I thought that was a beautiful race, and probably the toughest race I’ve done. Probably as much a Movable Circus as much as anything.
We arrived in the area a few days earlier, staying in a lake home in Piopolis. You bike through / to that town twice on the bike course. I bike both north and south of that town to get a feel for the bike course, and we drove portions of the road run course as well. Lots and lots of steep punchy hills with plenty of climbs in excess of 10% grades.
Race day swim went fairly well. The start was a bit confusing right away as all competitors have on white strobe lights as do the kayakers and buoys. A group I was swimming with followed a kayak, who was trying to stay outside us. He kept moving rightish, the group veered with him following the strobe, and we had some extra yards working our way back to the turn buoy. As has happened most of the summer for me, after about 35 minutes I’ve been experiencing calf cramps on longer swims. And right on cue both lower legs cramped and I had to head to a kayak to work out the knots for a bit. My pace was good up to that point, and backed down for the remainder of the swim with only two more painful interludes. Even with the cramps I swam a 1:15 which was right in the range I expected.
I’ve been biking really well this year, with a bike camp in Brevard NC for the mountains, the American TTT and lots of hill work. I run a 52/36 chainring with 11/32 cassette on all my road bikes, and this worked well for most hills. Here, the hills and rollers are relentless. There are really only two flatter sections on the course (bottom of the lake early in the bike, and just before the final climb). Otherwise, you have to be patient and measured in your biking. Even with that, I still had a high VI, TSS of 330 and overdid it on the bike. The last climb is evil; only 10k to go and you have to go up and up with the steepest pitch right at transition. I had a 6:30 bike split, which put me near the top of my AG, but I knew I was in trouble.
The run isn’t described properly for what it is. Right out of transition you have a steep 400’ gravel climb up, then down, with most people not able to run down the loose gravel without falling. I and several others around me had to walk sideways to keep our footing at times on the first downhill. And that is within the first 2k of the “run”.
There are four off-road sections, one long exposed run section and then some other portions. That first portion of the run got my attention but was able to settle into a steady yet slow place and finally found my legs around mile 6. There is a second off road section with is deep mowed hay and grass and mud and then some steeper pitches, but that went OK for me as well.
The final two off road sections was where I knew I was done. I was hoping in advance to get to this point in about 3 hours or so but was already an hour off pace, and had a stomach not wanting another gel or gatoraide so the food intake tapered as well. The four miles of offroad section 3 can be generously described as a bog with ankle deep mud sucking my shoes off several times (trail shoes with stiff soles and tight laces highly recommended). In these sections I think I recorded my first 30-minute mile. At T3 I changed shoes, picked up my son (as run crew), drank a V8 and knew it was a death march the remainder of the way. My son wanted to “run” and was ribbing me about the pace, but he piped down after about 45 minutes of bouldering and tree root tripping. I knew he got it that this was hard when we crested Mont St. Joseph, he looked across the valley and spotted Mont Megantic observatory and said, “Wait, we have to go THERE?”.
I hiked the remainder of the way as the calf cramps and now really sore Achilles tendon on my right foot were letting me know they aren’t happy. Also, you know how you feel trying to walk down stairs the day after an Ironman race?? How unhappy the quads are? They were letting me be very unhappy so I was climbing and descending gently. At this point you can hear the finish announcements from across the valley, and for 5-6km you think you are “just about there” but, no, not really. I finally finished the run in a 7:30, which is the first time a run time exceeded the bike time.
Total race time was 15:36 and I was glad to finish before sunset. I ended up 6 / 23 in my AG. And I think the median finish time was 17:00 or 17:30.
As usual with the Xtri races (I did Norseman in 2016 in horrendous weather – it got down to 34 F degrees and rain on the bike) there is the Movable Circus feel to the race. Support teams keep leaping ahead of their racers, so you get to know several of the teams as you continually pass. And each team, and all the locals out supporting or cheering on the race, were fantastic. But this race is hard, real hard. And beautiful.