(Pic from Xterra USA 2007...Yes, I sometimes have a black lobster for a husband.)Some pictures from the famed Halloween party for your enjoyment! (Note: the winners, Blades of Glory, got 2 round trip tickets to HI from CA. If only I had brought a costume...wearing a pink scrunchie and calling myself a Spice Girl didn't get me much except some laughter from an Asian boy who then decided his costume of a t-shirt and shorts made him a Spice Boy.)
Conrad Stoltz and lady friend.
Jimmy Archer rocks out.
The Winners! Blades of Glory.
Mr. Xterra, Will Kelsay, and Mr. Xterra, Jamie Whitmore
Dirty Santa aka. Dave "The Big Kahuna" Nicholas
Rocky Horror performers.
Happy Almost Thanksgiving!
(The "Beast")
I usually don’t get nervous before a race. Because, really, what’s there to be nervous about? I’m doing it for fun. I’m not there to win half of my yearly income (in fact, I lost it getting there…OK not half! Close though.) The best I can do is go as fast and as hard as I can, which is exactly what I’m going do, so what’s there to be nervous about? I’m not even thinking about winning because this is the World Championships and my 4th Xterra race ever and I don’t own my own mountain bike. It’s really all for fun. Nothing to be nervous about, right?
What about loosing all of my skin on lava rock!? Blowing a tire on my rental bike—the tires look like they’ve been glued on with years of dirt and grime. I’ll never be able to get them off the rims! (See above photo...although I did wash it...) All right. New focus. New goals:
1. To return with the same amount of skin as I leave T1 with.
2. Go as hard as I can except for in spots where my superhuman awesome strength would run me right off the trail and blow goal 1.
3. Run fast.
4. This should have been a goal before arriving: learn how to fix a stupid flat-FAST!
OK I’m not nervous anymore. My skin-protecting goal may make me a ginormous wuss on the mountain bike, but I’ll be thanking myself when I don’t look like a patchwork person in my wedding photos.
Xterra races start at a perfectly practical 9am. The World Championships was no different. I awoke calmly at 6:30am, slathered myself in sunscreen, made my “skinny Elvis” breakfast and jumped in the minivan with Coachancé for the bazillionth ride down the 5 mile stretch of windy road that passes all of the gorgeous resorts in Makena. Our 7:15 arrival time put us far ahead of most competitors, and I got a killer spot on the end of the rack.
(Note to self: arriving at 7:15am to an Xterra race qualifies you as somewhat of an anal retentive geek, as most of the pros and the people who would soon be bombing by me on the bike got there at a cool 8:40am. It’s true. I watched Jimmy Archer and Will Kelsay waltz in like they just happened to be in the area with their mountain bikes and thought they’d maybe get in a race before going to chill on the beach with their buds.)
After body marking, (Body Marker: Are you wearing sunscreen? Me: No. Me In My Head: She must think I have really oily skin…oh well.) Coachancé went off to warm up. I figured I’d be getting plenty warm on this sunny, humid (well, to someone from the West coast), day with a high of about 85. It would be perfect. So I stretched and sat under a tree until spotting Coachancé and deciding I should try swimming with my top tucked into my shorts since that was the plan and I had never done it before. This was not a wetsuit legal race because the water around Maui was perfectly calibrated by the island Gods to lure people into it in the least amount of clothing possible. (i.e. like 78 degrees)
In a convenient twist of fate, my uncle works for Pleasant Holidays, a travel company specializing in Hawaiian vacations. He hooked us up with a sweet hotel room about 5 miles down the road from the race in Kihei. On the short drive across the island, we managed to locate a Safeway, a Cold Stone (coachancé’s lifeline) and a Subway. Not to mention several Starbucks and a Denny’s. For some reason, even though Hawaii is an American state, I hadn’t considered it’d be overrun by mega businesses like the mainland. Somehow the Borders placard and the Outback Steakhouse neon sign looked out of place against the backdrop of a gorgeous clear blue ocean, lush vegetation, and an ominous volcano. No worries, though. It’s easy to get lost in one of the gorgeous mega resorts along the coast and realize that despite the many people holding Starbucks cups, you’re truly in a mystical and exotic locale.
We walked along the coast to stumble upon a very nice restaurant and loaded up on sushi and seafood and rice. Little did we know that would be the first of many Mahi Mahi meals to come. No complaints here!
I don’t know what I expected when I boarded the plane to Maui with my coachancé on Friday to get to the Xterra World Championships. To be honest, I really wasn’t thinking much about the race—my thoughts were more on the “I want to go snorkeling!”, vacationey side of things. I was just getting over the worst saddle sore in the history of female kind, and the fever and sickness that came with the toxic antibiotic I had to down for a week. If anything, I was praying my crotch was up for the bike ride and didn’t give the rest of me much thought.
We left LA at a very reasonable 9am and touched down in Maui around 11am. I love getting time back. The warm breeze that swept through the open airport made me instantly happy (I love hot weather!) as did the lei the Pleasant Holidays people gave us on our way to baggage claim. I only checked my liquid stuff (sunscreen…chamois butt’r) and kept my helmet and all other tri-related stuff with me on the plane. I could make due wearing the same thing for 4 days, but could not race without my lucky flower to mark my transition area or mountain bike shoes.
Coachancé upgraded the car to a minivan so we could shove the bikes we were going to rent in the back without much effort. Turns out everyone else rented a minivan, too. I’ve never seen so many Dodge minivans in my life as there were driving around Maui.
First, we picked up coachancé’s rental bike. A full-suspension Kona something. I laughed at the granny seat they put on it. “Last full-suspension on the island, I’ll bet!” said the owner. I didn’t tell him we were about to drive to Haiku to get mine.
Renting a bike didn’t bother me one bit, as:
1. It cost just as much to fly with a bike and
2. I don’t own a mountain bike anyway! I’d have been borrowing somebody’s foreign-to-me bike no matter what.
The bike emerged from the back of the shop: a Gary Fischer. It must’ve weighed 35 lbs. It had a bald spot on the back tire, and looked like it had never ever been washed. It was a beast. Also adorned with a cushy seat, this bike looked like it had been thrown down the mountain, or seen some gnarly crashes. This bike had seen so much more of the island’s trails than I ever would in one weekend. It would show me how it’s done. The Beast and I clicked.
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