King of the Hill

Not the animated series formerly on Fox. The phrase takes me back to any number of late '70's snowbanks in Upstate NY. Do you remember the children's game? The object was to remain atop a hill, snowbank, junk pile, knoll or summit while all of your buddies would try to knock you off by any means. Elbows, kicks, eye pokes, groin punches were not only allowed, they were highly encouraged. We played in the winter as if snowmobile suits, knit mittens, wool caps and bread bags over our socks would protect us. The cold sweat redolent of frozen fear still hangs in the back of my nostalgic nostrils.

Back to present day and an offroad triathlon dubbed the King of the Hill Xterra. It is so-named due to a hill on the run course the likes of which would of made the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton a one-page piece of micro-fiction.

Tucked in between Philadelphia and New York City in the Garden State I took a solo road trip (Kitima was in California for the Tour) for my first triathlon since 2008 due to a nasty bout of plantar fasciitis.



I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott and tri-geeked up the room a bit.



Transition space is easy to come by with 114 racers.



I believe it was Niels Bohr who proved that red bikes are faster than all other bikes of any other color.


After a beach run of a couple of hundred yards (Hasselhoff eat your moobs out!) we did two laps of a swim course with three buoys; half-mile total!

This was the start of the mile and a half climb. It started out with double-track but once on top it got into some howlingly fun single track with some baby-head rock mini-gardens. I gave my bike all it could handle as I'm more than a seatful (yeah, I've been doing pushup...that's not a typo...I only do one a day) and it didn't flex, misfire or let me down.
Sorry for the bad shot (can't rotate it with this program). Every Xterra has the obligatory and hysterical pushup contest. I counted for a contestant. The guy with the red head band won but his pushups were not of marine caliber...he was short-arming all of them.

Another Xterra favorite is the best injury contest. You have to show and tell the crowd how it happened. "I was just going along when a mighty Redwood branch fell from on high the victim of the same bolt of lightning that struck me. If I wasn't riding a carbon bike who knows what would have happened..."

I didn't crash; took the swim easy but still came out in good shape; handled the bike course and it's steep climbs well; ran better than I have in a few years but did walk up The Hill and did a bit of a ski-turn descent in order to avoid a Laura "half pint" Ingalls tumble down the grassy steep.

I thank Kitboo who has prescribed some super-secret bike intervals for my improved climbing...if I told you anymore I'd have to squirt Infinit in your eyes. I placed 37th out of 109 finishers and 8th out of 19 in my age group. Not exactly the king of the hill but not the court jester either. Since I hadn't raced in a while I took it conservatively during the race and spastically during the transitions.

Afterwards I took a few plunges: pool, hot tub, repeat.

Made it to some Italian place (not hard to find in NJ) and had penne with prosciutto. Had a blast...next up is Xterra Richmond with the illustrious Rolando and legendary Mike F.