USAT Off-Road Championships Race Report

USAT Off-Road Championships Race Report

The race was far more technical than I was expecting and they did say it was going to be quite technical. Many people did not finish the course. Lots of DQs for people just saying nope…. going to skip that section.

Pre-race:

Beautiful spot, water was cold but a good temp for swimming hard. Run warmups and then some quick short swim efforts. Felt dreadful during the run warmups, which is kinda normal. It always comes around and the crud is out of the system for the race.

Swim (25:42 1st in AG):

  • No-one in the age group was within a minute most people were 5 minutes back.
  • Swim was 1:27/100y for the swimming. The mid-run was over 200 yards and took 1:15.
  • I swam really good lines. Generally people were swimming lots of extra yards. My loops look like just one line.
  • Felt quite pretty good.

T1 (1:54 2nd in AG):

  • Getting the mtb shoes on took a little longer than I expected and the gloves would not go on with wet hands.
  • Eating a gel was a great idea. I’ve done this a few times and my stomach has no issue with it.

Bike (2:17:32 7th in AG):

  • Very technical course. I’d pass people on any fire roads or non-tech sections. But the tech sections ate me up.
  • Lots of climbing and dragging the bike behind me.
  • My bike is very heavy and that never made a difference before but it did this time.
  • As the body tires the handling for the technical sections gets worse. So even with good fitness the lack of skill ends up eating away at the advantage that the fitness provides.
  • They implied that the most technical was the first main section we did… that was not true. It just stayed technical for much of the time. The last 5 miles never let up much.

T2 (1:11 6th in AG but we were all within a few seconds):

  • Tough to get gloves off as well.
  • Things were already sore 🙂

Run (58:57 3rd in AG just seconds away from 2nd though):

  • Pretty technical in spots (one ankle twist, no sprain but sensitive)
  • Lots of fun
  • Hard running
  • 1 aid station at 3.5 miles and another at 6.3 miles is quite spaced out.

Overall (5th in AG, 13 starters, a few drop outs, a dq):

  • Really all about the bike. I was pushing pretty hard the whole time. Lots of off and back on. Scrambling.
  • Quite sore, from places where I crashed, or places where I hit branches/trees, or even the shell I stepped on pre-race that would not stop bleeding.
  • 10 OA in the water, and 22 OA on the run which are both pretty good. But the bike was 42nd OA and that was the difference.
  • 16 minutes would have put me in first.

Notes:

  • I did not get passed by that many people on the bike. Perhaps 8-9 people total. This is really strange because With the waves the way they were… it should have been about 25 people. No idea. I must have not paid enough attention.
  • I dropped off a lot of core work in the past 6 weeks and that was needed for sure on the MTB course.
  • The cut in my foot is swollen, I’ll give it to Wednesday and then may have to see the doc.

To go faster:

  • MTB time in saddle and skills work.
  • Easier rolling, get the tubeless working.
  • Core work.