Marcus Barton www.SpeedyLizard.com

My legs are officially spent.  I can’t remember a time that I have been this sore.  The trauma I put them through is coming back to haunt me some two days after racing at the XTERRA USA Championships.  Normally soreness doesn’t hit me until about three days after my hard workouts.  “Delayed onset of muscle soreness” they call it.  I call it hell.  Let me refresh my coffee cup (moan).

Alba and I flew into beautiful Salt Lake City, UT on Thursday.  We were both very excited to take the mini-vacation to the mountains.  She had never visited the Rocky Mountains and it had been some 18 years since I had a short visit there while in the Air Force.  Wow.  18 years.  Man, am I getting old.

Flying into Salt Lake City

We drove about a half-hour north to Ogden and met up with two XTERRA buddies and fellow North Carolinians, Dave Hadden and Justin Stuart.   Dave raced the USA Championship race with me while Justin participated in the XTERRA Utah race which was the “Sport” distance race.  From there we drove up the very scenic Ogden Canyon Road to the Pineview Reservoir.  The four of us had decided to share a condo on the lake.  It ended up being MUCH cheaper than trying to find a hotel in Ogden and way more scenic.

Driving up Ogden Canyon Road		Getting my R+R on... Love those socks!

After a quick break to wind-down from the trip, we began race preparations.  Step 1: reassemble the bikes.  Step 2: Relax.

Friday morning I woke up before sunrise thanks to the 2 hour time zone difference.  My body clock was still on east coast time.  We had a quick brick of all three sports planned for the morning, so I decided to walk down to the reservoir to get some pics of the sun coming up.  It also allowed me to scope out the swimming hole.

A few hours later, the three of us went for a quick wetsuit swim followed by a short pre-ride of a section of the course.  We decided to jump in at mile 4 and back out at about mile 8.  It was a section where we crossed over a paved road (old 226) twice and made logistics easy.  This section was after Wheeler Canyon and had a couple of decent climbs and a nice downhill at the end.  We took it easy not to blow our legs out the day before the race.

Out for a little pre-ride

Race Day

This race had two separate transition areas.  T1 took place near the water at Pineview Reservoir at ~4800 feet elevation.  After transitioning to the bike and climbing up to ~7300 feet (passing Snowbasin Resort), we would descend back down to ~6400 feet to Snowbasin for T2.  This meant that we had to drive up to Snowbasin, setup T2 and then drive back down to the Reservoir to setup T1.  The run course, again, took us climbing to above 7000 feet and then back down to Snowbasin for the finish.

After driving up the mountain to setup T2, I setup T1 and went for a quick warm-up ride.  Everything checked out on the bike although the shifting was a bit different than I was used to.  During bike reassembly 2 days prior, I had decided to switch out my 11-32 cassette for an 11-34.  I figured with all of the technical climbing that it would be a better gearing ratio.  Even though I had pre-rode the cassette the day before, it was still taking a bit to get used to it. 

I re-racked the bike, donned the wetsuit and went for a warm-up swim.  There were cameras everywhere as the XTERRA folks were filming the event for XTERRA.TV.  They even had a helicopter flying and hovering around getting footage. During my warmup swim, a jetski with a camera guy on back pulled along side of me and was filming me with a lens on the end of a long pole.  I was pretty freaked out by it at first as they seemed to have come out of nowhere.  I came up to sight a buoy and BAM, there was this little lens in my face.  I just kept swimming.  It’d be kind of cool to see if it makes it to the video.  My luck, it’ll end up on the cutting room floor (so to speak).

I love the smell of neoprene in the morning

SWIM

Before no time, the race was starting.  It was one mass start with both amateurs and pros together.  The swim course was a triangular course of 750 meters.  Since we had to swim 1500, it had to be two laps.  Normally there is a beach run in-between, but conditions and the venue didn’t allow for it this time around.

It was tough to site the first buoy as we were swimming towards the sun.  It didn’t matter much as almost the entire first lap was a constant washing machine.  During some of the local races, I can pull away from most of the chaos, but this was Nationals.  Since it’s Nationals, there aren’t any bad swimmers, so we stayed together.  I just stayed in the pack and received the normal elbows to the ribs and grabs at my feet.  At one point I kinda snickered because it was such a madhouse that you could actually hear the squeak, squeak of the wetsuits rubbing together.  I tried my best to stay just behind and off to one side of the person in front of me to prevent me from getting kicked in the face.  The really fast folks and pro men pulled out ahead by the time we rounded the last buoy and back out for our second lap.  I pulled away from folks that I was right in the middle of and also tried to find someone of similar swim strength and fell into their draft. 

I kept a couple of pink caps (pro women) in sight to my left or right which was telling me I was doing ok. I struggled with either going all-out vs. conserving energy for the grueling climb that I knew we had ahead of us.  By the time we rounded the last buoy and headed for shore, I had pulled back a little to conserve my energy.  It was painful to see the pink caps pull away from me, but I knew that I would need it later.  I kept a steady pace to the swim finish. 

Swim time: 28:23

As I came into transition, I saw my friend, Frank Fernandez-Posse (in the MRR jersey below).  I ran by him and gave him a smack on the butt.  It was hilarious to see the look on his face as he looked up trying to figure out what the heck was going on.  We both got our gear on and left transition at the same time.  Transition was a bit slower since we had to stuff our wetsuits and other items into a plastic bag for later retrieval.  The XTERRA crew gathered all of the bags up and moved them to Snowbasin.

MOUNTAIN BIKE

You can see in the first pic below, from transition we followed the edge of Pineview Reservoir.  We started from the boat dock area, but it took a few minutes for my Garmin to acquire satellites.  When we reached the end of the reservoir damn, we began our ascent up Wheeler canyon.  Frank quickly pulled away from me as we reached the dam.  I decided to go the conservative route as we climbed.  It was tough to concentrate on the race as some of the scenery through the canyon was amazing.  To my right was the mountain and to my left was a HUGE drop down into the canyon. 

The majority of the bike ride was climbing.  We had to climb up from the Pineview Reservoir towards Snowbasin.  We climbed up to approximately 6200 feet before we would get a break.  That was 7 miles of solid climbing before a decent downhill.  Sure there were level spots and small sections that would give you a few seconds of a break, but nothing substantial until mile 7.  That break would be a really, really sweet 1.5 mile downhill that was a blast.  I hit the 20mph mark going down that single track.  It was so much fun I was grinning from ear to ear.

After the downhill, it was back to climbing.  At about mile 9.5 (according to my Garmin) is when my problems began.  My legs had begun to tire and show signs of me pushing too hard on some of the hills.  I was already suspicious during those “stints” as my heart rate skyrocketed to the point I could hear the thump, thump, thump in my noggin.  I was passing my share of folks, but I was also getting passed.  Each person that passed motivated me to pick up the pace, but each time my heart rate would go through the roof.  I knew that going anaerobic would be detrimental and now I was finding out.  At about mile 9, my right quad started seizing.  I tried to ride it out a bit thinking it was temporary, but it didn’t let go.  I tried rubbing it when I could relax it, but with the constant uphill, my chances were far between.  I decided to hop off the bike for a sec and give it a rub.  It loosened and I quickly hopped back on the bike and resumed my climb.

At 11.5, I arrived at Snowbasin, made a right turn and headed up the ski slope.

The toughest climbs were yet to come.  As we passed the Snowbasin Resort, we had ski slopes ahead of us.  The snow makers stood like towering trees lining the loose, rocky, ski slopes.  In the picture below, you can see the white, pointy tents of the finish line.  This picture was taken about half-way up.

Can you see the pointy tents at the bottom?

I tackled the hill like everyone in front of me.  We all used the tactic of ride till you can’t, then push the bike up the really steep sections.  As soon as it was level enough to do so, hop back on and ride.  Then repeat.  At mile 13, with about another 100 feet of elevation still left to climb to make it to the top, I again had to step off of the bike to work on my quads.  Only this time, as I swung my leg over the seat, my hamstrings started to seize as well.  I worked them out and kept climbing.  Once at the top, the downhill was an awesome pay-off.  For the next mile and a half, the slope gave way to beautiful single-track with awesome views.  I had a hard time concentrating on my line and almost crashed twice while being distracted by the view.  You could see all the way back down to the reservoir where we started.

There were a few more climbs and very technical rocky sections with large boulders that took more effort in my quads to negotiate than they wanted to give.  As long as I stayed seated and pedaling, they were fine.  Each time I stood up to negotiate obstacles or to hit a downhill fast, they would seize up again.  It was quite frustrating as I knew that if I were to make up any time, it would have to be on the down hill sections. 

I finally decided that it was late enough in the bike leg that I would just have to deal with the pain and frustration to hit the down hills with the speed that I was technically capable of riding.  In doing so, I passed numerous people that had either passed me earlier or had started to teeter out towards the end of the bike leg. 

Bike time: 2:24:35
Elevation Gain: 5,601 ft
Elevation Loss: 4,130 ft
Min Elevation: 4,801 ft
Max Elevation: 7,228 ft

Coming into T2, I knew where my rack was and looked for my orange and white striped towel.  I used it, hanging over the rack, to mark where my shoes were on the ground.  I normally don’t mark my spot like that, but since there were two separate transition areas, I needed some way to do so.  I folded the towel length-ways twice, so I was sure not to take up more space on the rack as my bike would.  However, coming upon my rack, there was no towel on the rack.  Standing at the spot, my fellow competitors had knocked the towel off of the rack, and someone’s bike was right where it used to be.  My shoes were on one side of the bike and my hat/bib number were on the other.  I frustratingly squeezed my bike onto the rack and gathered up my stuff the best that I could and took off running.

TRAIL RUN

Here’s where we started inter-mingling with the Sport (Xterra Utah) racers that was not part of the Nationals race.  They started about 20 minutes behind us, but now we were starting to come back together.  As I was leaving T2, there was a mix of Nationals racers and Sport racers.  I didn’t mind at all, as we were all out having a good time.  However, it did make it a bit difficult to know if you were gaining/losing position as folks passed each other.

Coming out of T2, I squeezed by my buddy, Mike Miller (#274) and gave him a friendly elbow to the ribs.  “What’s up, brother?” I asked as I passed by.  We ran up the ski slope together and even power-walked the steep, steep section together conversing about our leg woes.  As we dove into the single track at the top of the hill, I said, “Come on, let’s go.”  He followed behind.  I picked up what felt like a comfortable, yet fast, pace through the beautiful mountain-side.

Running out of T2 with a mix of Nationals and Sport racers		Catching up to my buddy Mike.

I got into such a groove that I completely lost track of Mike.  I don’t know at what point he dropped off, but somewhere along the way I pulled away from him.  That was a little disappointing as we finished together at XTERRA Uwharrie, kind of coaxing each other along.  I was looking forward to the company, but quickly found myself alone.  There were several times throughout the run that I would have to walk, either to conquer a hill, work out my cramps or both.  Since starting the run, the cramps seemed to had moved from the quads to my hip adductors.  I kept the best pace that I could, a little under a 9 min pace which is unusually slow for me.

Somewhere along the way, I began leap-frogging with Ryan Mortensen.  At one point, around mile 4, we passed through a water stop that dumped out onto a wide rocky ski slope.  It flattened out and we ran side-by-side talking about how we were both hurting.  The last steep hill came up and I slowed to a walk as Ryan kept running up.  About half-way up, he began to walk as well. 

As I topped the last hill at mile 4.5, I knew it was downhill the rest of the way.  My plan was to run on the verge of out of control.  Like the bike, when running, I seem to do a lot better going down than going up.  So knowing that it was a strength, I decided to exploit it.  I begin to average about a 6:00 pace down the first long hill.  As I came off of the ski slope, there was a short single-track section where I caught up with a couple of guys and girls running together.  One of them was Ryan.  I knew from the preview that we took the day before that it would come out onto a wide ski slope.  It was then that I decided to use whatever else I had in my tank.  My thought was, if I crossed the finish line with anything left, then I didn’t run hard enough. 

I passed Ryan and gang with about a half-mile left in the run.  I continued to increase my pace knowing that if I slowed now, the couple of spots that I gained with my sprint would be for naught.  By the time I came down the hill to the finish line, I was in a sub 5:00 pace (or so the Garmin says).  It claims that I came down the last stretch of hill at 4:51 and across the finish at 4:24.  I have no idea how correct it is, but I do know that if I would have been running any faster, I would have had to use the “tuck and roll” method to running. If only I could sustain such a pace.

Run Time:
Elevation Gain: 1,429 ft
Elevation Loss: 1,407 ft
Min Elevation: 6,382 ft
Max Elevation: 6,930 ft

Grand Total Finish Time: 3:47:31
27th in Division
177 of 279

As soon as I weaseled through the finish line workers, I found a nice spot on the ground which to collapse in full leg spasms.  Justin came over asking if I needed help.  I stretched them a bit and we conversed about the race waiting for Dave to come in.  My carbohydrate radar led me straight to the chocolate chip muffin and raisin oatmeal cookies.  I wasn’t pleased with my standings, but grateful to have had the opportunity to make it and race arm-in-arm with the best across the country.

Quad spasms

Even better than being able to race with the best was the opportunity to spend some quality time with Alba (my wife and your friendly photographer) and my friends.  We had TONS of laughs and great conversation.

Justin, Me, Dave and Mike getting our numbers off of the board at registration while discussing the course.		My Love

Last week I received my latest “care package” from GU.  Inside was two 48-pack boxes of GU goodness.  In each 48-pack box was a new flavor.  In one, Vanilla Gingerbread GU and in the other, Pineapple Roctane.  For those of you that don’t like caffeine in your GU, these flavors are for you as neither contains caffeine.

I typically use regular GU (my current favorite being Tri-Berry) for regular training.  For races and hard workouts, I’ll use Blueberry Pomegranate Roctane (hence the photo at XTERRA Panther Creek). 

I was eager to try these new flavors and I have been using them for my workouts over the past week.  The best way to describe the Vanilla Gingerbread is to think of  Gingerbread Latte from Starbucks.  There you have it.  It’s an awesome flavor and makes you feel as you’re having a desert!

Knowing that Blueberry Pomegranate Roctane is AWESOME, I was a bit skeptical to try out the Pineapple Roctane.  Pineapple is one of those flavors that is hard to mimic and most companies that try to duplicate it usually get it all wrong.  If they get the flavor right, it tends to be over-powering. 

The first time I tried Pineapple Roctane was on a long mountain bike ride in Pisgah.  This ride started out with us climbing right out of the parking lot.  We climbed non-stop for 40 minutes and then hiked/climbed for another 15 over some tough terrain.  I had hit one of the Blueberry Pomegranates about 15 minutes prior to the ride.  At the top of our climb, I hit the Pineapple Roctane.  We had just stopped at an intersection and was discussing which trail we should take.  I was mid-sentence when I started downing the Roctane.  I was distracted to say the least.

I love it.  I like it so much that Pineapple Roctane has now become my new favorite, bumping Blueberry Pomegranate down a notch.

Here’s another cool video from the same ride

That sums up the XTERRA Panther Creek race in one sentence.  O.K., I may be getting a bit ahead of myself.  Let’s back-track a bit.

XTERRA Panther Creek
Aug 2, 2009
800 meter swim, 16 mile mountain bike, 4.5 mile trail run

Andrew and I loaded up the truck and headed for Ashville.  We were both pretty stoked about this race as we both knew it was a fun one.  Andrew had raced Panther Creek back in 2007 as his first triathlon ever.  Even though he missed it last year (due to a conflict), I was lucky enough to race it and have fun doing so (although I had a flat tire during the race).  From our discussion of the course leading up to the event, we quickly discovered that the course he had raced in 2007 was quite different from the one I had raced there in 2008.  This year, Andrew was looking forward to re-visiting the site of his first triathlon, and I had a vendetta to repay (race without flatting a tire).

Another reason that it would be a fun: we would be meeting lots of friends there.  Some of them we had known for years, others we had met along the way racing different XTERRA venues.  We stayed overnight with our friend, Ching in Asheville and she introduced me to several awesome restaurants in Asheville that only locals would know.  Saturday morning, we went for breakfast at the Sunny Point Cafe and afterwards, we packed up the truck with our gear.  Another friend, Brad, decided to drive up from Charlotte to spend the weekend at the race, as well.  Although Brad and Ching wasn’t racing, all four of us loaded up in the truck, complete with Tybee (Ching’s friendly black lab), and headed for Panther Creek.

Andrew, Ching and Brad had decided to camp out at Panther Creek State Park.  Being a light sleeper, I had decided to stay at a local hotel and not chance a noisy campground.  Once we arrived to the campground, I became insanely jealous that I had done so.  The campground was gorgeous and not another camper in sight.  When we had discussed camping, I had envisioned the typical state park campground with everyone on top of each other, noisy, crowded, etc.  However, the folks putting on the race had secured a private campground just for the race participants.  We dropped off a load of stuff, setup the tents and headed for a pre-ride.

The weather was perfect.  The trails were fast.  It had rained in the previous days, so the course wasn’t dusty and the tires were hooking up good.  While Andrew, Ching and Brad had plans on riding one lap of the two lap bike course at an easy pace, my intent was to only ride about 20 mins of it, with the last 10 mins or so with intervals of near race pace and recovery.   So I’d take off on a short sprint then wait for them to catch up.  During one of my short sprints, I came around a corner that looked flat, smooth and fast.  Taking the curve, however, produced a nice little crash.  The perfectly smooth curve was actually perfectly smooth clay.  The remaining moisture from previous rain left it just slick enough that I skated right across and low-sided.  Once off of the slick clay, the remaining part of the trail that I chose to slide across was small bits of rock and gravel.  This produced a half-dollar size of road rash accented with a nice bruise from where I landed.  Shortly after the crash, I proceeded back to the truck to do a short run and swim brick while the rest of the gang rode the rest of the course.

Later that evening, we met up with Crom and Dave for some good eating.

Race Day

I woke up around 4:45 which seemed way too early after Crom, Dave and I hung out way too late the night before.  I had mostly everything ready to go, but wanted to hit the shower and get a meal in.  When I walked out of the hotel, I was greeted by rain.  A smile came upon my face as I knew the day would be interesting.  I called Andrew to let him know I was on my way, wondering how well they slept with the rain.

Andrew, Ching and I loaded up the truck and headed to the transition area.  We were the first to arrive and was greeted by a friendly race director and park ranger.  We setup our transition and I took off on a warm up ride.  Not wanting to chance a spill, I stuck to the pavement.  After a warm up run, I headed down to the lake for a quick warm up swim.  Before no time, it was time for the race to start.

The swim course was setup as a 400 meter, almost perfectly square, course.  We had to do two laps around the course and then exit via a boat ramp.  The water temperature was perfect for a swim.  We took off and I drafted off of Andrew as we stretched out in front of the main pack.  After turning the first buoy, I lost track of Andrew as he picked up the pace and I settled into mine.  As always, the first lap I intermingled with other swimmers occasionally getting bumped or doing the bumping.  By the time we rounded the last buoy to start the second lap, either they had pulled ahead of me or had dropped back, allowing open water to swim.

Andrew came out of the water in second place and I came out quite a few spots back.  He must have had a smoking fast transition time, as he was already gone by the time I came into transition.

My transition went fairly smoothly.  Earlier I had debated going sockless, but with the mud, I figured it was a blister waiting to happen.  Also, since the trailhead within 5 feet of the transition area, it didn’t allot any time for doing things on the fly.  Therefore, I had to spend a little extra time in transition to put on socks and gloves.  Again, I could have done without the gloves, but I’ve found that in wet, muddy conditions, gloves are a must (for me anyhow).

~16 mile mountain bike course (two ~8 mile laps)

I dove into the trail and began a pretty fast pace.  As a matter of fact, it was a bit too fast.  I came flying around a corner and my mud-caked rear tire slid on a root, causing me to crash.  It was fairly uneventful other than the fact that I came to a stop.  Before the guy behind me could pass, I jumped back on the bike and took off.  Proud that I made it rolling without getting passed, I picked the pace, only to crash again under similar circumstances.  Again, I jumped back on as the guy behind me approached.  Within 30 seconds or so, I went down AGAIN.  This time, he passed me.  Now keep in mind, this all happened within the first mile.  Not a good sign.

OK.  New game plan.  Ride hard and fast, but a bit more cautiously.  Kind of an oxymoron, right?  The bike course consisted of a two-lap ride, so my thoughts were to see how the course would pan out (given the rain) on the first lap and then decide where I could push it and where I should pull back.

I kept up with the guy in front of me for the next few minutes and we, too, passed someone who had just crashed.  It was like a war zone with riders down everywhere.  We dumped out onto a fire road and I took the opportunity to pass him back.  Shortly after, I came upon a relay team member.  He asked if I wanted to pass and I told him that I did, but when it was safe.  He signaled for me to pass and yielded.  For the rest of the first lap, I would remain alone on my ride until, Bence Roemer passed me on a climb.  I had spun out on a wet root, and he came riding up the hill, somehow maintaining vertical.  By the time I got back on my bike, he had gone around the corner and I couldn’t seem to catch back up.

Coming through the transition area at the end of the first lap, they informed me that I was in 5th place.  Having seen the course once, I had a game plan of where to try and make up ground.  I felt as if I may have played it a little too cautiously on the first lap, but after 3 crashes in the first mile, I was a bit gun shy.

Towards the end of the second lap, my quads started to cramp up something fierce.  I guess it was mainly due to my attempt to make up time.  During one of my cramp sessions, a relay team member caught up to me and passed just before we dumped out of the trail.  I headed into transition and attempted to be as quick as I could with two cramped quads.  Attempting to take off my shoes by using the toe-to-heel method proved to be impossible.  On the way out of transition, I grabbed a cup of water and headed into the muddy trail.  Shortly after entering the run, I passed a relay team member.

4.5 mile trail (aka mud) run

It took about a mile to run through the cramps, but they eventually gave way.  It seemed to coincide with the single-track trail turning into fire road.  It was then that I decided to try and make up for lost time.  I picked up my pace the best that I could but without it causing further cramps.  The fire road ended at the edge of a park road where a park ranger was sitting, I ran past her and a water stop that began a lolly-pop loop section of the run.  This section consisted of rolling hills of single track.  Even though the hills were not steep or long at all, each uphill resulted in more quad cramping.  I shortened my stride and reduced my pace in an effort to reduce the cramps.  The only thing that seemed to help was getting the hill over with.  Once starting down hill, it seemed manageable.  Coming out of the lolly-pop section, I ran by someone who was heading into that section.  “If he’s the 6th place guy, I should be able to hold him off,” I thought to myself.  From there on out, my goal was to climb the hills the best that I could and just hammer the down hills.   This continued throughout the run with much teeth gritting towards the end. 

I finished in Panther Creek fashion which meant running all the way down the boat ramp and into the lake, where I was greeted by Tybee, the friendly lab.

Final Results:

Overall Place: 5th
Age Division Place: 2nd
Full results

Sorry, but I don’t have splits (yet).  I’m still trying to run them down.

HUGE CONGRATS goes out to Andrew for winning the race, 1st place overall, securing him in number 1 spot for his age group in the Southeast and currently (as of this writing) also the number 1 spot nationally for his age group.  Way to go, Andrew!!

After the race, we headed straight to Asheville and non-stop to the Wedge for some hard-earned cold ones.  Later, we headed over to the Admiral for some food you would not believe.

Thanks to Ching and Brad for taking these awesome pics!

Seen lots of discussion about belt drives, but had never seen one.  Saw this one in Asheville today and thought I'd share.

Here's a little something from Mark Pfifer and I whole-heartedly agree.

We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland , into Arnhem ." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France , and he said "Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn't know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center .

No wall to wall back to back 24x7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." -Roberto Clemente

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=8100838

June 14, 2009
XTERRA Atlantic Cup
Richmond, Virginia
1000 meter river swim, 30k mountain bike, 10k trail run

This was a first for me in many ways.  I had never raced Richmond before, but many of my XTERRA buddies have been touting how much fun it was.  It was also the first time I would have accomplished a river swim as part of a triathlon.  Granted, the Whitewater Center Off Road triathlon last August was a river swim, but we were in a portion of the river normally used for flat water kayaking, so the current was negligible.  In Richmond, we swam in the James River which has a bit more current.  Couple that with recent rains, an increase in water level equaled an increase in current.

Prior to going to the event, I hit the XTERRAplanet.com website and read up on the event.  As it pertained to the river, it stated:

(BEGIN SNIP)

Please be advised that the water levels in the James River are currently high and may cause us to utilize an alternate swim course.  A decision will be made late this week, so please check the website for further advisories and check the onsite bulletin board at registration.

Swimming in the James River - The James River is a natural and free-flowing river that is prone to include unseen obstacles and hidden hazards along the river bottom. The swim course will be setup again in the Tredegar pool between the North Shore of the James and Belle Isle. At average water flows, this section of the river runs between 1-6 feet deep with a mixed river bottom of sand, mud, and light debris. The water moves at a slow but steady pace through this section of the river, so be prepared to swim with and against the current.

River Swim Suggestions - Shoes/sandals, goggles, and prior practice are recommended. First time Richmond racers should attend the Richmond XTERRA Swim Clinics (see below) and warm-up in the course prior to the race to become acclimated with the water on race day.

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Another first for me would be this is considered, by some, an “Urban XTERRA”.  This would be due to the fact that the race is held in downtown Richmond.  Many aspect of the course has you mountain biking through streets, across catwalks, and the like.  Also, the run leg only had a mile or two that was actually on the trails.  The rest was either pavement, sidewalk or hard-packed gravel. 

Andrew and I started driving up early Friday morning and arrived sometime in the early afternoon.  We didn’t even bother going to the hotel, and instead went straight for a pre-ride of the bike course.  The course map that we had downloaded contained a few discrepancies, but was good enough for us to figure out where we needed to start. 

We started off the pre-ride at transition and worked our way up the ramp to the pedestrian bridge that goes from Brown’s Island over to Belle Isle.  It is a suspension bridge that hangs from the bottom of the Robert E. Lee bridge.  It would be the beginning of the bike leg and the end of the run.

Once over on Belle Isle, we found many areas where the Richmond trail gnomes had built retaining walls out of stacked stone.  They also paved the areas with the same stacked stone.  Their masonry skills were amazing.  Since this area is rich in Civil War history, many of the stacked stone that were used were also used in buildings, storage sheds and the like during that era.  They had also crafted many rock gardens, ramps, and other technical features to climb, roll over, you name it.

After riding around Belle Isle, we took one of the old bridges over to another section of the trails on the south shore of James River.  It was an older, rickety bridge that crackled and popped as you rode over it.  Some of the slats had been recently replaced while others would move or jump up and down as you rolled over them.  While rolling over the bridge we got a quick glance of a portion of the run course called the “dry way”.  The only problem was, the dry way wasn’t all that dry.  Due to recent rains, they had announced a re-route of that portion of the run course.  Andrew and I were a bit disappointed as we were really looking forward to that section of the run.

While riding this part of the trail, there’s a section where we dive through a rock garden and then through a drainage tunnel.  In the process of doing so, Andrew’s big chain ring came crashing down on a rather large rock bringing our pre-ride to a screeching halt.  It was so bent that he couldn’t even make one revolution of the crank.  In order to continue our ride, Andrew had to commence with trail-side repairs using a piece of wood he found and a large rock to beat the ring back into submission.  Since it was a one-man job, it allowed me to scope out some more of the trails and to get some pics of the repair.

Other features of the pre-ride consisted of narrow concrete bridges, big concrete bridges, crushed gravel roads, and yes, even 3-story spiral stairs that we had to climb twice and descend once during the race.

We spent most of the rest of Friday and quite a bit of Saturday trying to run down a new big ring for Andrew’s bike.  We went from bike shop to bike shop to no avail.  Most of the bike shops in Richmond tend to specialize in road bikes or commuters.  Andrew had just about given up on using it.  We did find a very cool coffee shop though. 

After our failed attempt, we proceeded to the course to give the run course a preview.  To our amazement, the run course was predominately either concrete, pavement or crushed gravel.  Very little of the run was actually on the trail.  One interesting feature was the “ruins” that consisted of a fairly steep descent followed by a staircase climb.  We also had to descend one of the same spiral staircases.

We went by the transition area to pick up our packets where a local triathlon shop, 3 Sports, had setup a booth.  The gentleman manning the tent just happen to have the big ring that Andrew was looking for.

Race Day:

Andrew and I showed up at the transition area right when it opened, so we got the pick of the litter transition spots.  Both of us took spots close to the end of adjacent racks so that we were close to the bike in/out gate.  Transition setup went pretty smoothly.  I made a couple of trips back and forth to the truck (on purpose this time) to get things and drop things off.  It also allowed me to get a little of a warm up run in. 

I made my way down to the James river underneath the railroad trestle where we were to start.  As the Sport (sprint) guys were getting lined up ready for their start ahead of our race, I chose to go off to one side of the crowd in an area of the river where there was very little current and get in a some warm up swimming.  After getting warmed up and once the Sport guys/gals were off, I made my way over to the starting area.  There was a bit of drama just before our race start.  Seems the final buoy marking the shore line started to drift away in the strong current.  Conrad Stoltz (3x XTERRA World Champ) swims after it, retrieves it and brings it back into position.  As he is walking out of the water, he cuts a huge gash in the top of his left foot.  Scary thing is..  I was standing about 3 feet from him when it happened.  I won’t make this blog any longer by rehashing the story, but you should read his blog about it.  I must warn you, it’s PG-13, complete with pics.

With his foot taped up just in the nick of time, they blow the horn and we’re off.  As usual, the beginning of the swim is just as hectic as ever.  Matter of fact, it was even more hectic.  I usually don’t have a problem with bumping into folks or vice versa, but I guess there were a bunch of people that didn’t take into consideration that as soon as we were clear of the railroad pylons, the current sweeps you downstream.  So since me and a couple of other people were aiming for a point upstream, knowing the current would sweep us right to where we wanted to be, others tried swimming straight for the buoy.  This caused a lot of sideswiping, elbowing, kicking, etc.  At one point, someone brought an elbow down right into the back of my noggin.  I saw stars for a second, but then realized I needed to do a little sprint to try and get out of the chaos.  This proved to fix most of the problem, but caused my heart rate to spike.  Finally a minute or two later, I had to just tell myself to calm down and get back into a normal swim groove.

Our swim consisted of swimming from Brown’s Island over to Belle Isle.  From there, we had to run along the shore and trails upstream, diving back into the James River for a swim back to Brown’s Island.  Along the swim, we had to climb over huge boulders and even used one large boulder as a buoy/turning point.  Once we ran up Belle Isle, and dove back in, the current quickly swept you back downstream.  I chose to dive it very close to the Robert E. Lee bridge to try and take advantage of the pylons breaking up the current.  It seemed to work fairly well and I found myself swimming from eddy to eddy.  Once I saw that I was getting close to the buoy which had us turning back downstream, I went ahead and started turning.  The current swept me right into place and around the buoy.  I’m not sure if I gained any time on anyone with this tactic, but it definitely made the swim seem less exerting.  Upon exiting the water, Kahuna Dave yells out to us that are exiting to watch out for the slippery mud (about the time the photo below was taken).  About 3 seconds later, I busted my butt hard.  Both feet came completely out from under me as if I was clothes-lined. 

I headed into transition and took about 10 seconds longer than I had wanted to.  For some reason, I fiddled with my shoes a little too long.  After getting on the bike, I headed out for a fun ride.

The bike leg went fairly well with me passing several people on the pedestrian bridge that ran underneath the interstate.  The pre-ride proved very helpful in figuring out how to maintain speed on the ramps leading up to and exiting the pedestrian bridge.  Hoping onto Belle Isle, I managed to get my bike legs warmed up before the first climb.  Coming down hill in one speedy section of the trail, I came across one of those nice rock-paved areas.  It was a bit of an s-curve that had you going around a tree or two.  On the left side of this “paved” section, there was a 5 foot drop.  The trail crafters had made a retaining wall out of the same stone.  Beyond the 5 foot drop was a steep, steep downhill all the way to the bottom where a civil war era building stood, made from the same stone. 

Coming around that curve, I lost traction on my rear tire and the bike came completely out from underneath me.  My right calf and hip SLAMMED into the rock-paved trail and proceeded to slide, still clipped into the pedals, across the trail and towards this drop.  As I slid across the trail, I thought to myself that this couldn’t end good.  Just as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I hit a tree just beyond the wall.  I came to a stop, still clipped in, upright, wedged between the tree and the wall.  If I hadn’t hit the tree, I would have certainly tumbled down the hill and, at a minimum, broken something more than my bike.

A volunteer standing at this section of the trail (I can only imagine that it was on purpose for just such occasions) asked if I was ok.  “Yep.  I think so,” I replied.  I climbed back on top of the wall and took my bike along with me.  Back on the bike and pedaling down the trail, I wondered when the pain was going to set in, as it hadn’t yet.  I even thought for a split second that I wouldn’t be able to continue the race once it did set in, because I had hit that rock with my hip pretty darn hard.  Thankfully, the pain never set in during the race.  Afterwards is another story.

I crashed one more time during the race, but it was a fairly slow speed crash.  It didn’t bang me up, but the bike received some pretty nice little scars from the jagged rocks.  The rest of the bike leg was pretty grueling.  I don’t want to re-hash the course, but it was a completely different story riding it at race pace as opposed to the pre-ride.  I felt pretty good at the end of my bike leg (throwing up a hang-ten to the camera), even though the crashes caused me to miss my goal time by a few minutes. 

Going into transition I found myself standing there taking my gloves off.  What?  Why the heck didn’t I do this on the bike.  I guess I had gotten so caught up in the race that I failed to get some of the necessary things done while on the move.  I slipped my ROAD running shoes on and took off with hat and bib in hand.  I was waffling back and forth that morning if I was going to run in trail shoes or road running shoes.  The mere fact that 90 percent of the trail was not trail, I had decided for the road shoes.

I passed numerous people on the run, including one person in my age group that I know of.  I had a chance to see my friend and competitor, Frank Fernandez Posse on one of the out-and-backs.  We greeted each other with a high five and I tried my best to catch him.  I ended up finishing 11th in my age group.  I was a little disappointed in such a low finish.  On the flip side, I had finished just behind Frank and Mark Woody.  They had finished 2nd and 3rd respectively in Alabama, so I guess you could say I caught up to them on this race.  So even though I finished 11th, the fact that they finished 9th and 10th made me feel as if I had progressed somehow.

Swim:  18:24 
T1:  1:10 
Bike:  1:26:19 
T2:  0:48 
Run:  48:12:00
Finish:  2:34:55 

July 4th, 2009
400 Meter Swim
12 mile mountain bike
3 mile trail run

Who would have thought that in my attempt to merely fill a hole in my race calendar would turn out to be one of the most fun races I’ve done all year.  Back in January when putting together my race calendar, which obviously had an XTERRA focus, I came up with a hole in July.  Last year, I had the benefit to be able to do XTERRA Vashon Island out in Seattle since a business trip put me in the area at the time.  However, this year, when looking for a July race, there wasn’t one that I could attend.  So I put a few road triathlons in there as “maybes”. 

In May, I stumbled across the Recon Off Road Triathlon that was scheduled for July 4th right in my back yard.  The race was being held at one of my regular training trails.  How could I turn that down?  Even better, the race was being put on by Recon Fitness Adventures, an outfit ran by a retired Marine, Duke Speed.  As a veteran myself, I was truly intrigued.  I shot Duke an email to let him know I’d love to help out by volunteering my time.  I didn’t care what, but it turned out that Duke and Jim (his partner) would take me up on my offer.  Over the next few weeks, I helped design the course, transition area, determine logistical issues, pull in sponsors, you name it.  The more I helped, the more I wanted to help.  I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of helping to put together the race.  The best part was working with two guys who were adamant and fired up about putting on a great race.

So back to the race report.

The weeks leading up to the race were fairly hectic with getting my training accomplished in addition to helping out with race.  Probably the most conflicting part was course marking.  I’ve raced courses that were both very well marked and some that were down right disastrous.  So it was very important to me that the course was marked well.  The only way you can mark it well, is to ride the course as a racer.  With that said, the most disastrous race I’ve raced in used a road triathlete with no off road racing experience as the course marker.  Need I say more?

So marking the bike course 2 days before the race and the run course the day before didn’t exactly fit into my training schedule.  The week leading up to a race is normally reserved for tapering so that muscle recovery can take place.  However, I didn’t have that luxury.  I didn’t want to short-change the other racers by doing a half-way job.  The day before the race, I had a foot injury I had been fighting off and on over the past two weeks flare back up during the run course marking.  Mike and I were running the course with arrows and staple gun in hand when about mile 1, it started hurting.  By the time we finished up the three miles, I was limping.  How frustrating.  I helped out wherever I could for the day and went home to an ice pack.

At 4:15 AM, the alarm went off.  The race wasn’t scheduled to start until 8:30 and even though it’s only 20 minutes from home, I had to be there early to help continue with race prep.  On my way to transition, I had to make a stop off to a trail intersection to throw some tape around a few trees to prevent riders from going in the wrong direction.  I didn’t want to do it the day before as there were quite a few people out riding the trails, and I didn’t want to interfere.  After taping up the intersection I headed to transition.

I met up with Duke and Kim (wife) at the gate and while they started setting up the check-in table, registration, and other amenities, I went down to the transition area to help set up the fencing and bike racks.  We had planned on doing most of the setup the day before, but couldn’t since there was a wedding reception held at the same pavilion we were to use.  With the help of the other volunteers that started showing up, we managed to get the transition area setup and running at the scheduled 6:30 opening time.  Racers began filing in and before you knew it, the transition area was full.

There were numerous other tasks to be completed before the race could start, including my own race preparations.  I managed to get them all done just in time for the pre-race briefing, which I had to conduct.  With the race briefing complete, I could then turn my focus onto continuing my own race preparations. 

Anyone that knows me, knows that I can be forgetful at times.  For those that were there race day probably thought I was nutso.  In my attempt to get down to the water for a warm-up swim, I ran back and forth between the transition area and my truck about 4 times.  Wait, need to get my goggles from transition.  Look, I forgot my water bottle.  Back to the truck.  Ok.  Let’s swim.  Wait got to go back to the truck to get my Roctane.  Ok let’s swim.  FINALLY, I made it down to the water about 15 minutes before race start.

I was greeted by a racer who was coming out of the water from his warm up swim and he brought to my attention a sunken tree limb that was right in the path of the final swim leg.  When we were planning out the course, I had swam the lake in search of such items.  There were two visible trees sticking up, but they were not issues during the race.  However, the swim course that I had swam was changed just slightly once it was measured.  The final buoy was moved about 20-30 feet to keep it at the advertised distance.  This movement  was just enough to move the final leg right in the path of a hidden, sunken tree limb.  Not wanting to include tree climbing skills into the repertoire of the racers, I swam out to find it and position a kayaker over it.

After a quick briefing to the racers about our new buoy/kayaker addition, and a quick countdown from the RMS Sports crew, the race was off.

The water was a bit warm, since the lake is small and not very deep.  But one advantage is it was like glass, well, with the exception of us.  The 400 meter swim was over before I knew it.  As I was about halfway between the last buoy and the shore, I sighted the shore, during which I saw Donny Forsyth getting out of the water.  “Oh boy, he has a bit of a lead on me,” I thought.  Jon Topham was right in front of me and got out just before I did.

I passed Jon going into transition.  I asked one of the volunteers how many were out already.  They replied that one individual and one relay team members were already out on the bike course.  T1 went fairly smooth.  Jon and I had very similar transition times and we left transition around the same time.  As we raced up the gravel road, through the creek and continuing on to the dairy barn, we came across six or seven horses.  Doing the proper thing, the two of us stopped trailside to allow them to pass.  The whole time I was thinking about the lead the two other riders already had on us and how it was extending.

Jon and I continued up the gravel road side-by-side conversing.  Upon crossing Old Nation road and diving into the trailhead, I proceeded to try to put some distance between Jon and I, all the while trying to decrease the distance to the two in front of us.

At about mile two, I came upon the relay team rider and let him know I intended to pass.  As soon as the trail opened a little, he pulled over and directed me to take the pass.  I thanked him and moved on to my next target.  I rode the entire bike course hard, asking each water stop how much of a lead Donny had over me, and each time they said approximately the same thing: he has a BIG lead.

I came into transition almost 5 minutes down from Donny.  Although no one could give me an accurate time, just the mere fact that they were saying “several minutes” was enough to know that I had my work cut out for me on the short, three mile run leg.  This meant that the only way I would be able to catch Donny is that he’d have to be a lot slower than me.  I had no idea and the only thing I could do was to run as hard as I could to catch him.  Even if I didn’t, at least I could try and extend the lead I had on Jon (or anyone else close to catching me).

The first mile of the run is the worst part of this great course.  It’s a horse trail that not only has some really technical areas where you dodge horse trampled mud holes, but it also has a pretty decent climb.  The second mile is a very fun, technical hiking trail.  The last mile or so takes you around Lake Haigler and is very scenic.  Throughout my run, I thought of my hurting/swollen foot.  However, that was the extent of it.  It didn’t bother me at all during the run (although I am icing it as I write this).

As I rounded the dam at the end of the lake, I attempted to pick up my pace in a continued effort to catch Donny.  As I turned off the dam, I looked back and didn’t see anyone.  I took a quick glance across the lake where I could see the trail I had already put behind me.  Still, I saw no one, so I turned my focus on still increasing my pace.  Making the turn out of the trail and the final sprint to the finish, I could see no one in front of me.  I finished strong and came across the finish line where Donny greeted and congratulated me. 

I finished second overall and first in my age group.

Place: 2nd
Swim: 7:22 (3rd)
Bike: 1:07:27 (3rd) (includes T1 & T2
Bike Cumulative: 1:14:49 (2nd) (includes swim, bike, T1 & T2)
Run: 24:58 (3rd)
Total: 1:39:47

As you can see, my placement in this race was all about transition.  I had the third fastest swim, the third fastest bike and the third fastest run.  So what does that tell you about having a speedy transition?

Special thanks goes out to two of my sponsors, TrySports and GU.  TrySports hooked up the winners (overall and divisional) with big gift certificates and a misting tent for cool down.  GU provided plenty of GU gels and GU Brew for the water stops.