Close, Wood Win XTERRA Iron Will

By Fred Phillips, XTERRA rep

Jonesboro is only 60 minutes away from the Blues Capitol of the world, Memphis TN.

The Race Venue is Craig Head Forest Park, which has nearly 15 miles of off road trails.  You'll find a ton of sweet single track. 

Race day itself was overcast and cool, for August - this is out of the ordinary.  The temperature being nearly 30 degrees cooler this year than last year, the times were significantly faster.  The cool weather enabled some fast times.  On the Men's side the winning time was nearly 11 minutes quicker and on the women's side nearly 10 minutes quicker.  The relief from the heat was a main topic of conversation in the transition and post race areas. Thankfully the competitors finished prior to the skies opening up and the rain coming down.    The course was comprised of a ½ mile swim a 10.6 mile bike and a 3 mile run.

The lake at Jonesboro was good and clear.  The Bike Course has a few technical sections, but most sections were " let it rip and suck the bark of the trees in your wake"….  The Run Course was fairly flat and was extremely fast.

The race started with the strong swimmers off on the bike first, but within the next few minutes came the strong bikers. First out of the water was Jocelyn Woods of Broken Arrow OK.  Jocelyn had a male competitor directly on her toes for the entire swim.  I asked her why she didn't drop in behind him and draft and safe some energy.  Her reply, I wanted to win the swim….    Jocelyn held on to her position and took first female in a time of  1:39:08.

On the Men's side the bike course really shook up the order.  The eventual top five males all came out of the water within about a minute of each other but,  they had to work their way through several others on the bike to prior to the run.  Out of the top Five there was only one change of position on the run.  Blake Wagner  (taking 4th) over took Wes Pruitt (taking 5th) on the run.  Blake and Wes are friends, and are both from Conway Arkansas and train together on regular basis.  So I except there will be a little ribbing going on in the car on the way home.  John Close of Birmingham AL came of the bike first and had a strong run to maintain his lead taking 1st overall in 1:22:42.

All together Jeff Owns the Race Director and Jason Wilkie the Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Jonesboro Arkansas, put together a truly quality event.

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