Krause, McQuaid Win XTERRA Indian Peaks

By Circ Toepel, XTERRA Rep

For those athletes trying to develop more red blood cells, we have a new altitude king!  The swim in Peterson Lake starts at 9,400' and as you can imagine it was cold enough (62 degrees) to require a wetsuit.  The size of the lake caused race director Paul Karlsson to implement a time trial start in which racers went off at 3 second intervals.  Dave Messenheimer was not first into the water, that honor went to last years winner, Ryan Ignatz.   Dave was the 1st to negotiate the 1,000 meter swim and the 650 meter dash up to T1 since he was only in the water for 11:56.  Second fastest swim went to Eric Snowberg at 12:38 with Todd Gerlach a scant 4 seconds behind.  Always fast in the water, local swim phenom, Becky Batizy led the women's swim times by posting a 13:54 followed 1 second later by Maria Noriega from Mexico.  Next up was another Boulder local, Lisa Boatright, in at 14:19.  

The bike course was unique in that it zigged and zagged its way around Eldora's XC ski trails.  If you are thinking rolling, forget it.   XC trails can be steep.  So steep that everyone (even the pros) had to get off their bikes to go up one long hill that topped out at 9,948'!  A new XTERRA altitude record.  Not all the competitors were cheering this milestone as they were sucking air and going into oxygen debt near the top.  The suffering was worth it because the downhill single-track was nothing short of sweeeet.  Several racers got so caught up on the fun, fast downhill they missed the blue arrow pointing to the right.  OOPS!  Greg Krause had the fastest bike split for the men and Melanie McQuaid had the fastest split for the women.

The run course was a bit tamer but still on super sweet XC ski trails for 6.3 kilometers.   Not a single section of the evil pavement to be found.  Erin Kummer had a smokin' fast run split of 26:54 for the women but Melanie handily took first overall at the finish line with a time of 1:57:49.  Erin finished in 2:04:04 and Kate Chapman finished in 3rd with a 2:05:38.  The men were led to the finish by Greg Krause who ran a 24:26 and finished in 1:35:39.  Ryan Ignatz ran a few seconds faster than Greg but finished 2nd overall in 1:39:31.  A special thanks to Ryan who took a few moments from his race to alert us regarding a problem on the course.   Dave Messenheimer had the fastest run in 23:53 and took 3rd with a 1:42:14 finish time.

The post race festivities were kicked off by Qdoba Burritos handed out near the finish line.  From there most competitors went straight for the Avery Brewery beer line.  An excellent beverage choice after a tough day in the 82 degree, high altitude sun.  The awards were very generous gift certificates courtesy of Fleet Feet.  Of course lots of XTERRA Gear was given away.   Congratulations to Sasha, who won a brand new XTERRA wetsuit by producing the nastiest, holiest wetsuit I have ever seen.  It looked as if it had been either attacked by a shark or washed in Muriatic acid.  Many thanks to Paul Karlsson, all the volunteers who made this event happen and to the Eldora ski area for allowing us to ride and run on their awesome trails.

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