XTERRA Appalachia Race Report

By Ann Mickey – XTERRA Rep

The weather was threatening to storm the day of the race, but Mother Nature was kind enough to wait until after the race before she opened up the sky! It was overcast so the racers did not have to worry about heat during the race.

The start of the race was delayed by 15 minutes due to late sign ups trying to get in at the last minute. 8:45am the race went off with a mass start. The swim was 1000m out and back along a “roped” lane, followed by a short run up to the transition area.

First out of the water was Alicia Markey, killing the rest of the field with the fastest swim time of 13:55. Alicia a former Division 1 swimmer got the easy part of her race out of the way now was the challenge for her the bike.

The bike course consisted of typical PA rolling hills. But it did seem like there was more up than down on this course. The course was a lot of fun with all sorts of different surfaces, roots, rocks, 3 ft high grass, creek crossing, narrow bridge and very sneaky water tables. I say it was sneaky because you could not see them, until you were going over them it was covered by the 3 ft high grass that was knocked down to make the trail. I quickly learned they were there when I took the hill a little to fast and went right over my handlerbars!

The run was a little challenging for the first couple of racers since the course marshall was not in position when they came by. But being the awesome XTERRA racers they are and with help from XTERRA Ambassador Frank Febbraro they figured out which way to turn. The rest of the field had no problems after the marshall was in place. Frank was quoted by saying “I was in the lead on the bike and had no idea I had passed so many, then Eric passed me then I realized I had been in first place, on the run I caught up to him when he stopped to figure out which way to turn, for the first step we took I was in first place again but then Eric turned on the heat was GONE. Wow that guy is fast!”

Eric Scott, owner of “The Bike Shop” in State College PA and former Champion Duathlete held off the rest of the field taking 1st place in the first race at Appalachia with a time of 1:29:09. The winner for the women was Barbara Howe of Larkspur CA with a time of 1:43:03.

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