Xterra UK, Sunday 16th September 2007

Report by Rob Harper

Xterra is a worldwide series of off-road triathlons - swim, mountain bike, trail run. The UK leg of the tour is held in the Vale of Neath in South Wales, and last year the event was blighted by bad weather. But this time I arrived at the race HQ Saturday lunchtime and it was sunny. Yes, sunny, in Wales - I know! The morning of the race the clouds were a bit more threatening but the rain held off for the duration (although not long enough for me to get the tent down dry of course). Breakfast, final kit prep then a 3 mile bike along a canal towpath to the lake.

The swim went very well indeed - I completed the "1500"m in 22 minutes! Just a bit short then (1100/1200?). The water was incredibly clear, although there was not much to be seen looking down as it is also very deep; occasionally you'd pass the anchor rope for a buoy disappearing out of sight into the depths. The final leg of the rectangular swim course was a bit choppy, but otherwise no problems at all.

Out of the water and the first hardcore bit of the race was the hardcore on the floor into transition. If you sat down and deliberately designed a surface to inflict maximum pain and suffering on people running in bare feet you would be hard pressed to come up with something worse! At least I was racked fairly close to the entrance. Bit more to do in T1 than normal - helmet, shoes, glasses, gloves, hydration bag...

I'd recced the 30km bike course the afternoon before which, if it didn't make it any easier, at least meant I knew what I was in for. There was plenty of uphill slogging on fire road, but the "reward" for this was some fun/tough bits of singletrack (which made overtaking interesting). The "impossible climb" (so called because it has never been ridden clean) was a mandatory push/carry up a steep path covered in loose rocks. Some adrenalin was injected with the Heartburn section of the Skyline trail, good rideable rocky singletrack. This was followed by some natural singletrack which got very wet and muddy - lovely.

So it was all going quite well until a tough section about 5km from the end. You follow a gradually narrowing forest trail downhill until a sharp left turn with an immediate drop leads into a bit of a rock garden. I'd messed up the entrance to this on my recce but cleaned the rest of it - so when I made the entrance clean, and in hot pursuit of the guy ahead, I pushed a bit too hard and totally lost it on the rocks. Ouch; banged knee and elbow, bent mech hanger on the bike. Was a bit shaken but dusted myself off and ran the bike down to where I could get going again. The bike was still basically working so on we go, more singletrack down "the chute" (straight rocky steepening trail) and finally a rocky descent down to a tricky stream crossing - foot down here in the recce but cleaned it this time which boosted my confidence a bit. Flat run into the rugby field (where in front of a fair few spectators my gears decided to throw a wobbler, thanks for that) and the last few yards into T2. 1:40ish on the clock for the bike, quite happy with that actually as it'd taken 2:30 on the recce (the pros were doing sub 1:15 - awesome).

Out onto the run, banged knee was feeling OK - good. Flat section to start before dropping down to the riverbank for a knee deep crossing. So now the rest of the run had to be done with sodden feet - fantastic! The next 3-4km can be described with one word - "uphill". And maybe add "steeply" to that. The run turned into a walk for most, including me. Passed by Female Pro winner (and 2007 Elite National Champ) Julie Dibens who was going down as we were coming up - looked like she'd barely broken into a sweat and had the spare breath to offer us some encouragement which was nice. Eventually downhill was the way to go, but not all the way to the finish oh no that would be too easy. Instead it was a steep loose descent, 20m along, then all the way back up again - gah! Then it really was downhill all the way, at last! Just 500m flat to the finish and it was all over. The 10km run had taken over an hour, with about 1500ft of climbing...

That was one tough race! Overall I came in at 3:08:45 for 39th place, 16/50 in the Male Open cat. To do well on the bike section you really do need to be a decent XC rider, and not a roadie/triathlete with a couple of MTB sessions thrown in for fun! "Road fitness" (whatever that is) is no substitute unfortunately. Good fun though (apart from the crash) and certainly an experience. One I'd repeat? Possibly, if I can graduate from MTB-numpty level over the next year!

Photos from www.sportysnaps.com

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