XTERRA DINO Logansport Race Report

By Gary Harris, XTERRA Rep

This year’s XTERRA DINO Logansport paved the way to a huge break in a national heat wave.  While most of America was sweating it out, Mother Nature smiled upon France Park giving racers beautiful blue skies and a 57 degree start.
 
Although a pleasant chill was in the air; the lake, a former rock quarry, was a toasty 81 degrees. Adorned the bottom of this 30 foot deep clear water lake was a big yellow bus, a boat, the original quarry crane, a viewing bubble and a group of 6-8 foot Sturgeon all place there by the local school which uses these waters as a scuba dive training facility. “It’s pretty cool to look down and see a school bus during the swim” said race director Brian Holzhausen.

From the very start Greg Muller ruled the day pushing out an 11:46 swim with Patrick Valentine 35 seconds behind followed by a pack of hungry Indianans. Becca Finley was the first female out of the water in 15:19, a minute behind was Sarah Gall and Beverly Enslow just 3 seconds apart.
 
From the cool clear swim came 10 miles of fast and fun bike trail, a course that rocks and rolls!!! It’s broken down into 2 loops of tight and technical single track with wide open service roads all mixed in for great passing and serious cycling fun. “You really had to watch that first climb” said 2nd place female Beverly Enslow “if you missed that left at the top you’ll ride right off into the quarry.” Brian Holzhausen turned the fastest time of 44:13 just edging out second place finisher Scott Gall by 7 seconds. Beverly had the fastest female bike time at 49:08 over 2 minutes ahead of Sarah Gall.

The run shared similar characteristics to the ride, two loops of fast and fun single track. For the men, Scott Gall (husband of female first place finisher Sarah) flew through the run with a vicious 23:18 but it wasn’t enough to catch Greg Muller who claimed the day with an impressive 1:22:52. Scott took second in 1:25:37 with race director Brian Holzhausen in third. I believe it was DesMoines resident and 4th place male Marc Hollender who said “that Scott guy ran by me so fast it made me fall.”

The female finish was absolutely amazing; Sarah Gall broke the tape in 1:35:14, “What an awesome course.” She started the run three minutes behind the leader and came in three and a half minutes ahead of 2nd place finisher Beverly Enslow “Her legs where like Land Rockets and she just flew right by, I couldn’t do one lap at that speed” Beverly said with a smile.

HUGE thanks to Brian Holzhausen and the crew from DINO, France Park for their help and hospitality, Tim at Nebo Ridge Bicycles, Dave at the Ramada, eleven year old Sam Edwards for his first solo XTERRA and all who came out to play on a pleasant Indiana day.

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