XTERRA Charlottesville Race Report

By Scott Scudamore, XTERRA Rep

My memories of the Charlottesville race was hot, hot and hot.  3 years ago, coming back on the run course, temps on the road back to the finish was in excess of 100 degrees. The water stops ran out of water and a few people needed ice baths to get well again.  Fortunately, thanks to a very early swim start of 7:30am, the temperatures at this year’s 4th Annual XTERRA Charlottesville did not reach previous historical highs of year’s past. Lake temps of 78 and air temps in the high 60s welcomed racers this year to a great day at Walnut Creek County Park outside Charlottesville Virginia.   Amy Ballenger stepped up this year as Race Director so previous Race Director Paul Hahn could actually race.  If you did not know better you would have thought she had been directing this race all along.  Her staff of volunteers handled everything flawlessly.

141 people started the swim in 4 waves around a 600 yard loop and all went back out for lap number two.  Chris Pickerell and Mike Harlow were first out of the swim and quickly onto the bike course.  You would think, how hard could a bike course be in Charlottesville, Virginia County Park?  The answer: a very challenging 11.5 mile course that has about 11.3 miles of twisty turning rocky rooty up and down single track!  Although Justin Riddle was in the 2nd wave 4 minutes back of Chris and Mike at the start of the swim he reeled them both in to take the lead after the fastest bike of the day just 7 seconds over one hour. .  Eric Sorenson, also in the 2nd wave, kept it really close with the fastest T1 and T2 times of the whole field.    The 4 mile run course shared much of the twisty turning rooty rocky Bike singletrack and ended with what is usually hot but this year mild 82 degree run up the Park access road to a grassy finish.  Justin had the 3rd fastest run time to go with his overall best bike time to take the overall Men’s Title, followed almost 5 minutes later by Mike Harlow and one minute after that by Eric Sorensen. The combination of the day’s fastest run split and very good transition times was the difference in taking the last podium spot away from Chris Pickerell by 15 seconds. Never underestimate the importance of transition in these races.

Alicia Markey was first out of the swim for the women 3.5 minutes ahead of Laura Hamm.  Susan Wagner and Laura were within seconds of each other on the bike but Laura pulled away on the run with the fastest run time by over 2 minutes over Susan to take the Women’s overall title. Kathy Lett had a steady day on all 3 legs to round out the top 3 of the women.

This race is the final leg of a 3 race Tri series put on by the Charlottesville Tri Club in support of four local charities: Charlottesville Free Clinic, The Boys and Girls Club, Task Force for Childhood Obesity and the Institute for Autism.

Thanks to cool weather and an early start it was great day for an XTERRA race.  This wraps up the Mid-Atlantic Points Series races.  We look forward to next year. Live XTERRA !!!!

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