Tri It Off Road

On Saturday my buddy Don and I completed our first off-road triathlon at Wildlife Prairie Park. The event was organized by couple of local adventure racers hoping to bring an XTERRA event to the park next year, so it was small and pretty relaxed compared to some of the other races we've been in, but it was well run and a lot of fun.

We heard about the race only a few weeks ago, so didn't really have much of a chance to train for it, although with our schedules lately it probably wouldn't have made much difference. Anyway, I hadn't been swimming since my last race in August and neither Don nor I had been on our mountain bikes all summer, so I wasn't quite sure if I'd be up for the challenge of stringing together a 500m swim, a 10k mountain bike ride, and a 5k trail run back to back to back, but we've been out on the road some this summer, and I have run a few times in the last couple of months... it can't be that difficult can it? I'll probably be all right. Let's do it!

Oh, did I mention that this was the inaugural race and so was likely going to be pretty small? We found out a couple of days before that the organizers expected about "25 to 30 competitors" to show up, some of whom were going to do the biathlon (bike and run) race and some as a team! Oh boy. Honestly, now my goal is just to not finish last.

I didn't finish last. Really, the race went pretty well, but was plenty difficult. The swim in the strip-mine fishing pond was okay - perfect water temperature and nice route (with Walmart kids pool toys for guide buoys!) - but it was a little frustrating to get out of the water nearly last. Swimming slow wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't expend so much energy doing it! Don was long gone by the time I finally wobbled by way out of the water and into the transition area. I eventually got my jersey and biking shoes on and started out after him, but quickly realized that I wouldn't be setting any biking records either. The route was mainly on hiking paths that wound up and down and around the forest and ponds and meadows on the hilly, undeveloped west side of the park that weren't very smooth and definitely weren't technical enough to slow down the road warriors. I think my insides were half scrambled by the time I got done, but my legs had recovered somewhat and so I shuffled off with half-hearted hopes of catching somebody, anybody. The trail run was a lot of fun, taking off from the established hiking paths and winding into the woods, down some steep slopes into the valley and across some low-lying meadows and a few streams (mud! yahoo!) and some fallen logs before heading back up hill to the finish. Tough. But I did pass a couple of people and ended up coming in 7th overall. Out of about 16. Not bad.

Don finished 3rd. The guy's a monster! Way to go Don! Wait, don't feel to high and mighty yet, the lady that finished first is about 52 years old. She's the current XTERRA Midwest Region points leader and was something like 10 minutes ahead of Don. She wasn't even breathing hard. Oh well.