March 29th, 2009
Saturday morning greeted 350 eager adventure racers with warmth and sunshine; ready to kick off the first Adventure Xstream adventure race of the 2009 season. Butterflies took hold as I waited for my first solo race to begin, mostly from worry about not remembering to punch my racer passport at all the checkpoints along the course. The race started on bike with a blazing peloton towards Long Canyon as its steep climb to the top of the mesa. The climb pulled apart the peloton and I traded drafting positions with others up the canyon, passing all but one solo racer. Pulling up our bikes at the 350 ft rappel area, I quickly strapped on my climbing harness and enjoyed the ride down the rope. At the bottom, I pulled out my running shoes in a sprint back to the bikes, in total about a 6 mile dash through the sand. I strategized about how to catch the one man out front, and all that kept running through my head was my best Goose impression from Top Gun "there are no points for second place today!". Back on the bike, the course brought us down to the final leg: the kayak section. At this point I knew that I had to get into my eleven foot white water boat and paddle as quickly as possible, but needless to say my boat choice was no match for the carbon shells that sliced through the calm waters around me. I finished in 5th place overall, not bad considering this was my first race against very experienced athletes and world-class paddlers (with awesome boats). It was an incredible day and a great result for the Team, taking just over 5 hours to complete! Special thanks to GoLite, our wonderful title sponsor, Scott Bicycles & Boulder Cycle Sport, who got us new Spark bikes just in time for the race and made the rocks and sand so much more enjoyable to ride, and Tifosi for providing us the best eyewear to transition seamlessly between sand, water, and rock!
-James Kovacs
Friday, April 3, 2009
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