XTERRA USA Champs. Plumbed the deapths of empty legs, but won 6th XTERRA USA Series title
October 6th, 2008 by Conrad Stoltz
photos by Rich Cruse photography
by Rich Cruse
What a weird, weird day.
I finished 8th. 8 minutes down.
In my whole racing career, I have never had legs as amazingly empty in a race, especially after feeling so good in the lead up. I wish I could have posted my Tuesday bike time instead of my race day bike time. Even including the almost BASE jump in the time.
The swim went relatively well, I was 50″ behind the Seth Wealing and felt pretty good on the flat and the early climb. However, when the pitch got steeper and I started laying the power down, my legs, well, powered down. My lower back usually gets sore, but I can manage it by streaching, standing or backing off for a while, but this time it didnt get better. I wasn’t even breathing hard- which says a lot for this altitude. 6500-8800ft. I got to the flume just behind Josiah Middaugh and thought: ok, now thats its flat and supposedly more technical, I’ll catch up, overtake, make time on the downhill and battle on the run, but it wasn’t even close. I tried and tried to find the proverbial “big blade”, but I was spinning in the granny.
The race within the race was the XTERRA USA Series Title. I made the math beforehand. Fellow South African Dan Hugo was 2nd in the Series with 3 second place finishes and I was leading with 3 wins. If Dan won, I had to finish no worse than 4th to win the Series and the $14 000 prize. Second is “only” a harsh $7000. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine of dragging ass in 8th, trying to calculate how much Dan had to drag ass for me to still “win” the Series. I got 8th and “won” by 8 points, as Dan finished 4th.
Phew.
I blogged this late, as I had to pack 3 bikes and 7 wheels and ship Amber off to Kona this morning. She races Ironman World Championship this weekend. (?!?) She also struggled. Maybe its that Go-slowBerries we had over our cereal the other morning…
4 Responses to “XTERRA USA Champs. Plumbed the deapths of empty legs, but won 6th XTERRA USA Series title”
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October 7th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Congrats on the series win dude! Sunday was rough… Tahoe is my least favorite race… bring on the heat and Maui! See ya in a couple of weeks. - james
October 7th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Glad you still won the series. Have a good rest and go slow on those berries! Have a good (legs) day at Maui
October 8th, 2008 at 9:23 am
don’t worry conrad everybody can say :after a bad race we have a the next won better and the next one is at maui.
you are w ell i am sur and is not normal for a nrmal man to hve a bad time one moment in the race.
dont worry be happy.
see you soon
jacky les bons tuyaux!!!
October 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Geluk met die reeks oorwinning Conrad. Voorpoed met Maui!