Watching Gustav

First day of school!

And they're both in the same school now (for a year at least)!

Xterra time!

Kiersten gets her body marking just as it starts to rain... again... as it has been doing for two days on and off... so it will make the course very interesting to say the least!

(Scroll down for the whole story!!!)

Since she's the youngest competitor she's staged to start last... which means she'll have to swim through a lot of folk and then mountain bike through even more... hard to do on a muddy technical course made up mostly of singletrack!

The swim start was a little rough but she settled in for a decent swim.

With the rain pouring down Kiersten comes back on her swim loop and encounters the section where it's too shallow to swim so they have to walk it a bit before climbing over the dam.

Kees... the ever-supportive brother... stands in the pouring rain to cheer his sister on!

T1

Kiersten finishes the swim and then runs up 101 steps and then 1/4 mile into T1... where she needed a little help from a relay swimmer to get her wetsuit off, LOL!

T1 and the beautiful scenery

Kiersten leaves T1, and since it will be a while in these conditions while she completes the technical and long bike course we check out the scenerey.

Climbing in the peanut butter

Here's the first time we saw Kiersten after T1... Kees ran up the trail to cheer her on and record some video (which I'll post later).

With the mud the consistency of peanut butter every rider I saw walked it because they couldn't get any traction and Kiersten was the only one I saw ride it. Look closely at how wide her tires look... that's from all the mud on her skinny 1.9 tires!

Bike wash

By mile three most bikes were unrideable so the organizers set up a bike wash which Kees maintined for while. Kiersten waited patiently in line and when it was her turn she wanted to do it herself and refused all offers of help... miss independent!

Notice how the mud on the rear tire has smooth, flat, sides... that's because it was so thick on the tire that it was shaved by the rear chainstays... making it a LITTLE hard to pedal!

Kiersten got her bike hosed off and cleats cleaned out and was off and racing again.

Carnage

I counted 29 bikes in T2 with broken or torn off rear derailleurs!

Sights and sounds

While Kiersten was on the bike course Kees did some wall climbing, I checked out the transition area (I wonder if he/she ate any of those Clif Blocks!), watched riders come in one by one with broken bikes, and chowed down on some burgers.

Pushing the bike for 4.5 miles!