XTERRA Pipestem Creek Race Report

By Circ Toepel

If you like the rolling, rhythmic, flowing course at Four Corners you will love the undiscovered gem they have up in Jamestown, North Dakota.  Add in a bonus of $1000 prize money and you have the makings of possibly your new favorite course.  I don't think anyone was quite prepared for how sweet this place is.  The swim starts in Pipestem dam and was delayed for an hour while a local thunderstorm passed through.  The swim heads 500m straight out to a peninsula where competitors exited the water and ran along the grass before re-entering the water and swimming the remaining 500m back to shore.  The transition is in a grassy field about a quarter mile from the swim exit so most competitors chose to don an extra pair of shoes to save their feet for the run.

Wade Wheatlake from Aurora, CO did the 1000m swim in 18:06 and entered T1 a few seconds ahead of Geoff Stacey who hails from Frisco, CO.  Erin Kummer, the only pro in the field, was right on the boy's wheels with her 18:58 swim.  Rolling through the tall grass on a freshly mowed 4' swath of rolling countryside raises the fun factor of this course at least 1 notch.  Just when you think it needs a little variety, the bike course dives down into forests of pine and evergreen trees with some short rock and root sections.  To add another official XTERRA element, the mudslide from the morning rain caused a few unsuspecting riders to exit course into the trees.  This may have been the ultimate spectator viewing point.  They don't have 14,000 foot peaks but North Dakota is NOT flat, and there are a couple of very well placed hills that made riders wonder when they will ever end. 

The run starts out on a two track road but before mile 2 it takes a delightful turn into groves of pine and evergreens.  There are cool corridors of trees shielding runners from the afternoon sun as the course twists and turns beside the lake.  The occasional drop down to the lake meant a painful climb back up to the plateau running through more pines, evergreen and Russian Olive trees, some of which were planted by the race director himself when he worked on a local Bureau Reclamation project many years ago.   Kevin Bjerke had the fastest run of the day with a 32:40 but Geoff was able to hang on for the win.  His overall time of 2:13:13 gave him a 3 minute advantage over Kevin, who took 2nd overall.  Wade came in 3rd 2:20:05 and Erin took 4th overall at 2:25:26.

This race has all the down home feel of a family affair as Steve's brother David (who was brilliant as the race announcer) manned the mike and his father drove for 3 hours to be the grill master.  Wife Cory was up all night duplicating their grandmother's awesome potato salad recipe among other tasty post race delicacies.  David delighted us all with a game of Cowboys Bears and Ninjas which the race director won (must have been fixed).  If the race isn't hard enough, stay an extra day or 2 and try to keep up with Steve on his Jamestown La Ruta trail around the lake.  It may not be as difficult as its Costa Rican cousin but it is 35 miles of killer rolling trail around the lake.  Many thanks to Steve and Fritz for delivering us up another fantastic XTERRA course.  It would be sheer insanity to miss Pipestem Creek on your 2011 schedule!

© 2013 TEAM Unlimited LLC