race, I have been thinking a lot about Panther Creek, as any racer should.  What went right?  What went wrong?  What changes should I make to improve?  You get the idea.  So since it’s been on my mind lately, it does make it easier to throw it on paper.  Well, uh, not really paper, but again, you get the idea.

For the second year in a row, it was a wet course.  It was on and off raining in the area the 24 hours leading up to the race.  I wasn’t overly nervous about it, as I had a pretty good race there last year and it was muddy as all get-out. 

Fred and I had chatted a couple of times leading into the race and we hooked up on race morning to talk strategy among miscellaneous small talk.  It was still on-and-off misting as you could tell from the foggy camera lens in the picture below.

Like last year, the bike course was modified slightly to prevent the racers from going through a slick boulder and bridge section.  It’s a fun, fun section when it’s dry, but could be very, very sketchy when wet.  Here’s a dry picture of the section that was cutout.

After getting transition all laid out and things ready for the race, Fred, Dan, and I decided to head out on the course for a little quick pre-race warmup.  This also gave us an opportunity to check out the course and to see if my decision to go gloveless would work given the wet conditions. It was slick as expected with every wet root acting like a gremlin to throw your wheels out from under you.  The ESI Grips worked well, even wet and even without gloves.  I was pleasantly surprised as I knew that going gloveless could save me time in transition, especially if it continued to rain. Have you ever tried putting on wet gloves? 

On a second lap of the section we decided to pre-ride, I opted to push things just a little too hard.  Inevitably, I crashed.  Not only did I crash, but I did so twice.  The second time down, my decision to go without gloves bit me.  While hitting the dirt, I tried to catch myself and both of my hands scraped across sharp, pea-sized gravel.  The result were cuts and scrapes to both of my palms.  The pic below was from post-race while cleaning the wounds.  Can you imagine what they looked like bloody?

Getting back to transition, I grabbed my Bellwether Scout gloves from my transition bag and placed them in their appropriate spot.  There was no way I was going through that twice.  I headed down to the water for a warm-up swim.  During the swim, as soon as I took off, the first couple of strokes were painful.  I expected the cuts to sting, but that wasn’t the problem.  The real pain came from the fact that my right palm was not only cut, but bruised quite a bit.  Matter of fact, it had already begun to swell and discolor.  “This is not going to be fun on the bike,” I thought.  After my warmup swim and RIGHT before the race start, I ran back up to transition and swapped my Scout gloves for a pair of the Bellwether Supreme gloves.  I normally reserve these for road biking because I favor full-fingered gloves on the mountain bike.  My decision to use them was based up the fact that they have a padded palm.  They ended up being saviors on the bike course.

The swim consisted of a 400 meter course of which we would have to two laps.  On the first lap I attempted to keep a strong, fast pace to stay ahead of the main pack.  I knew I couldn’t keep up with Fred’s super-fast pace, so rather than blow up trying, I just kept him in sight and settled into my own pace.  I was in 6th place coming out of the water and couple of minutes behind Fred (pretty significant on such a short swim). 

My transition went super smooth and I entered the trail in 4th place.  I passed another racer very early in the bike which put me into 3rd.  I held 3rd place for a good portion of the first (of two) laps.  That’s when my friend Dan caught up to me.  “Abracadabra,’ he says as he passes me.  We stuck together into the second lap.  About a third of the way through, I crashed again on slick roots, hitting more sharp gravel, taking a huge chunk out of my tri suit and my arse with it.  I shook it off quickly and kept on trucking.  About the time I caught back up to Dan, I heard Ryan Oconner behind us and I informed Dan that we had a tail.  Ryan kept his pursuit and eventually passes me once the trail widened.  Shortly after his pass, I tried to pick up my pace in an effort to keep on his tail.  It wasn’t long before the conditions took over and I crashed, AGAIN.  Same side, same area, leaving more arse on trail.  This allowed both Dan and Ryan to get out of sight.  I continued my pursuit to both catch the guys in front and to ward off anyone trying to catch up.  As I was about to finish up the bike leg of the race, Bence Roemer catches up and takes a pass. 

Sore and beat up, I entered T2 and ditched the bike gear as quickly as possible.  It went pretty smooth and I went into the run in 6th place overall.

After about a mile or so of technical single-track, the run course opened up onto a gravel fire-road.  I could see Bence in the distance and tried my best to reel him in.  Once we entered into a lolly-pop loop section of the course, I wouldn’t see him again.  Matter of fact, I didn’t see or hear anyone for the rest of the run.  I spent it all alone till the end of the race. 

Since the conditions were quite muddy, I was a little concerned that the Avia Avi-Stoltz shoes would get clogged up and lose grip.  Only in the most extreme, greasy mud did this happen (which any shoe would have had trouble).  The rest of the time, they worked like champs.  I held 6th place overall and first in my age group.

Great race and good times!

Congrats to teammate Fred Smith for taking 1st place overall!!

Full results:  http://www.xterraplanet.com/races/view_results.cfm?race_id=1088

Be a Warrior! 

Marcus

It’s hard to believe that the XTERRA East Championship race was over A MONTH ago.  With everything going on (vacation, getting ready for XTERRA Whitewater, you name it), it’s been difficult to get this race report done.  Alas, here it is.

Dan and I headed to Richmond Saturday morning since our day jobs wouldn’t allow us to get out of town sooner.  We debated leaving Friday afternoon, but it just didn’t pan out.  After arriving, we shot straight for the course to go for a pre-ride.  We hit the XTERRA University clinic hosted by Conrad Stoltz and Melanie McQuaid.  If you haven’t hit one of these clinics at the Championship races, you’re missing out.  No matter what your skill level, you could still learn a thing or two.  Even if it’s little tips and tricks about the course, I always pick up a few nuggets.

After XTERRA University, we picked up our packets and headed out onto the course.  We rode portions of the course that were reverse from last year just to get a feel for the flow.  We bailed out on the rest of the course in order to reserve our legs for the race.

Race morning, we headed down to the transition area and began to setup.  I looked up and saw a BEAUTIFUL sunrise.

We took off on the swim in three waves.  Pros were first, men up to 39 in the second and everyone else (including me) in the last wave.  There wasn’t as much of a current in the James River this year, but that was due to less rainfall than last year.  Unfortunately, this meant a heck of a lot more climbing, crawling, and swimming over rocks.  I just couldn’t seem to get into a comfortable rhythm.  The very second I felt like I had a rhythm going, I’d hit a rock.  I’d try my best to shimmy across the rock without wasting too much time.  I decided to try and sight a little more to see if I could spot anyone having to crawl over something in front of me.  It was a futile attempt as the entire field in front of me looked like a bunch of whack-a-moles popping up and down.  We made it to the island, a quick romp across the island and back into the river for the return swim.

Coming out of the water, I felt pretty good, but still a bit frustrated that I couldn’t get a good rhythm going.  I headed for T1 as quickly as I could.  I was happy that we weren’t forced to run down the pea gravel embedded sidewalk.  There were a steady stream of swimmers coming out of the water and into T1.  This meant that I had to contend with traffic and passing during the bike leg.  My goal was to beat as many of them out of transition as I could.

T1 went fairly smoothly although I did have a bit of trouble with my shoes.  Unlike some of my brethren, I choose to put on my shoes in transition for certain races (this being one of them).  This time around, I hadn’t pre-positioned my straps properly, so it caused me a bit of time getting them on and strapped.  Like going into transition, there was a steady stream of folks coming out.  We had a short road ride before we came to the concrete bridge that crosses the river.

mmmmmm  Gloves are tasty.

Running up onto the concrete bridge and over the river, fellow 40 year old, friend, and MelRad Alumni, Frank Fernandez-Posse yells out to me from behind.  “Go, Marcus!”  Frank and I had chatted on the phone a couple of times leading up to the race.  We were both excited to be there and to duke it out a bit.  We headed over to the island where we engaged in a little fast fire road riding along with some sweet single track.  As we departed the island, Frank was still hot on my tail and passed me on the rickety wooden bridge that crosses the dryway.  He pats me on the back as he passes and says, “Come on, let’s go.”  I tucked in behind another rider he passed and the three of us headed for the stair case.

The staircase is a three-story tall, concrete, spiral staircase that we have to climb in order to cross a set of railroad tracks.  Originally designed for pedestrians, it is a bit difficult to climb it with a bike over your shoulder.  Luckily, unlike last year, we only had to climb the staircase once and did not have to descend it.  After crossing the railroad tracks, we rode some of the sweetest, fun, and technically interesting single track courses on the circuit.  With drops, tunnels, weird bridges, and some of the greatest trail maintenance I’ve seen, Richmond is just a bit different than most trail systems out there, especially for one located smack-dab in the middle of the city.  The local trail gnomes have done a tremendous job with some of the brick and stone work.  Absolutely amazing.

I continued to keep Frank, a great biker, in my sites as we rode the trails.  He maintained a good two or three rider spots ahead of me.  As we caught up with the tail-end of the first amateur wave of riders, this proved to be a little difficult.  With every person that I had to pass, it seemed he’d squeak a little bit further out of sight.  At one point, another rider and I became a little tangled up during a poor passing attempt (on my part).  I apologized profusely as I continued my Frank pursuit.  By the time I got going again, he was completely out of sight.  I searched through the switchbacks for him but just couldn’t spot him.  I had lost too much time passing and he was riding a good bike leg.  Once we arrived back onto the pavement at the end of the bike portion of the race, I had an opportunity to look straight ahead to see if I could spot him.  Nothing. 

After a horrible T2 (I was flustered and seemed disorganized with my gear), I headed out on the hot run.  While fumbling with my hat and bib (see pic below), I looked up to spot a racer off in the distance.  I couldn’t recognize the person (he was too far), but it sure looked like Frank.  The signature bald head (like mine) and the coloring of the uniform made me think it was him. I set out to try and reel the person in, regardless of who it was.

As I got closer, sure enough, it was Frank.  As I passed him, he gave me words of encouragement and I returned the favor.  He’d  been nursing an ankle injury and it surely showed up on the run (I hope it’s better by now, Frank).  I continued on to the flood wall and tried to maintain a good pace.  The heat coming off of the rocks, river and the flood wall was overwhelming.  I pulled back my pace a bit just so I could handle the heat.  After the floodwall I ascended the “Ruins” which is a staircase made of railroad ties.  Once on top of the ruins, I was really beginning to feel the affects of the heat.  The run quickly turned back to single track where I welcomed the coolness of the shaded trail and rolling terrain.

I passed one more person in my division just before we went onto the dryway, an area of large boulders and rocks.  I had asked Kahuna Dave the day before if we’d be climbing the hill on the island just after the dryway and he stated that we wouldn’t.  My strategy was to pick up my pace after the dryway and negative split all the way back. 

I picked up a rabbit just after the dryway.  Looking at his calves, he had a 45 stamped on one (which meant he was in the 45-49 division) and a permanent IronMan tattoo on the other.  Running at a pace just a little faster than I could maintain, I tucked in behind him and asked if he’d mind the company.  “Nope, let’s do it,” he replied.  I stayed right with him until I saw a red arrow pointing us up the hill on the island.  DRATS!  My whole strategy was ruined.  I had paced myself thinking that I had mile or so flat run left.  A last minute course change dictated that I’d need to quickly modify that strategy.  I didn’t have the juice or the mental capacity to attack the hilly trail on the island.  As I started to climb the island hill, both quads started to burn and cramp up.  I pushed through it the best that I could but lost my rabbit in the process.  I grunted, groaned and generally whined my way through the hilly singletrack and over to the other side of the island.  As I came out onto the flat section of the course, I could see the concrete ramp leading to the bridge back across the river.  I faintly spotted two runners ascending the ramp.  “I can catch them,” I thought.  I picked up the pace and attempted to reel them in.

Coming into the finish, I was 29 seconds off from those two guys, WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BOTH BE IN MY DIVISION!  Lesson to be learned:  Every second counts!

Final results were 7th in my Division (bleh) and 23rd overall amateur out of a field of 197 amateurs.  Due to my placement and one of the guys in my division being Canadian, I qualified to race as part of Team USA at the 2011 Cross (offroad) Triathlon World Championships to be held in Extremadura, Spain.  (yay!)

Be a Warrior!

Marcus Barton

(last weeknd’s race)

78 degrees.  That was the temperature when Dan and I arrived at transition area for our pre-race setup at the XTERRA Southeast Championship race last weekend.  That may not sound that bad, but you have to consider that it was 5:45 AM at the time.  We knew it would be a hot race in Alabama that day.

Even though I currently reside in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was born and raised in Alabama.  My wife, Alba, is from New York city, and has taken many “back home” trips with me to Alabama.  She has created a phrase that describes hot days like that as “Alabama-hot”.  No matter where we are, if it is really hot outside, she calls it Alabama-hot.

While getting checked in, we saw the regular crew, Janet, Andrew, Jen and the rest of the bunch.  It was great seeing them all again.  We setup our transition area and set out for a quick warm up ride.  We had missed seeing the new section of the bike course during our pre-ride, so we used a portion of it for the warm up.

Heading down to the swim area, I hopped into the water about waist deep.  The water was like a hot tub.  I didn’t even bother doing a warm up swim in fear of overheating.  Instead, I decided to lay down on a cold section of grass in the shade while reviewing my game plan in my noggin.  “This is going to be a hot swim,” I thought to my self.  I think the advertised water temperature was 83 degrees.  Alabama-hot.

Before I knew it, we were on the starting line.  The infamous cannon fired and we were off in typical washing machine fashion.

More pics at the XTERRA FaceBook page.

The first lap was a bit odd.  There were two distinct groups of swimmers and somehow I ended up right between the two in open water.  It must have been where I started off the line.  I would breathe to the right and see a group of swimmers thrashing.  With a breath to the left, I would see another group.  I’d site for the buoy and no one was in front.  Very odd.  At one point, I caught a glimpse of Dan, but lost sight of him somehow in the shuffle.

Coming out of the water for the short beach run between the two 750 meter laps, I felt pretty good.  I even goofed around with someone taking pictures and gave them double hang-ten hand signs along with a big smile.  Wish I could get a copy of that photo (hint, hint).

The second lap went smooth as well.  I felt like I could have pushed the pace a little faster, but I was really concerned with overheating.  The water was just that hot.  I decided to stick to the conservative side and save it for the bike and run.  Heading into transition, after the swim, I wasn’t sure about my standings, but knew I was looking forward to the bike.

I was surprised to see so many bikes still on the racks when I arrived into T1.  With my swim, I felt my conservative pace would have put me further back in the pack, but apparently it wasn’t as slow as I’d thought.  I quickly donned my bike gear spying teammie and rackmate Jo Markaham on my way out of transition.

Man, that Lazer helmet ROCKS!

The ride on the road was short before hitting the trailhead but was long enough for me to chew on, I mean put on, my gloves while riding.  I was still breathing hard from the swim and transition when I hit the trailhead.  Once on the trail, it took a little while for me to settle into a comfortable pace and calm my breathing.

For the first portion of the course, I had someone right behind me, tagging along as I passed numerous riders.  I would call out a request to pass and would hear him say “one more,” adding to my request.  We picked off quite a few riders together and I asked him twice if he wanted to pass.  After the second time I asked, he stated I was picking some really good lines and that he wanted to just hang with me a while.  No problem.  Riding together with another rider is always more fun that riding alone.

By the time we arrived at the first fire road, we had been tailing another rider for a while.  The rider following me took the opportunity to pass the rider in front of us.  As he pulled along my side, he said, “Come on, let’s catch the guy in blue!”  I glanced down at his calf and saw he was in the 45-49 age division.  Good, not one of my competitors.

I jumped in behind him but ended up behind the blue rider.  The three of us rode up the gravel road in a mini-peloton, drafting.  As we went through the water stop manned by one busy, busy volunteer.  He handed off a cup of water to the two in front of me while running along side of us, but had nothing to give me.  Darn, if he only had three hands.  We stayed in our group until the trail turned to single track where I passed the blue rider on the next climb. 

The two of us stayed together until hitting the long fire road climb.  I let him pull away from me on the climb as I took the conservative approach.  I had completely blown up on the same climb two years ago when the heat conditions were similar.  Alabama-hot.

About half-way up the climb, I hear “abracadabra” (an inside joke between Dan and I).  “Go get ‘em!" I exclaimed as he slowly passed me.  I continued the climb and somehow lost track of where I was.  When I reached the top, I was actually a bit surprised that it was over already. 

On the first downhill I was bombing pretty good, floating across some really rough, rocky sections, just holding on and letting the bike do it’s thing when I hear what appears to sound like a spoke breaking.  You know that “ting” sound that everyone dreads to hear.  About the same time, something started going wrong with my chain.  I couldn’t quite figure it out on the fly, but it seemed like the derailleur wasn’t picking up the slack.  The only problem was, I wasn’t pedaling, so there shouldn’t be any slack to pick up.  I pulled over to give it a quick inspection and didn’t see any broken spokes or anything out of place.

For the rest of the rolling sections before Blood Rock, I continued to have the same problem.  Through trial and error, I determined that something was preventing my cassette from free-wheeling.  This resulted in anytime I attempted to coast, the cassette would continue to try and throw the chain forward.  The only way to prevent it was to pedal all the time, even on fast downhills. 

Upon diving into the Blood Rock trail, there’s a nice rocky section to jump right at the beginning.  I dove off of it flawlessly.  However, the flawed part was the speed and angle at which I went into the small turn just after the drop.  I overshot the turn and laid the bike down, jumped off and landed squarely on my feet.  I only lost a few seconds, but it disheveled me a bit mentally.   The rest of Blood Rock went smoothly and I picked good lines going through the really technical section.

Melanie coming down Blood Rock

The SWEET downhill following Blood Rock is my favorite part of the Oak Mountain trail.  It’s fast, technical and fun as heck.  Towards the bottom, I caught up with Pro, Fabiola Corona, being followed by another guy in my division.  At the same time, another 40 year old had caught up with us.  The four of us continued on the trail until we made several passes.  Next thing I knew, it was just me following one 40 year old.

Me in the back

Once we hit a pine thicket, I felt something stinging/biting me on the back.  “Ouch, what the heck is that?  Horse fly?  Ouch!” I was thinking while trying to reach it with one hand while the other was on the bars.  Not sure what it was at the moment, but it sure stung like hell.  Could it have been a yellow-jacket?  They do nest on the ground in pine straw (usually).

I continued following the 40 year old wondering what my passing strategy would be.  A half-mile or so later, I get the same stinging sensation on my left arm.  I quickly swatted the critter away and in the process, I felt that, whatever it was, was fairly large.  Too big to be a biting fly, it had to have been a horse fly or bee/wasp.  As the stinging sensation continued, I ruled out that it definitely wasn’t a horse fly.  The sensation lingered way too long.

About the time I made that conclusion, another one flew through one of the vents in my helmet and started stinging me on my forehead.  I winced.  I squinted my left eye.  I shook my head.  I tried everything I could without taking my hands off the bars in a very tight, twisty section of the trail.  When I finally had an opportunity to take my hands off the bars, I banged my helmet.  Nothing.  Knowing I couldn’t continue a Popeye ride, I loosened my helmet a bit and slid it back on my head, back and forth, until either it flew out or was squished, all without stopping my pursuit of the fellow 40 year old.  I followed him for the rest of the bike leg and passed him entering transition.

Put your right foot in and shake it all about.

I met up with Dan in transition where he quickly exclaimed, “Let’s go so we can run this together.”  I quickly transitioned and took off after him.  I inspected my noggin the best that I could.  It was swelling a little but not as bad as I would have thought for a bee sting.  Maybe it wasn’t a yellow-jacket.  Not sure, but it still hurt like hell.

We ran the entire run, each taking turns on the lead.  We picked off quite a few people early on in the run, but once we hit the hills, we found ourselves alone, for the most part.  The hills were just as tough as I remembered and even tougher given that it was hotter than at the start of the race.  Alabama-hot.

We finished side-by-side on the run.  Dan took 3rd in his division and I took 4th..

Thanks to the BUMP crew for some OUTSTANDING trails.  If you find yourself in the Birmingham / Pelham area, you should really hit these trails.  When you’re done, hit the bike wash behind the BUMP building.  While you’re at it, toss some bucks into their donation box.

Also, my hat’s off to the XTERRA crew and volunteers for putting on another great race!

RACING EAST CHAMPIONSHIP TOMORROW!  Race report coming up!

Be a Warrior!

Marcus

It was a last minute decision to do (a little over a week out) the XTERRA ACE Big Canyon in West Virginia.  My training buddy, Dan, and I had talked over the possibility of doing it, because we had also planned on racing the Uwharrie Rumble Half marathon the same day.  After further discussion with Coach Mel, Dan and Alba, I decided to do it.  

There were various reasons why.  First, another friend of mine, Andrew Jones, did the race last year and had a blast.  If he didn’t have work commitments, he would have been there again this year.  Second, after the busted ribs and a poor showing at the West Cup, as well as Uwharrie, I really need the series points.  Furthermore, it looked to be a very interesting race with 1.5 miles of swimming (down river), 8 mile trail run (with about 1000 feet of climbing) and about 12 miles of mountain biking.  No, I didn’t say those out of order.  It’s a swim, run, bike (in that order).  I had a really hard time giving up the Uwharrie Rumble Half Marathon, but with XTERRA being my priority this season, it just made sense.  

So Dan, his two sons, Danny, Jarrod and I took off late Saturday (about 7pm) to West Virginia for Sunday race.  My son, Aaron was celebrating his senior prom, and I had to be there for it before I left.  There was no way I would pass that up.  Besides, when do you get a chance to be really proud of your son AND completely embarrass him at the same time?  

We arrived at the hotel/motel around midnight and settled into our drive-up room.  It didn’t look like a place that would have a heated pool and free continental breakfast, but the front desk attendant reminded me of such along with the “bar that’s still hopping with a live band.”  

The next morning, after a restless sleep, we headed to the Ace Adventure Center for the race.   Upon arrival, we knew right off the bat that this place was going to be fun.  Just looking around at the facilities, all the cool water obstacles in the pond and knowing all the services (rafting, climbing, biking, you name it) means it would be a fun place to race.  Plus, when we looked around and saw the hills, we knew we were in for some climbing.  

It was a fairly foggy morning setting up in transition.  The temperature was perfect for racing.  After arriving, I spotted Jo’s bike in transition.  It wasn’t long that we hooked up and threw around a few course strategies.  

Marcus and Jo

The swim portion of the race had to be nixed due to all of the rain that they had recently in the area.  Additionally, the water was contaminated with manure.  Glad thing they canned it.  This meant that the race would be in duathlon format with us running first then riding.  We took a 40 minute bus ride from finish to the start of the race.  Even though it was 40 minutes by car, it was basically around a mountain and to the other side.  Yep.  You got it.  We had to race up it.  

Another great thing about running before the bike was a chance for me to race with my Nathan Trail Mix hydration belt, which also doubled as my bib holder.  I didn’t think I needed more than the 20 ounces it holds along with a Gu Roctane, so I opted to race with it over my Nathan Race Vest.  The belt would prove to be a PERFECT addition to the race.  

Before the start of the race, Dan and I had hatched a plan that since we weren’t swimming, how about running the entire race together pulling/pushing each other along.  With very little hesitation, we both agreed and the race was off.  

At the beginning, we decided to establish a reasonable position early and then try to maintain that position.  We knew that we were in for a heckuva a gravel road climb, but that there was at least a mile or so of flat before we got there.  We established 2nd and 3rd place overall after leapfrogging a bit with Mike Miller.  During the long climb, I noted to Dan that it must be a lot of climbing since my ears popped twice doing so.  

We trudged up the long climb and everyone behind us dropped out of sight.  After the trail turned to single track, we settled into a fast but reasonable pace.  Conditions were very muddy and we were both wondering how all of the folks were doing that we spotted wearing road shoes at the start line.  

Side-by-side into transition, we both got onto our bikes in equally fast time.  As we were leaving transition, we spotted a guy coming into transition.  I told Dan that we needed to put some distance between us and him as he was right on our tail.  With that, we dove into the single track trail.  

There was no end to the mud and rocks on the bike course.  Even with a Specialized Captain tire on the front and a Specialized Storm tire on the rear, the bike still tended to slip and slide like I was on skis.  There was that much mud.  At one point early on the course, I slid sideways (more like drifted) into a tree, bounced off, and kept on trucking.  It could have been nasty, as it was on the downhill side of a nasty drop.  Thank you, tree.  

The two of us were having a great bike leg.  Great pace.  Fast, smooth, and handling even the most technical sections with ease.  And then…  

We came across an arrow (blue for bike) pointing in the opposite direction.  Oh crap.  Dan rode a bit further down the hill where it opened up into a grassy field to see if he could pick up an arrow.  None.  Nadda.  We had apparently gone off course. So we turned around and backtracked to pick up the original course.  We came across a rider diving off of the gravel road where we missed the turn.  With the off course excursion, plus back–tracking, we had ridden an extra 2 miles.  Darn it.  Should have paid better attention.  

The turnoff we had missed was the entrance to “Rigamortis”, a very sketchy, technical, rocky section that the race director had suggested everyone walk.  Upon entering the trail, without even speaking, Dan and I went from ‘hold a steady fast pace” to “hammer it”.  We quickly approached the rider who had just dove into the trail and he stepped out of our way.  “Thank you so much,” I stated.  

We continued hammering it down Rigamortis on the edge of out-of-control in an effort to make up lost time.  Well, I guess you could say that it was out of control, because about half-way down, Dan end-o’d.  He flipped over his bike and rolled over the big boulders in true T.J. Hooker style.  Since I was on his tail (flashbacks of running over Jo in Vegas), I came to a quick stop and asked if he was ok.  He said, “Yep.  Just go.”  With that I resumed my pursuit of reclaiming as many positions as I could.  I finished up Rigamortis without crashing (thank goodness) and continued looking for more positions to reclaim as fast as I could.  

I passed two more people, the last of which was Mark Russell, just as we came into a waterstop (manned by a friendly bearded fellow with a broken arm).  I asked Mark what place we were in.  He said 6th and 7th.  “Actually, that’s not true, as it’s more like 4th and 5th since my buddy and I went off course.”  He paused for fluids at the stop and I kept on trucking.  

Mark caught back up to me as I climbed a hill and came out into a grassy field.  “I’ve been here before.” I said to myself recognizing that this is where we ended up when we went off course.   I climbed the the hill, through the mud and up another steep, rocky hill with Mark closely behind.  As we came into the last waterstop, as I flew past the volunteers, I asked what position I was in.  I received several different answers and quickly dismissed them as inaccurate.  

I thought I had the position well-secured as we approached the end of the bike course.  I recognized it as the tail-end of the bike since it’s shared as the tail-end of the run course.  Just as we approached the opening in the trees, Mark put the hammer down and passed me.  It was obvious that he calculated the move, having raced there last year.  Great move, Mark!  I finished right behind him.  If Dan and I wouldn’t have gone off course, we would have surely made top 3.  

Final standings:
4th Place Overall
1st Place 40-44
Full Results  

Also in the news, Jo Markham hammered out the 1st place female (and of course 1st place in her age group)!  Dan finished 5th overall and 3rd in a tough 35-39 age group.  

You have a little spot, right there, on your nose

My final thoughts on the XTERRA Ace and the Ace Adventure Center are all positive.  All of the staff were very laid-back, super friendly and fun to chat with.  This included not only the race staff, but the staff all over the adventure center (cafeteria, bar, checkin, etc).  The race course was fun as heck!  I can’t wait to get back up there and race it when the swim is doable.  You should seriously consider this awesome race as part of your 2011 calendar.  My hat’s off to the race director, staff and volunteers.  They all did an awesome job!  

Be a Warrior!  

Marcus Barton