A friend convinced me to race xterra utah with him a few months ago. I signed up, he backed out, but i decided to do it anyway. So, on to the errors.
First off I decided to take my bottle cage and put on a pump instead, then early morning i decided to use a bottle instead of camelback. Get to the race…oops. Fortunately DeSoto makes their Forza trisuit with a rear pocket that comfortably fits a 24 ounce bottle on rough terrain, go DeSoto!
Second error: i ran into a friend i havent seen since college and talked to him straight through the full course swim start. Ended up spending the first lap trying to swim through slower swimmers, then the second lap through the sport swimmers. Result: worst swim ever. I can pull out 1:30 lcm all day long, and swam a 34 (though that includes t1)
Third error: i decided to pump a few more psi into my tires this morning, i felt (after riding the course yesterday) that it would help me climb faster, it did. Of course it completely screwed my descending abilities, on the final descent i fell over a dozen times. Every turn my tires slid out and i went down, and ended up being passed by dozens of riders.
Fourth error: as far as i could tell when i hit the final descent i was first in my ag, i watched 5 people in 25-29 pass me on the descent. When i got to the run i ran with one guy in my ag, and we passed one more, so we were fighting for fourth. Nope, one of the people who passed me was in the championship race, and we were fighting for third, i decided to take it easy down the last hill and let him stay ahead, ended up 4th by 20 seconds i could have made up. Oops.
However, despite the mistakes it was a damn fun race, great weather, great people, etc. And oddly enough i feel great, not beat up like after a typical olympic. I highly recommend racing one.