Marcus Barton www.SpeedyLizard.com

...racing on a swollen right foot and less than 4 hours of sleep... More info to come I'm sure.

Vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama does not equal a pause in training. I just went for a GORGEOUS training ride out to Fort Morgan. Total ride time on the peninsula was a little over an hour. It was a short but enjoyable ride where I caught views of both Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

Out for a little 8 mile trail run. What a blast!

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I know it’s been a week since the race, but wanted to get this posted, so here's the low down.

My buddy, Andrew and I got to ‘Bama on Friday morning.  We decided to hit a real technical section of the trail called “Blood Rock” to pick some good lines.  We had no intent in riding much or hard, just that one section.  Since Blood Rock is at the top of Oak Mountain, we decided to drive the truck all the way to the top and dive into the trail close to the section instead of riding all the way up. 

We parked right next to another car and began unloading all of our gear necessary for the ride.  When we were unpacking our bikes we met Shonny Vanlandingham, women's pro mountain biking champ and Xterra women’s pro along with a buddy that was accompanying her for her ride.  The four of us carried on small talk as we all prepped our bikes and other gear.  Her and her buddy dove into the trail as we continued to get ready. 

Shortly thereafter, Melanie McQuaid (pro mountain biker and 3x women's Xterra world champ) with two amateur athletes she coaches (one of them in my age group) came riding up the road.  I had been exchanging email with one of them (Frank Fernandez) for a while, but I had never met him face to face.  Low and behold, he recognized me and stopped to chat for a bit.  Along with Melanie and Frank was Fred Smith, another excellent racer.  Melanie asked us if we wanted to tag along, so we grabbed our stuff and the five of us headed down the trail.

During the first pass through Blood Rock, I decided to try and knock down a rather large oak tree with my shoulder.  Of course, the tree didn’t move much and it sent me off course a bit, almost endo'ing on the last large drop.  I jumped off the bike just as I was going over the handlebars, and used my Batman, cat-like reflexes to land on my feet safely as bike flipped several times.  I have no idea how i accomplished it.  Andrew and I continued down the trail and caught back up to Melanie and crew.  Since it was the day before the race, I assumed they were doing a short brick session.  My assumptions were confirmed after we dumped out onto the paved road the second time.  They headed back for the transition area while Andrew and I headed back up to Blood Rock.  The second time we rode it I still couldn't get thru it smoothly, so it worried me a bit.  We rode back to the truck, and went to pick up our packets.

We woke up race morning around 4:45 to eat some breakfast and head to transition since race start was at 7:30.  It was cloudy with sprinkles on and off.  The high for the day was forecasted at 75 degrees and scattered showers.  I was hoping for a downpour right in the middle of the race (I love racing in the rain).

During transition setup, I had my area almost complete when the guy next to me showed up.  began trying to figure out how he was going to mount his bike to the rack, trying a couple of different things.  During this process, he practiced it a couple of times and each time stepped over and around my stuff.  I had visions of it getting all screwed up during the race.  I quickly rearranged it on the other side of my bike.  It kind of screwed me up as I forgot to put out a Gu Roctane to nurse on the run.

I didn't have time for any warm up.  They didn't give me any twist ties for my bike number, so I had to wait in line at the registration to get them, so any time I saved by getting my packet the day before was gone now.  I had planned on swimming some, but couldn't as I ran out of time.  I hit a Gu Roctane 15 mins out.

Swim: 
1500 meters (two laps around a 750m triangular course with a short 50 foot beach run in between). 

Race started (wetsuit swim) with the pros (not wearing suits) starting 30 seconds ahead of the amateurs.  The swim start was pretty chaotic with the usual madness at the beginning.  Until I rounded the first buoy, I felt tight in the suit and my shoulders were burning a bit.  By the time I hit the second buoy, I was warmed up and feeling pretty good.  I had trouble sighting as my goggles were fogging up towards the end of the first lap.  I kept the pack of swimmers in front of me in sight and just kept going.

I came out of the water after the first lap, and while running the 50 foot shore run, I pulled the goggles away from my eyes, licked each one, put them back on and dove in the water for lap two.

Licking my goggles after the first lap.

Lap two felt much better.  Before I made it to the first buoy, while taking a breath to the left, I noticed the single digit number on the arm of pro.  Three strokes later I noticed the bright pink swim cap on the head of a pro female when I breathed to the right.  How cool is that?  I didn't slow down, because I knew the wetsuits were giving us an edge.  If anyone hasn’t told you by now, if you can wear a wetsuit for the race, then you should.  The race day temp of the water was 71 degrees, only 1 degree off from no wetsuits.

Result: 27:29
Last year: 34:35

T1

T1 went really smooth, except...  I left my CamelBak.  Andrew and I had debated the night before if we were going to need them on the bike leg or not.  After all, it was a cloudy, 75 degree day, so there was going to be less sweating than last year.  Leaving it in transition by mistake had made up my mind for me.  The last minute re-arranging of my transition area had messed with my mojo. 

Result: 1:51
Last year: unknown

Bike:
29k mountain bike, mostly singletrack except a gravel, loose rock, fireroad climb around 3 miles long and about 700 ft elevation gain.
Elevation Profile:

As soon i was about 100 yards into the bike, I realized my mistake with my CamelBak.  I figured the nutrition bottle plus water stops would have to suffice.

The first section of the bike went well.  I felt good but I conserved.  I passed whenever possible, but there were several times I should have taken passes when the riders ahead of me weren't yielding.  The bike course was crowded with open race riders, sport race riders and duathlon riders.

The 3-mile, 600 foot climb littered with loose rock killed me last year causing me to walk quite a bit of it.  This year, I settled into a groove and climbed it nonstop.  600 feet might not sound like much in 3 miles, but this one gets really, really steep in sections and then may level off a bit for a short duration. 

During the climb, one of my age group competitors passed me going pretty fast.  I let him go, knowing that pushing it would probably not be to my advantage.

Another guy in my age group attempted to pass me, but I could tell he was overdoing it as he was breathing really, really hard.  It was usually on one of the leveled-off parts.  Knowing another steep section would be coming up, I let him go for a bit.  Then as soon as it got steep, I would motor past him expending very little extra effort.  We continued to leap frog to the summit where at the top I left him on the fast descent.

At Blood Rock, I came in feeling pretty good that I conquered the hill, but nervous that I couldn't get it smooth the day before.  It consisted of 4 or 5 big drops and 40 or so spectators waiting to see a crash.  I went thru the entire section as smooth as butter.  As I cleared the last drop, the spectators cheered and I was grinning from ear to ear.

           

The rest of the bike went pretty smoothly with the exception of one situation where someone had a minor crash which caused 4or 5 of us to come to a stop.  I grabbed my bike and ran off the trail and around the situation allowing me to pass about three people.

I finished off the tail end of my nutrition bottle as I approached transition.  I basically took a swig from it every 15 mins while on the bike.  During the bike leg, we passed two water stops that allowed me to grab water on the fly.

Coming into transition, I did a rolling dismount within inches of the dismount line and ran into transition.

Result: 1:29:31
Last year: 1:35:20

T2

T2 went very well.  I racked the bike, ditched the helmet, changed shoes, grabbed my hat and bib and ran out of transition grabbing a water at the exit.  As I mentioned earlier, I forgot a Gu to take with me.

Result: 46 seconds
Last year: unknown

Run:
10k trail run with the first section consisting of a portion of the bike trail, then numerous steep climbs.
Elevation profile:

Heading out on the run, I felt pretty good.  It had started to rain a little, which I welcomed.  Again, I was hoping the bottom of the sky would fall out.

I carried a lot of speed into the first section of the race because I knew the hills wouldn't be for a while.  I tried to focus on just keeping a good steady pace without blowing up and making up as much time as possible before the hills.  When I got to the first water stop, I grabbed a Gatorade.  Yuck.  Man, do I HATE Gatorade.  But since I forgot my Gu, I had to take in something. 

Then the hills started.  On the first climb I began to get a cramp in my right quad.  I began to walk the rest of the hill.  It subsided once I topped the hill and never came back.  So I decided to run the hills to the point that I thought was either too tough to run, or that power walking would have been more efficient/faster.  I barreled down on the downhills and made time I lost on the climbs.  At one point someone passed me from my age group on a hill, and I caught him on the downhill.  We continued the same cycle for the next hill.  Once I caught up to him, we exchanged pleasantries and introduced ourselves.  I asked if he had ever raced this course before, and he said he hadn't.  So when he took off on the next climb, I let him go thinking he'd burn himself out on the next 4 hills.  I never caught back up.  Guess it wasn’t the best strategy for me to take.  By the way, he finished just ahead of me.  We both passed another guy from our age group during our game of cat and mouse.

Once I hit the road, I poured on what I had left down the road and around the last section of lake before the finish.

        

Result: 51:36
Last year: 1:01:15.

Entire Race this year: 2:51:09
Enitre Race last year: 3:11:10

Last year I finished 93rd OA and 12th in my AG.  This year, 51st OA and 7th AG, so a definite improvement.  I was 15 minutes away from a 3rd place finish and qualification for Worlds.  I still have work to do.

Full Results

 

Or at least that's how it seems to work in my case..

Ok, I've walked it off enough... Back to my ride.

I guess you could say that about most folks I meet on the Xterra circuit.

Whenever anyone asks me what it's like to race off-road triathlons, I always come back with how the athletes, volunteers and staff are all friendly and fun. I had raced numerous Xterra's before ever attempting a road tri.  Once I finally raced in a road triathlon, something I immediately noticed was that hardly anyone are as friendly as the folks I meet at Xterra events.

So it should be no surprise that when Andrew and I drove to the top of Oak Mountain to preride a section of the course, we came across two friendly people.  Already at the top, prepping their bike for a ride was Shonny Vanlandingham.

As the four of us conversed over the next 10 minutes while prepping our bikes, you wouldn't have been able to tell it as any different as as if we were just four yokes getting ready for your average daily ride. We bid Shonny and her friend a farewell and good luck (in the race) as she headed into the trailhead.

No sooner was Shonny out of sight, we spotted three riders coming up the road towards us. As they drew closer, I recognized the lead rider as Melanie McQuaid. "Hey Melanie," I greeted.

One of the two other riders was Francisco Fernandez-Posse, who recognized me, came over and shook my hand. "How's it going, Marcus."

We chatted with Melanie, Francisco & Fred Smith for around 5 minutes about last year's race, how hot it was and how this year it looked like it would rain.

Before you knew it, Melanie asked Andrew and I if we were ready to ride. We grabbed our last few things and the 5 of us dove into the trail. It was a blast to ride and converse along the trails of Oak Mountain with the three of them, even if it was only a short ride.

When we hit the main road, our two groups parted as they went to the transition area while Andrew and I ascended back up where we started.

We met back up with them in the transition area as Melanie and Francisco were coming out of the lake from a short swim. We conversed again for a while about water temps, wetsuits and the like.

Throughout the ride, conversations by the lake or later when we hooked up with Franciso (and buddies) at dinner, everyone, including Melanie was quick to offer suggestions, tips, tricks, etc. What other sport would competitors do such a thing? In all situations, I enjoyed conversations with everyone immensely.

As I reflect back on today's events, I keep going back to the same thought. Just goes to show you that there are still people in this sport that shine not only in athletic ability, but also in sportsmanship and all-around genuine character. These are the type of people who are the true champions of our sport, regardless of what place they finish in the race.

 

What a great little coffee shop in Hiram. Can you figure out where it is?

I was going through the pics on my cell phone, doing a little general clean up, and I COMPLETLY forgot about these.  I even told Andrew when I was taking them that I HAD to blog about them.

Anyhow, on Saturday, we went for a multi-hour mountain bike ride on the Springs trails followed by a half-hour trail run.  When we were planning the ride on Friday, we were really were hoping to get the ride and run under our belt before the weather turned nasty.  If memory recalls, I think it was a 75% chance of thunderstorms.

So on Saturday, with a usual “Marcus forgets something important” delay right before the ride (thanks Alba for bringing me my bike shoes), we were off in an effort to beat the rain.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, but we knew it wasn’t going to last.

Long story short, we completed our planned ride and run.  However, just as we came out of the woods, it began to rain.  By the time we made it back to our vehicles, it was coming down pretty good.  Since we were soaked already (with sweat), we didn’t even bother rushing to get out of the rain.  It cooled us down and felt pretty good just to stand around for a while.  Ride, run, and a free shower.  What else could you ask for?

4am.  That’s what time the alarm went off.  Uwharrie is just a little under 2 hours from my house.  It’s just far enough for me to briefly consider camping but close enough for me to want to sleep in my own bed.  I opted for the latter.

So with a race starting at 9am, why the hell would I get up at 4am (you might be thinking)?  I’m a firm believer of getting there when transition opens (6:30) and getting all the setup done with time to spare.  Doing so prevents any frantic rushing to get things done.  The final result is time to just relax and gather my thoughts before the race starts.  So at 4:30, Alba and I, in a packed truck (complete with dog) were off to the race.

For those of you that don’t know, Uwharrie is a National Forest consisting of around 52,000 acres.  What a fitting venue for an Xterra.  It consists of some of the oldest mountains in North America.  Even though there are only around a 1,000 feet today, they were once over 20,000 feet in height at their peak.

The course that we had to race consists of shared-use trails that are not only used by hikers and bikers, but horses as well.  This makes my third year racing the venue and I’ve yet to encounter any horse riders during a race (knock on wood) although I have seen plenty during practice rides.

Alba and I showed up right around 6:30 and I began setting up in transition.  I met up with lots of folks.  Included in the bunch were Andrew Jones and Peter Lilly.  Also present was Xterra first-timer (and 2nd triathlon), Dirk Wuensche. 

Transition Area

Andrew Jones and Peter Lilly

Dirk Wuensche

There were lots of familiar faces from training rides, other races and friends in general that seemed to be popping up everywhere.  Even folks I had met online from different social sites.  It seemed as if every time I turned around there was someone else saying hi.  Some I expected to see and others were a complete surprise.

Speaking with friends in transition

Before you knew it, transition started filling up and people mulled about with wetsuits on waiting for the race briefing to start.  The weather was shaping up for what would be an awesome day for a race.  It was slightly cloudy and the temp was perfect for racing.

Transition Filling Up

While the sport (half-distance race) was getting kicked off, Andrew and I found a bench away from the crowd to suit up.  The water had been 58 degrees just days before, so we were not looking forward to the swim.  However, once we were suited up and in the water, we quickly realized that not only had the water warmed up quite a bit, but it actually felt pretty good.  The two-lap, 500 meter, triangular swim was off with a blow from an air horn.

I settled into a pretty good pace and made it around the first two buoys without issue.  After rounding the second buoy, the water was pretty choppy.  Every time I breathed to my right side, I would get a mouth full of water.  Not needing to hydrate this early in the race, I chose to stick to unilateral breathing to my left side until the last buoy.

Shortly after rounding the last buoy, and thus starting my second lap, I realized that someone was drafting me.  Every time I breathed to the left, I could see him/her out of the corner of my eye.  Most of the lead pack had already put some distance on me, so there wasn’t really anyone that I could draft behind.  I was content with just keeping what felt like a good pace: not so fast that I’d blow up, but not so slow as to put me too far behind. 

As I was running to transition, I was notified I was in 9th overall out of the water.  I saw Andrew in transition as I crossed the timing mats, so I decided to give him a smack on his back as I ran by his rack.  He seemed pretty surprised.  I’m not sure if it was surprise that I was done already or if it was one of those surprises that someone was touching him (usually followed by the reactive response of an elbow to the nose).

My transition went fairly smoothly, although I’ve definitely had quicker and smoother.  The bike course was still pretty wet from the rain the night before.  During a pre-ride several weeks back, the course was in much worse shape.  Back then, it was very, very muddy and quite torn up from a recent horse riding event.  During the race, it wasn’t quite as muddy in the usual bad spots.  Instead, some of the sections that were normally dry and very fast were now wet and “greasy”.  On several occasions during the race, I felt as if I was out of control.  Not a good position to be in with as fast as I was trying to ride. 

The climbs were a little more difficult than usual since they were sloppy as well.  I would get going good on a climb only to have my rear tire gum up and start to spin.  I could only imagine what some of the other guys were going through that had low-knob tires or other types designed for drier weather.

Towards the end of my first lap of the two-lap bike course, I was barreling down a hill with a nasty little dip at the bottom.  No sooner did I mentally remind myself to bunny-hop over the dip, I spotted someone lying on the ground and someone else who had just stopped.  As I bunny-hopped across the dip, I asked if everyone was ok.  Usually when asking, someone replies back with something along the lines of, “Yep, we’re fine”.  But this time, I didn’t get any response.  I came to a stop.

I looked back to see Kenny Brown standing there over someone who had just endo’d on the nasty dip.  From the look on Kenny’s face, I could tell something was wrong.  “Need a medic?” I asked.  Kenny nodded.  I laid my bike against a tree and ran down to see what was wrong.  The person on the ground, was holding one arm bent and wrenching in pain.  I asked if he thinks he broke his collar bone.  He didn’t say much, but pointed to the huge bulge on top of his shoulder.

“We need to get you off the trail, buddy, before someone plows into you and makes it worse,” I told him.  Kenny and I helped him up.  He let out a loud grunt/groan/yelp as he stood up.  We very slowly helped him walk over to a downed tree to sit on.  He asked how far it was to get out of the woods.  Knowing that we were a looooong ways in, I told him it was too far for him to try and walk.  “Sit tight and I’ll send the medics in.”

I hopped back on my bike and continued on the course.  Once I dumped out onto the road, I notified the volunteers that a medic was needed.  They said that they were already on the way as one of the previous riders that had passed while Kenny and I were helping had told them about the situation.  Feeling relieved that they were already a step ahead of me and that someone was on the way, I commenced my assault to try and make up for lost time.

My second lap was a bit more intense than the first with my attempt to make up time and position.  It was also faster than my first since I had already seen the course and knew where I could go fast and where I needed to be cautious.  I seemed to be surrounded by crashes as I witnessed two more, although they were slow-speed “off-course events”.

Towards the tail end of the second lap, my quads began to cramp on one of the last climbs.  I decided to hop off and hoof it up the hill on foot and to give me an opportunity to stretch my quads.  It seemed to do the trick as they loosened up before getting to the top of the hill.  I quickly learned that moving = no seizing.  There were two others walking the same hill which made me feel a little better about doing it myself.  (By the way, walking hills in Uwharrie is not uncommon).  I made my way down the gravel road, through the parking lot and into transition.

Rolling into transition, I decided to attempt a rolling dismount, something that works pretty well in road triathlons.  Although, the terrain leading up to transition didn’t allow me much time to get my feet out of my shoes, I attempted to do so with shoes still on.  I unclipped my left foot, but left it remaining on the pedal.  I swung my right foot over the seat brought it in between me and the bike, then stuck it out toe-forward as if I was pointing to the dismount line.  When I stuck my toe out, my right quad immediately seized. 

With my right leg stiff as a board, I hopped off the left pedal and hobbled the rest of the way back to my rack.  I bent the right leg a couple of times to loosen it.  The relief was short-lived.  As soon as I attempted to take one of my shoes off, BOTH of my quads seized.  I grabbed the bike rack with both hands, bent over with my head between my arms and tried my best to cover up the yelp I let out.  As I stood there feeling like a pirate with two peg legs, I quickly remembered moving helped.  I danced around a bit bending the legs several times.  Somewhere in the midst of doing my little dance, I managed to change shoes and hobble out of transition.  I ran down the short paved path towards the trail head, trying my best to regain control of my legs.

Upon diving into the single-track trail that ran along the edge of the lake, I almost immediately passed one runner that I had been leap-frogging with on the bike leg.  We chatted a bit in between our panting and I slowly pulled away from him.  Within a mile or two, I came upon another runner that went by the name of “Beach”.  I ran behind him for a short distance but passed him as he cramped up trying to jump over a large tree across the trail.  He said he was going to keep me company for a while and I told him that I welcomed it.  We chatted about him being from Asheville, biking, the course, you name it.  Anything to keep both of our minds off of the cramping.  I kept giving him updates on what was coming in way of trail since this was his first time at Uwharrie.

After hitting the water stop at the boat launch and running through the camping area, we both had a few issues with cramps.  I finally decided (no disrespect meant to Beach) that I needed to enter my own little world to work through the rest of the race.  I picked up the pace a little and tried to make up for lost time on the downhills.  The cramps seemed to subside and before I knew it I was alone.

In the final mile or so of the race, there’s one last hill climb that I had already decided that I would power-walk vs. run.  Once I reached the top, I heard a noise that caused me to look down the hill.  Low and behold, it was Mike Miller (fellow Studio-7 athlete).  “Come on, Mike!” I yelled.  He let out a groan of pain/exhaustion.

“Come on and pick it up or I’m gonna tell on you to Sonni! (his coach)”  Mike picked up the pace and caught up with me.  I slowly picked up the pace and occasionally he’d drift back and then pick it up again.  I’m not sure if he knew I was doing that or not.  He asked how much further it was to the end.  When I told him it was only about a mile, I could feel the relief of tension from him.  It helped me too just saying it.

As we exited the trail and into the parking lot, he passes me on the left headed to the finish.  I stayed right behind him all the way up the hill figuring that the hill would take whatever was left out of him and I could pass him back.  Sure enough, right at the top of the hill he started slowing down.  I made a move to pass him back and the crowd started cheering us both on.  Their sudden increase in cheering must have given him the clue that I was attempting to pass him, so he looked back.  When he saw I was right on his tail and gaining, he sprinted toward the finish line.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t catch him and he finished one second in front of me.

 
Trying to catch Mike (he’s behind the spectator)

I finished 14th overall and 2nd in my division.  It was a tough but fun and interesting race. 

Full results can be found here: Results

Big shout-out to my buddy, Andrew Jones for his 2nd place finish overall and first in his division.  That’s 75 points for you, Andrew!  Also, big congrats goes to Dirk Wuensche and Kenny Brown for completing their first Xterra!!

Andrew Jones

 
Kenny and Dirk

Special thanks always goes out to my wife, all-around race supporter and photographer, Alba. Her cheering gets me through races.

 

Andrew and I just went for a COLD open water swim. Now we're headed out for a bike and run.

I wonder how strength training is going to feel this morning after yesterday afternoon's ~3 hour ride/run in the woods.