Donovan, Tobin win XTERRA Wild Ride

By Kristin Francis

This year's 5th annual XTERRA Wild Ride at Ponderosa State Park in McCall, ID was another huge success. The change in venue to the new Ponderosa State Park picnic area and Visitors Center made a great event, even greater. With it's pristine ¾ mile swim in the 69 degree Payette Lake, epic 20 mile mountain bike and 6.2 trail run, even a few XTERRA legends came out to spend the weekend at XTERRA Wild Ride.

With lots of great camping spots at Ponderosa State Park, most athletes choose to camp for this event. With the lake and bike and run courses all nearby, it's easy to check out everything the day or two before the race. Nearby McCall also has lots of restaurants and great shops worth checking out after picking up the race packet downtown on Saturday.

Sunday morning, race day, with the weather in the high sixties and water temps to match, most athletes opted to wear a wetsuit for the one lap ¾ mile swim. After a short run up to the grassy transition area, bikers headed out to tackle the famous XTERRA Wild Ride 20 mile, single lap bike course. This course is a mountain biker's dream. With an assortment of rolling dirt roads and single track this course is challenging yet doable for a fit beginner. Starting at an elevation of 4,800 ft., this course has 1,800 ft. of climbing and descending. This bike course truly is a "Wild Ride".

After the bike, it's on to the single lap 6.2-mile trail run course. This course has a little bit of everything to offer. There are tight trails with rocky staircases and bridge crossings under a heavy canopy of evergreens. It has rolling hills that seem to be made for trail running.

In the men's race, Kevin Donovan (35-39) of Boise, ID finished first with a time of 2:28:51. Donovan had the fastest run time of the day at 42:41. Not far behind was former XTERRA Pro, Dave Harrison of Sun Valley, ID with a second place 2:30:25 finish. Harrison smoked the bike course with a time of 1:27:26..

Jenny Tobin, longtime XTERRA Pro, dominated the women's race with a 2:45:37 finish.  Jenny had the fastest swim (14:36), bike (1:41:58), and run (47:20) times in the women's race. Jenny's husband, legendary XTERRA champion Michael Tobin of Boise, ID, also helped to bring his co-ed team, Oh, Boy!,  to a first place victory with a smokin' fast performance on the bike.

With perfect racing weather, an amazing venue, excellent race organization, and an epic course, the 2010 XTERRA Wild Ride was a huge success. Congratulations to all of the competitors who came out for this year's event. A special thanks to the Ponderosa State Park for allowing this great event to take place in such a beautiful location, to the Idaho State University cafeteria for serving an excellent post-race spaghetti feast, and to the volunteers who helped to make this event possible.

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