Xterra Suiza

(pronto en español)
The main objective for this race, was to come in on shape, race hard, have fun and enjoy it. This is the last xterra of the season for me, and probably my las triathlon too, as the grape harvest season begins, I will be working 12+ hr shifts 7 days a week for the next three months (its not such a glamorous life, that of a winemaker =)).
Anyway, contarary to the rains that swept through Czech Republic and Germany, the weather in Geneva was perfect. There were a few shower forecasts on the days prior to the race, but the race weekend was perfect.
Just arriving to Geneva gave me the feeling things were going to be great. It is a beautiful place everywhere you look.
I got in the Friday before the race, went to register and just enjoyed the view of Lake Geneva, where we were going to race.
We raced at 2pm… I don’t know why it was this late, but it was ok with me.
The swim
The swim went alright, I didn’t break any records by all means and something that has been annoying me lately happened again. As soon as I get in the water I have to pee. That’s no problem, I just pee and that’s it. The problem is that once we start swimming I want to pee again. And peeing while swimming is a bit difficult. I’ve been able to “master” it, but I have to slow down a lot. And on this race, we hadn’t even done 500 and I had to pee, so I had to slow down several times until I actually peed. I kept thinking if it was best to slow down, or just stop on the bike… so I ended up slowing down… I don’t know if I slowed down too much.
Time:26:20, Place: 27/44

Bike.
The bike was flat as a pancake, but thankfully there was quite a bit of singletrack. Contrary to Czech, where everyone passed me (I kept thinking that if my grandma had raced that race, she would have also passed me), here I was being able to go hard and pass people. I did get passed , but I also passed people… it was not such a bad bike ride for me… I actually enjoyed the singletrack (I love singletrack in general). We had to go through the same river several times at several spots, many of which were waist deep, and that made things a lot more fun.
The peeing need had returned on the second lap of the bike but I didn’t want to stop as that would mean having to pass people on singletrack, which is not very easy. So I didn’t stop.
Time:1:48:54 (34km), Place: 24/44

Run.
I started the run feeling a bit heavy on the stomach, and still feeling like I had to pee, but I decided to keep on going. After maybe 5 mins the heaviness left, and I was able to run well, passing a lot of people… I think I only got passed once, but was able to pass a lot. The run had also quite a bit of singletrack, some parts through the forest and a nice little climb with no shade that proved to be the hottest part of the course.
Time: 47:29 (10.4km) Place 13/44

In the end I was happy with my race. Due to the amount of training I’ve done, but specially the fact that I haven’t been very consistent, I think this was a good result. I still didn’t make the top 10 in my AG, but I was able to finish 40 min from the first pro, which is more or less the time I was doing when I was racing xterra more consistently.
Hopefully, getting a bit more stability in what actually feeds me (my job), I will also be able to get more stability and consistency in my training