Monday, August 06, 2007
By Jim Harman, XTERRA Rep
The enthusiasm and energy was high for the first annual XTERRA M2Xtreme. Throw in a beautiful venue, challenging course, quaint ski town, and fantastic community support and you have all the makings for an excellent weekend of XTERRA action.
Known as the ‘Aspen of the East’, the mountain town of Ellicottville, NY served up a heapin’ helpin’ of good ole resort flavor and supplied all the ingredients necessary for a fun swim-bike-run weekend.
Under sunny skies and comfortable temps, an intimate crowd of racers donned their race face and toed the line. Following a friendly fanfare and two national anthems (American and Canadian), the race went off at 10am. The .75 mile swim in the warm 75 degree waters of the brand new resort lake (built for snowmaking) produced many smiles and some blistering times. Canadians Steve Whitmore (45, London, ON) and Gord Lemmon (34, Toronto, ON) emerged out of the water first for the men with times of 22:13 and 22:30 and a Canadian female, Lori Whitemore (44, London, ON) bested all other females out of the water with a time of 26:31.
The 13 mile bike course was tough but very fun. With hills you can only find in ski resorts, this course tested your lungs more than your technical ability as the terrain included tons of tight and twisty single-track and bomber downhill sections. It was Fun, with a capital F!
The bike section is where Brandon Jessop (28, Madeira, OH) started reeling in the competition. With a bike split of 1:10:18, Brandon assumed control of the race after a relatively slower 25:27 swim split. The bike is also where longtime XTERRA athlete, Bruce Pasarik (36, Powell, OH) regained some ground posting the second fastest bike split of 1:12:20. On the female side, Ellen Sauter (43, Powell, OH) posted a 1:29:05 bike split, a full 10 minutes faster than the next female competitor, Brooke Umpflett (25, Buffalo, NY).
Next on the agenda: Trail Running. The 5 mile run course consisted of, what else, hills and plenty of single-track. We thought Bradon Jessop was fast on the bike, well we obviously hadn’t seen anything yet. He took a commanding lead on the run with the fastest split of the day, 30:41. This put him crossing the line in 2:06:26, almost 6 minutes faster than second place finisher Gord Lemmon’s result of 2:12:21. Bruce Pasarik rounded out the top three men finishers with an overall time of 2:12:44, less than 30 seconds from Gord. After the bike, there was no catching Ellen Sauter on the women’s side. Ellen finished the race with an impressive 2:42:08, followed by Hadly Nylen (26, Steamboat Springs, CO) and Brooke Umphlett with finishing times of 2:49:31 and 2:52:51 respectively.
After the race, athletes hit the excellent post-race catered meal, sipped cold Gatorade, and hung out while basking in the accomplishments of the day.
Congratulations to all the athletes that competed and thanks to Holiday Valley Ski Resort for pulling out all stops to make this a race one to remember. Finally, a special thanks to Race Director Greg Murnock and his crew for organizing a top notch event.
