XTERRA King of the Hill

Kristin came with me to this one... Man, she is a one-person cheering machine, and with crazy whistling powers too! I spotted her all over the course taking pictures and jumping around for me, the long lost Booth relatives, and a bunch of other freinds out racing. So this one is going to be mainly a photo post using her pics...

The start was a 300yd beach run to swim leg...


Heading back into the water for the second swim loop... I ended up third out of the water. Swim was only half a mile, not long enough to give me much of an advantage...


Out of transition and immediately down some stairs en route to a very hilly/rocky 12 miles...


Towards the end of the bike leg, sitting in 10th place here...


Out on the run about to head up Tobogan Hill chasing down the guy ahead of me...


passed him coming back down (that hill was brutal!)...


a long sandy finish... Results haven't been posted yet, but I was 9th across the line (possibly 8th). Will update with offical results when they become available... Either way, still some good XTERRA qualifying points for me in my quest for Nationals
**Update: Official Results HERE**


Overall Winners... D-Booth 2nd overall!!!


R-Booth, first place in AG for the Duathlon Race... Reciever of a pimped out bobble-head trophy.


Fun race in the books. Now contemplating what to do next weekend... instead of racing might opt to get in some long slow paced mileage... we'll see.

Carl Hart Mothers Day Duathlon

It was cold, very windy, and I was getting muscle cramps in the car on the way to this race courtesy of yesterday's run. I don't know what kind of irrational thinking got me to the starting line, but I made it. And once we got started I surprisingly didn't feel too bad. Both runs were pretty standard. The bike was a little tricky, the wind played a significant role with gusts up to 50mph. Rick helped me make the last minute decision to run my standard spoked training wheel on the front versus my 808, and I definitely think that helped keep me straight.

Finished 6th Overall, 2nd in my Age Group.

Rick ended up 1st overall Relay with daughter Amanda doing the running for him.

Official RESULTS

Avg. HR 151, Max HR 163

Now hopefully a more restful week in preparation for XTERRA King of the Hill next weekend. Need to get me some XTERRA ranking points!!!

Greenbelt Trail 25K

Brian and I ran this one together... In short, I was not ready for this. I over estimated my fitness and under estimated the trail. Not a good combo... Went out too fast, made it to the halfway turn around in 1:13, and then hit a wall that I haven't hit in a long time and really struggled on the way back. Brian was very patient with me and my bonk, and helped me keep moving to the end. He kept himself entertained with hill sprints as I took my sweet time. His form is really starting to come together, mine on the other hand, has a long way to go. We crossed the line in 2:49:26 (which included about 10+ minutes of getting lost) Official results HERE. I was seriously exhausted, and he could have done it all over again!!! Crazy. But the positive is that I learned several things, like...

• Force myself to walk up steeper hills to conserve energy, especially early in a race.
• Trail running with compression socks look ridiculous, but is even awesomer than I anticipated.
• Aquaphor between the toes, on the balls your feet and around the heel, work really well to prevent blisters.
• I need to remember to take in more nutrition while on the trail. I was forgetting to eat.
• My Salomon XD PRO 3D ULTRA shoes (pictured below) worked really well for this: comfortable, low profile sole, good rock plate, heavy duty toe guard (saved me a few times!), and nice lace system.

The plan was to capture a lot more of the race on video, but for some reason I couldn't get the camera to the right setting... Brian finally figured out how to do it with about a mile to go, and here is the result. Nothing to exciting, but you get the picture...I was delirious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk5YCV2um8k

This is us at after the race...

These are the shoes that got me through it... love them.

I think we'll be back next year...definitely some unfinished business.

Greenwich Biathlon

Had a harder time than I thought I would recovering from the Du Nationals weekend… The few workouts that I managed last week where all sluggish and painful. On Saturday I went for a 2.5 hours ride with Kristin, and had a hard time getting my HR over 108bpm, I think my average for the ride was 95bpm… I’ve never biked that slow before!!! After the ride I went down to the track for a few laps, my HR then decided to skyrocket. I didn’t last very long, after about 20minutes of regular running, and 10 minutes of barefoot running I called it a day.

My brother got engaged on Saturday afternoon (very exciting!) so we went into the city to meet the families for an eating throw-down at a Churrascaria Plataforma. I came in second only to Kristin who put on a epic demonstration of human stomach capacity…. It was a little disturbing, one of the waiters wanted her autograph.

After a sleepless night of meat-sweats, we weren’t thrilled about racing. We got ourselves down to the race site at 6am, racked our bikes and went off to warm up for the 7am start… after about 30 minutes of slow running and a few bathroom breaks I started to feel more normal… Kristin, not so much.

The race itself was pretty uneventful… had a good run (2.5miles), good bike (10miles), good run (2.5miles). Felt better than I thought I would considering the night before. No splits available, but my overall time was about 2.5 minutes faster than I’ve ever done this race, so I was happy. My new running technique seems to be paying off. I'm feeling much more comfortable at a faster speed, and keeping up with people that would normally run right by me. Kristin ended up having a pretty good race too despite her stomach issues.

I was 9th overall, Kristin was 2nd overall female.
Full results HERE

Next up: Greenbelt Trail 25K and Carl Hart Mother's Day Duathlon