Mike Vine Reports from Tahoe X-Terra

Hi all, thought i'd send my my account of the 2ndbiggest race in the world of XTerra, the USAChampionship in Lake Tahoe Nevada. It had been 3 years since my last visit here, and Iwas eagerly anticipating not only the race but thevisit to such a pristine area... the thick pineforests of Tahoe are something to behold. last time in2002 i'd arrrived last minute from sea level and racedwithout previewing the course. safe to say i luckedout placing 2nd b/c the altitude really affected me on the bike course, most of which is at 7400-8600'. This time i did it right - 2 weeks of altitude prep in SunValley ID , and an early enoughTahoe arrival to ride the course. Seeing as it's Oct now the buzz leading up was centered on whether we'd be riding in snow or not.turns out not, and it wasn't a bad day - save for the swim conditions. a steady blowing SW wind over thelast 2 days had whipped up sizeable chop on the northshore and a lake temp of 56 F. i did avoid going hypo (unlike at milwaukee in july ) however I did not escapethe swim unscathed.

Despite a decent start off the gun, i was the unlucky recipient of a foot to the face100 yards in... followed by a couple mouthfuls of laketahoe chop. my goggles were torn off and in aninstant i was near blinded and gasping for air with people swimming into me. i responded by flailing my arms for a while in the direction of the safety boat.eventually i found some space (and breath) and wasable to refit my goggles, only now they wouldn't sealbecause the strap had stretched. i was left to swimthe rest of the way sans goggles. turns out that wasbearable and i got going again on the 2nd loop, butthe time gap exiting on the beach was not pretty -4minutes down. bloody hell!!! now it was catch-up time.i madly sprinted the 1/2 km run to T1 where the official split was taken. 3:35 down it turned out tobe. onto the bike which is a pure grinder... norespite until the final 15 min of descent. it starts with a nasty sandy climb from 6250' up to the flumetrail @ 7400'. not long enough ! because i ended up inthe unfortunate situation stuck behind a coupleswimmers, ie slow riders, for the full extent of the 4mile flume trail - a no passing zone due to theperilous drops off the ledge it traverses. i'm quitec ertain i lost a minute to Conrad here. but, my heartrate did drop right down. once clear i let out myfrustrations by punching it on the flats along marlette lake, then drove it hard over the remainderof the climb to the 8600' summit. over the top i couldsee 2X triathlon olympian marceau just ahead. yes!! isoon passed him on the rim trail descent as it wasreadily apparent my new Fox fork was up to the task.also passed seth wealing and 2000' vertical drop lateri was in 3rd at T2. my bike split of 1 hrs 34 min was2nd best on the day, only 25 seconds off Stoltz.the legs were noticeably rubbery once on the run - nosurprise after the longest ride in xterra. with ITU standout wealing bearing down i had tosqueeze every drop out of the tired legs. fortunatelyseth blew with 2 k to go and i held my spot in 3rd.and the picture wasn't so grim at the finish - i hadmoved to within 1:11 of 2nd place stolz and the winner llanos was 2:13 ahead.Also moved up to a 2nd place finish in the pointsseries. a successful finish to what could have been a disastrous day.

Now i can take comfort in knowing everything's in place for maui World's, now comingright up oct 23. race report-xtri.com/article.asp?id=1565results w/ splits-www.xterraplanet.com/temp_results/championship.htmfor now,

VINEROC-Z