Running through the Aspens at about mile 2

XTERRA is one of those events that is rare for me to do, but in the end is a lot of fun.  It’s always positive to do different things.  I can clearly see why this sport is growing so much.   The last time I did an XTERRA was in 2004 when the USA Mountain Championship was in Keystone, CO.  This year it was in Beaver Creek, CO and I was excited to put my mountain biking skills to the test!  Earlier in the week I bought a full suspension mountain bike and was happy to finally replace my 1998 GT Backwoods (which is for sale by the way).  My total mountain bike training for this race consisted of 3 decent rides on single-track and felt ready enough to ride the super hard XTERRA course. 

The swim went very well and knew this might be my only high point of the day.  Either way, I knew I had to do my best in the swim to get a decent position on the bike.  The bike was about 80% uphill and a great workout.  The only part that was not that fun for me was the downhill where people in the waves behind me were zooming down like there was no tomorrow.  I know my boundaries on a mountain bike and just didn’t want to get hurt, plain and simple.  One of my mantras is: “Everyday do something that scares you” and on this day that mantra did deliver at times.  I let people go by but still had a great time during the 15 mile ride.  A huge thanks to teammate Erin Kummer who gave me some well needed tips on how to turn on gravel…still a little scary, but I didn’t crash!

Mile 5 on the bike…up and up! Thanks for the pic Trey!

The run was a blast, and I did my best at the 5 and something mile trail run which again had a lot of climbing.  I passed a good amount of people but not quite enough to move up that far in my age group.  I finished in 2:42 and was happy to get back into XTERRA!  It was good to be in the same race as Timex teammate Will Kelsay as I know he is a lot of times the sole Timex athlete in a lot of his races.

Congrats Nikki!

The next day my wife ran the trail ½ marathon and placed 3^rd in her age group and as you can see by the picture she had a lot of fun finishing with the kids! 

Train safe,

Tim