PART 2

Well folks here is part duex of my adventure down in richmond on sunday.

Well after spending about 20 or so mintues in the water I could not wait to get out and on the bike. I knew once I got out the water I would be ok since I was pretty good on the bike and great on the run. As you can tell in this picture I am really getting through transition pretty fast and I really want to get out of there hehehe.

What were you thinking. I had to update my twitter to let everyone know how I was doing. Really I am just enjoying the race and taking my time. You can tell by the picture how many bikes are already out of transition. Hence my slow time in the water. Well after gearing up and updating twitter I got on the bike and off I went. See now I look more excited than I did before I got in the water.

The first part of the bike ride was not really too exciting. Up the road and across the swinging bridge onto Belle Island and onto some gravel road. Good relaxing bike ride so far. Then finally up the windy cement stairs with bike on shoulder. That was not so fun but oh well I was still enjoying the ride. Once at the top and over the short bridge we got onto the actual trail which was great. The trails down in Richmond (Belle Island) really are nice and parts are pretty technical. Now you all know that I have really only been montain biking for a short while. So I still have alot to learn on what to do and not to do. And how to use the breaks. And all that other good stuff. I wanted to preface that because I did have a few incounters with the dirt and a few rocks. I did have one good major fall/flip on the bike which was a tad scary. But after falling or tripping many times while running I have learned how to fall gracefully. So I get to the downhill rock portion with a lady in front of me. I proceed to let her go down infront of me a little ways so that at the time nothing bad would happen. I guess now that I look back on it that was a good idea. So I proceed to head down the rock hill with both hands on the breaks. At first it was going well untill I decided with a bright idea to squeeze the front breaks a little to hard. Then I slowly feel the bike start to flip forward and over I started to go. I think I remember trying to correct it a bit so I would not break my neck. I think that was a good idea because I only flipped it 3 quarters of the way and landed right on my left knee and leg. I then looked down at my leg and blood is rushing down the leg which for a second hurt but then I got right back up like I always do. I then decided to walk the bike a bit so I could get my barrings back and catch my breath. Then I thought to myself why not splash some water on it to clean it. As I started to do this I thought wait can't clean it just yet. Then no body would beleive me that I crashed and would have no evidence of the fall. So I left it alone and got back on and kept riding. The rest of the ride went well. And all the volunteers thought it was pretty nasty. And I told them I have done worse. And that I was trying to fall on the other side to even it up. This is a picture of me coming into the transition after finishing the bike. I don't know if you can really tell in this picture but I was tryign to show off my new prize on my left leg. This next shot actually shows the blood. Oh and I was telling everyone else on the bike ride that you all would probably give me a hard time if I did not come back with any blood shots too. They all that that was pretty funny. Now the picture actually looks worse than it was. It never really hurt that much. It was mostly just the shock of falling/flipping the bike.

Now onto T2 and off to run. After finishing the awesome bike portion of the race I was pretty excited to set off on the run and get some trail running in which I love. Here is a pick of me leaving T2 and setting off to run.

As you can tell by this picture I looked pretty determined to kick ass on the run. I was pretty focused if you could not already tell. Well the run portion was only going to be about 4.5 miles or so which is not what I would have liked but oh well. After setting off on the run I could tell that this run was really going to be no fun at all. Basically it was all on the roads with a little grass. Nothing too exciting but I am not really complaining just venting a little. So I blazed away and finished pretty quickly. Here is a pic of me coming into the finish.

Again as you can tell I am looking pretty serious at this point. And yet I am still super excited about being out there. This final pic is of me crossing the finishing line in right under 2:08.

Overall my first XTERRA race was a complete success and I was super excited to have finished it. I would totally do this race again. I would only make a few adjustments. First of all I would definetly want to get in some open water swimming with a littler current. And I totally would not ride 13 or 14 miles on the bike the day before hand. Oh and instead of the short course I would want to do the whole thing which is bascially double what I did which was 500 swim, 19k bike and 4 or so miles running. Oh yeah and the long course actually got to do some true trail running.

As I am writing this to you all my left knee is feeling alot better. And so I will be good to go in a few days for Highland Sky.

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this really really really long report. Hopefully I will have time to talk with you all about it really soon. Have a great one