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Xterra Portugal - handling the heat!

19th May 2015

Round 2 of the Xterra European Tour - a warm welcome awaited us in Golega; even warmer weather - and as for the competition? Hot hot hot!

Race completed - happy times with Karin!

This was my first ever trip to Portugal, made all the more adventurous by dragging my bike bag on a tour through the Lisbon Metro, round a huge supermarket (needed supplies!) and on a train ride to Entrocamento! But you don’t need a car here, and the race organisers even met me at the train station. From this point onwards I learned the wonderful hospitality of the town of Golega. Not everyone speaks English, but everyone is so friendly and going out of their way to help. It seems half the 4,000 population is involved with the race.

Race organiser Jaime and the Xterra team have been building the bike course all winter – cutting new singletrack and painting 1000’s of yellow stones to mark the route so it can be ridden by locals once the race is over. They also hand-built an impressive “eco-transition” out of sticks!

Eco transition

First on the agenda was to check out the bike course – 40km instead of the usual 30, it started off flat & fast through the town and farmers’ fields. But once you hit the hills, it’s steep climb after steep climb, and loose, dusty, rocky technical descents to match. Definitely built to sort the true MTB-ers from the triathletes! I was silently thanking Tom for the coaching I had over the winter, improving my skills on the steep stuff that a year ago, I would not have ridden.

After 3 hours of pre-riding in 30 degree heat, we knew the race was going to be a long one! We all hoped there would be water stations - the 1 bottle I can fit on my bike wasn’t going to cut it (the trouble with small MTB frames!)

"Cow soup" at Central Cafe - all this for 3 Euros!

Time to refuel and luckily Golega has some great cafés - the best place to hang out and socialise with other athletes. You could tell who’d already ridden the bike course by who was covered in scratches! Some pretty spiky vegetation lined the course, and you could either put the brakes on or take the hit…

The next couple of days were cooler – in the low 20s, as we checked out run and swim courses and enjoyed the pasta party. Yet another example of the whole town getting involved – this was probably the best food of any pre-race party; the themed rice puddings were legendary!

Xterra rice pudding!

So, 20 degrees would have been perfect for racing, but unfortunately on race day it heated up to 35! No chance of a wetsuit swim, and with a 2pm start time the biggest challenge was going to be surviving up to 4 hours racing in the blazing sun…

I actually love a non-wetsuit swim, & this was my favourite part of the race! Running up the river bank through cheering crowds & diving off the pontoon for lap 2 was fun - although I couldn’t keep with the men I’d been swimming with and ended up alone for the second 750m – losing some time. But in such a long race I don’t think it makes much difference, so crack on with the bike.

Diving off the pontoon

It started off well, storming along on the flat, and the first climbs and descents were good fun. The heat soon started to take its toll though, and I had to back right off normal race pace. Even though I’m used to racing 3-4 hours in MTB Enduros and pushing hard all the way – it’s a different story in the rain and sometimes -2 degrees in English winter: conditions I seem to do much better in!

Anyway, back to Portugal where the objective was about survival and completion. The funny thing when you get overheated or dehydrated, your brain doesn’t work properly – afterwards everyone was saying how they made so many stupid mistakes- crashes, wrong turns and so on. I was super-cautious on the descents as I didn’t trust my reactions, and the climbs required all the concentration I could gather. One lift of the front wheel, one foot down and you’re off, and have to walk the rest of that climb. I was happy to make it up many more than I had on the pre-ride, but frustrated I couldn’t ‘race’ the other athletes, having to stick to a sustainable pace. I knew Kathrin and Brigitta would be up ahead after the swim and riding hard. Helena passed me with her usual strength, and I overtook a few age group girls, but other than that I had no idea where I was in the field.

Before things get hot on the bike!

I was surprised to catch fellow GB athlete Jessie at around 20km – evidently she was suffering even more in the heat than I was. Thankfully there were a couple of water stations so I managed to stay hydrated, but keeping the temp down was proving impossible. We finally reached the end of the climbs – having thought that the moment would never come! Once in open fields I could finally pick up some speed and get a little cooling from the breeze.

I was looking forward to the run – mainly flat and hopefully fast, although deceptively tough crossing ploughed fields, and narrow cuttings through bamboo and orange groves. There were some fun obstacles like scrambling over/under fallen trees and up steep slopes using ropes! This is exactly the kind of course I would love to smash, and my legs were feeling good, but the limiting factor was still the heat even though by now it was 5pm! The best strategy seemed to be to run a good pace whenever in the sun and recovery pace in any shade to get the HR down again.

Trying to run a good pace in the sun

I managed to pass a few guys, but didn’t see any other girls on the run. I finished in 5th place, same as I’d been since half way round the bike course! I was a bit disappointed with the performance in terms of time, but happy with my position – probably what I deserved on the day. Excellent to see my team mate Karin from Aloha Racing only 3 mins behind me in 6th place :-)

It’s a shame there weren’t more women taking part – yes, there was a strong Pro field but only 5 age groupers in total, compared to over 200 men! So, any ladies looking for a ticket to Maui – if you are tough enough to complete this course, you are tough enough to qualify for the World Champs. Why not give Xterra Portugal a try next year??

I definitely hope to return – for the hospitality and the lovely hotels and restaurants of Golega as well as the race. Jaime, Paulo and the team were so helpful, and there was even a whole day of kids offroad races the day after Xterra which I came down to watch. The popularity of kid’s triathlon is amazing here, and hopefully something the UK will follow :-)

Golega doesn't just have bike lanes, but horse lanes too!