XTERRA Camp Eagle Off-Road Triathlon - Triathlon

I tried starting off to the outside and back edge since I knew I wasn't going to be at the front of the pack. I tried to start out calm and not go too hard. I experienced quite a bit of thrashing and ended up swallowing a little water and had to do a quick flip onto my back to cough up some water.

After the initial thrashing things settled down a bit and I found myself coming up on peoples toes and people were packed so closely that I think I spent more time trying to figure out how to pass than actually passing anyone. I took the first buoy wide and then nearly ran into the dam. At this point I still had nearly 2 laps to go and started to panick and think about how I might not be able to make it. I forced myself to think clearly and remember that with the wetsuit I basically float and only need to paddle my arms. I remembered my goal was to simply finish the race and I should stop worrying about going fast.

As I continued I noticed the people in front of me getting further and further away and I started to think that I was toward the back of the pack. My navigation at times wasn't great. I managed to run into a pole in the middle, and occasionally found myself on peoples toes but again tended to swim more out of the way than I should and don't think I passed those people.

Overall I ended up finishing middle of the pack and am pleased with my pace reported by my GPS.

I think I need to work more on sighting and swimming straight. My pace reported by GPS was actually about as good as I believe I could swim however I probably could have shaved some of the distance by taking the buoys closer and sticking closer to people as I tried to pass them.

Exiting the swim you immediately climbed a steap set of stairs. I was quite winded and had to walk these. I also did not want to pull my wetsuit top over my head while going up the stairs so I waited till I reached the top. At that point I pull my top and started to jog to transition while I got my wetsuit down to my waist. I managed to step in some sand right before the transition entry point which stuck to my feet.

Once in transition I removed my wetsuit bottoms but one let got a little stuck on my heal. I spent extra time wiping my feet with a towel to try to get some of the sand off before I put on my socks and shoes. I also managed to grab a squeeze of energy gel from my flask before I put on my camel back, helmet, and glasses. lastly I put on my gloves and looked at my watch before walking to transition.

Looking at my watch I noticed it showed a little picture of the bike for the sport so I thought I might have accidentally already transitioned into bike mode. I tried changing the screen to see my bike time, and not the overall time but there only seemed to be one screen. At this point I realized it still had an arrow pointing to the bike, which I assumed was the transition to the bike so I ran to the exit hit the lap button and continued.

I think there are a lot of small things to optimize here. The two big ones are probably getting my gloves on while moving and being more familiar with my watch while in multisport mode. I could also potentially take some energy gel while moving though that probably only took 5 seconds with the flask in transition.

Having pre-rode the course I knew that the beginning of the course was mostly climbing and the second half of the course was mostly downhill. Knowing this my plan was to go hard untill I reached the top and pass as many people as I could along the way. During the climb I passed a number of riders and was only passed by one rider on the final climb before the big downhill.

On the decent I let my heart rate recover a little but tried to hold my speed over some of the small climbs. Entering the dry creek bed I did my best to keep the speed up but constant pounding of the hard rocks allowed another rider or two on full suspension bikes to squeeze past me.

The final section included more climbing and lots of loose rocks. I was able to pick off a few more riders on the climbs and managed to do my best cornering on all of the loose rocks.

I was pretty pleased with my biking performance, and don't really think I could have ridden the course any better. My bike weighed about 29lbs on race day and a lighter bike and possibly a full suspension would likely have been faster. I rode with 25psi in my tires and potentially could have used less but was a little worried I might slice a sidewall with all of the jagged rocks. I also mistakenly carried both 3 CO2 cartridges and a pump, when I should have left the pump in the car.

I had a small amount of trouble getting my seat hooked on the rack. I also took two shots of energy gel from my flask, and double tied my shoe laces.

Only single tie your laces. If one comes untied on the run it is proably just as fast to retie as it was to double tie in transition. Could also take a energy gel on the run but was afraid that without some water it might be difficult to get it down.

My goal was to actually run the entire course however slow that might be. On the initial climbs this meant I was taking pretty small steps but I still managed to pass several people who simply walked the climbs. Once thing leveled out a bit I was able to pick up the pace. Once the decending started I again had to slow down at times simply because it was so steep you couldn't really run. I kept my gloves on from the bike and was able to grab trees and put my hands on some of the big rock ledges as I jumped down which I think helped.

The course ended up being about half a mile shorter than I expected. I might have been able to push more on the flats if I had known this. I also stopped for a few seconds at an unmanned water station since I needed water, and later again at a second manned station. Perhaps bringing a small flask of water on the run would allow eating an energy gel and save those two stops.

Training? Additionaly doing more trail runs would probably help my running times since I normally run on flat gravel paths.


This was my first XTERRA so it is a little hard to compare. The environment was very laid back and everyone was very nice and helpful. The atmosphere is mostly like hanging out with a big group of friends, than some of the more commercial road events and races.

The post race food provided by Camp Eagle wasn't the best but we got there a little late and they had a hard time keeping the food trays filled as everyone was eating it faster than they could bring it out.