Caveman loved XTERRA Las Vegas

Red Caveman. by Nils Nilsen

This was a really fun race. During pre riding the course seemed easy and boring, but once you’re flying at race pace, things happen a lot quicker and the surface gets really loose and gravelly as the riders churn up the packed desert.

Not too sure what happened in the swim. I think I forgot to open my hands all the way to the 1st bouy. Once I opened them, things came around nicely, but I had already lost about 1.30 to a charging lead group.

Felt quite good on the bike and was smashing it. This is 29er country for sure and the high speeds made for some fun technical situations I didnt anticipate when pre riding half asleep with jet lag. Speaking of half asleep, I somehow managed to follow 2 lapped riders in front of me who had taken a wrong turn and gone off course. I remember sprinting down the hill, looking back at Branden Rakita (cool website dude!) (in 3rd then) and thinking “today I’m gonna pump you guys”, only to see the 2 lost ones in front stop and look around with that “wheres the trail?” body language…

I turned around and sprinted back up the hill, only to see I’ll join the race just in front of Craig Evan and Josiah Middaugh again. “I’ll just have to fix that problem with pedaling harder” I though. Which I did.

I had a 1.40 lead off the bike and though that was enough. But on this insanely hilly run course one needs half a day lead on mountain goat Josiah Middaugh who is from Vail, CO and has been training on a trainer exclusively all winter. (Dude, HOW?!?) Josiah also won his 403th USA National Snow shoe championship title this past winter, AND he wears Avia AND he rides a 29er- so you begin to understand why one needs half a day lead. Imagine if he shaved his legs….

Josiah and I have had very close races here in Vegas over the past 3 years and I think I never beat him by more than a minute on this course. (last year he even did a quick flat fix)

Josiah is a such a nice guy, losing to him is almost fun. But I  think I’m ok now.  Jamie’s 38 race winning streak is coming down soon…

Its going to be a great summer’s racing. So good to see all my XTERRA friends again and I noticed a lot of new faces (and Ironman M dot tattoos) that have blown over from road tri. WELCOME TO XTERRA, GUYS!

We off road lot have a saying:  “Its not a ride till there’s blood” and on top of that, “If you bleed into your shoes, it was a REAL ride”

Sadly, this blood was from running through a thorn bush. Coming from Africa, i know ALL about thorn bushes, but this little bush looked so innocent… The bush probably thought: “Aaah, look at this Neaderthal, he looks so innocent.” My thorn bush innocence has been violated…

These Las Vegas thorn bushes arent so innocent… The fresh scab is from last weeks’ MTB race.

Gotta LOVE those new Avia avi STOLTZ colours! The also look good with a touch of blood…

Was great to see Taylor Seavey and folks again- he crushed the 20-24s.  What an amazing life he’s had the past few months- check out his new blog: TaylorSeavey.com

Click here for race day photos.

Again, borrowed from the XterraPlanet press release:

[April 10, 2011 (Lake Las Vegas, Nevada) – Josiah Middaugh, 32, of Vail, Colorado and Melanie McQuaid, 37, from Victoria, B.C., Canada, won the pro races at the XTERRA West Championship in 2:13:39 and 2:32:29, respectively, on a beautiful blue sky day at the Aston MonteLago Village Resort in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada this morning.

In each of the last two seasons here in the desert Middaugh had come close to defeating everyone’s chief rival – 4x XTERRA World Champ Conrad Stoltz – only to fall seconds short (by 32 seconds in ’09 and 39 seconds last year).

This year it looked like deja-vu all over again with Stoltz taking a seemingly commanding one-minute, 40 second lead into the run, however, Middaugh – fresh off a winter spent crushing the competition on snowshoes – put together a ridiculously fast run and caught Stoltz on the last big climb at about the four-mile mark and never looked back.

“Josiah is crazy.  It doesn’t matter if it’s flat, downhill, or uphill he runs the same speed – fast,” said Stoltz after the race.
“I thought I had it but this course is very hilly, and he is such a great hill runner that I needed a bigger lead.  I was walking up that last big climb and he just came flying past.”

Middaugh had the fastest run of the day, a 37:59 to Stoltz’ 40:47, and said he ran as hard as he could the entire time.

“I’ve been snowshoe racing all winter and we run up stuff steeper than that hill so I really tried to peg it, get my heart rate going and just go for it,” said Middaugh, who won the North American Snowshoe Championship and USAT Winter Triathlon National Championship in the off-season.

“I knew the climbing was done by mile four so I had to attack the run.  Conrad crushed the bike, and put more time on me than I had hoped for, so I had to ran as hard as I could on every climb to try and make it back early.”

The outcome could have been different had Stoltz’ not gone off-course on the bike and lost a minute or more heading in the wrong direction.

“It’s really my fault. I pre-rode the course and new it well but ended up following some age groupers and we got off course,” said Stoltz.  “It probably added a minute to a minute-and-a-half on the bike.  I still thought I had it but in the end it was too much.  But all credit to Josiah, he had a great race, especially considering he came right out of winter.  He’s got good form, it’s going to make for a great summer of racing.”

While Stoltz had the fastest bike split, and Middaugh the fastest run, Branden Rakita – who was the top American at XTERRA Worlds last year – had the best swim and a solid bike and run to finish third, tying his career-best (he was also third at the XTERRA Canada Championship last year).

“It was really tight on the bike today, with a lot of guys hanging around up front like Branden and Seth Wealing so I was worried they’d sneak up on the run,” said Middaugh (pictured).

Former XTERRA World Champion Nico Lebrun was more than four minutes back out of the swim but made up that time with the third quickest bike and fourth-best run to propel himself into fourth place.

Chris Stehula, last year’s USAT collegiate national champ, had his best-ever XTERRA showing to round out the podium, while Jim Thijs from Belgium finished sixth and Wealing seventh to round out the money spots.

“This course was more technical than I thought it would be,” said Stoltz of the sandy, rocky, moon-like surface.

“I rode it on Tuesday and it was hard-packed and I thought it would be so easy, but with all the riders churning it up over the week it really got loose and more technical than you’d think, so anybody that rode well today should be proud.”

TOP PRO MEN
Pl    Name    Age    Hometown    Time    Pts    Purse
1    Josiah Middaugh    32    Vail, Colorado    2:13:39    100    $1,800
2    Conrad Stoltz    37    Stellenbosch, South Africa    2:14:38    90    $1,250
3    Branden Rakita    30    Manitou Springs, Colorado    2:17:46    82    $800
4    Nicolas Lebrun    38    Digne, France    2:19:16    75    $500
5    Chris Stehula    26    San Luis Obispo, California    2:20:13    69    $400
6    Jim Thijs    30    Huldenberg, Belgium    2:22:03    63    $300
7    Seth Wealing    32    Boulder, Colorado    2:22:30    58    $200
8    Trevor Glavin    31    San Diego, California    2:22:51    53
9    Cody Waite    32    Lakewood, Colorado    2:22:53    49
10    Brian Smith    35    Gunnison, Colorado    2:23:17    45
Also:  Craig Evans (41), Shiloh Mielke (37), Adam Wirth (34), Brad Zoller (31), Jason Michalak (28), Karsten Madsen, Chris Jackson, Chris Ganter, Will Kelsay, Patrick Valentine, Damian Gonzalez

McQUAID STARTS 2011 ON A HIGH NOTE
It was a tough off-season for long-time XTERRA great Melanie McQuaid having to live with the memories of an 11th place finish at XTERRA Worlds, a race she dedicated so much time and energy into. Nothing like today, then, to start the 2011 season where she’d like to finish it – on the top step.

“Nice to erase the bad memory of Worlds,” said McQuaid (pictured), who’s won World’s three times.  “Unfortunately you’re only as good as your last race so I had to deal with that, but this is much better and anytime you can win one of these it’s a pretty special day.”

Fellow countrywoman Christine Jeffrey provided perhaps the biggest competition to McQuaid on this day.  Jeffrey came out of the water with the top men and put together a strong bike that had McQuaid chasing her for most of the first 10 miles.

“Christine is riding really well and I didn’t catch her until the end of the first lap,” said McQuaid, who came out of the water third behind Jeffrey and XTERRA newcomer Kelsey Withrow (who later pulled with a mechanical).

“Once I past Christine it was hard to tell what was going on behind me because this course is really fast moving, almost criterium style, so you couldn’t tell where anybody was until you came up on them.”

While most expected reigning XTERRA World Champ Shonny Vanlandingham (pictured) to make her move on the bike, she was so cold coming out of the water that she never really warmed up.

“That’s the coldest water I’ve ever been in.  I was hypothermic, came out of the water in a total daze and just couldn’t get it together,” said Vanlandingham, whose swim split was 29:46, five minutes off McQuaid and more than eight minutes back of Jeffrey.

The water temp was 62-degrees earlier in the week, but one-and-all said it was a lot colder than that today.  “It was probably in the high 50’s,” said Branden Rakita, and both he and Vanlandingham said they couldn’t even feel their toes until the second mile on the run.

Vanlandingham actually had the second-best run split, behind only the speedy Danelle Kabush, but couldn’t bridge a five-plus minute gap and was happy with second place.

Jeffrey ran past mountain bike expert Kelley Cullen, who was racing in her first off-road tri, to finish in third with Cullen in fourth.  Kabush rounded out the podium, with Emma Garrard and Suzie Snyder placing sixth and seventh, and Jessica Noyola eighth in her first race as a pro.

TOP PRO WOMEN

Pl    Name    Age    Hometown    Time    Pts    Purse
1    Melanie McQuaid    37    Victoria, B.C., Canada    2:32:29    100    $1,800
2    Shonny Vanlandingham    41    Durango, Colorado    2:35:50    90    $1,250
3    Christine Jeffrey    38    Guelph, Ontario, Canada    2:37:02    82    $800
4    Kelley Cullen    30    New Castle, Colorado    2:38:56    75    $500
5    Danelle Kabush    35    Calgary, Alberta, Canada    2:39:06    69    $400
6    Emma Garrard    29    Park City, Utah    2:40:39    63    $300
7    Suzie Snyder    29    Fredericksburg, Virginia    2:43:49    58    $200
8    Jessica Noyola    28    San Diego, California    2:49:05    53
9    Rosemarie Gerspacher    34    Calgary, Alberta, Canada    2:49:58    49
10    Tracy Thelen    31    Colorado Springs, CO    2:59:37    45    ]