More than 700 endurance athletes representing 44 countries and 37 U.S. states competed in the 23rd annual XTERRA World Championships held on Oct. 28 in Kapalua, Maui.
The premier off-road triathlon started with a 1-mile rough water swim at D.T. Fleming Beach, then continued with a slippery and muddy 18.5-mile mountain bike ride that traversed the West Maui Mountains. The race finished with a 6.5-mile trail run through forest trails, thick red clay and beach sand.
Despite being a world championship event, the finish line looked more like a scene straight from a Muddy Buddy Race — lots of smiles, tears, many bruised and bloody, but all covered in mud.
Conditions wise, it was considered to be one of the worst in XTERRA’s history.
The morning began with high surf that continued to build in strength, and forced athletes — who were separated by several wave starts — to carefully time their entries between powerful shore breaks and a strong backwash along the entire length of the 1,500-foot sandy beach.
Heavy rains preceding the event completely saturated the bike and run course which turned the already technical terrain, featuring 4,000-feet of combined climbing, into a muddy slip and slide.
For Kamuela’s Wendy Minor, the smiling 9-time women’s age group XTERRA world champion — who competes in off-road triathlons “just for the fun of it” — returning to the start line at Kapalua was suppose to be the highlight of her triathlon career.
She spent the last year recovering from a horrible Strep B infection and had high hopes to secure a coveted 10th age group win. However, it turned out to be a day filled with disappointment, frustration, and a heartbreaking DNF (did not finish).
“I was terribly disappointed,” said the 73-year-old, who has a daughter Mandy and granddaughter, Riley. “I had done the race in 2016 and it was very similar in terms of mud, but this year was way worse.
“All of us (from the Big Island) came over to Maui to race. We came to race the swim, not to have to survive it or be deathly afraid of being badly injured from the high surf. And, we all trained hard to race the bike — not to push, carry or walk our bikes through mud. I didn’t make the run, but it was just a slip and slide. People were hanging onto trees and falling all over the place. It was horrible.”
Minor said most athletes felt that race organizers should have canceled the 1-mile swim segment.
“The surf was building and pounding and it’s a shallow beach, you could get spinal injuries there,” she said. “And people did get injured. There were broken bones – it was frightening to see. It’s supposed to be tough, but not life or death.”
And because of the wave start format, the age group women started their race last, after the male and female professional field and the age group men.
“When you put 600 men in front tearing up the mud, the bike course completely deteriorated so it was that much worse for the women,” Minor said. “While they extended the normal cut-off time for the bike, it was still 15 minutes shorter than the cut-off in 2016. If it had been the same, I would have made it. Instead, after I got off the bike I was told that my day was done.”
For the woman who is affectionately known as the “Queen of XTERRA,” primarily for her laid-back style, bright smile and “lets have fun” attitude, the 11-time XTERRA World Championship finisher said that this year’s event completely crushed her spirit.
“I won’t go back and I won’t do this course ever again because it wasn’t fun,” Minor said. “I really wanted to get my 10th age group win, but I won’t go back to worlds if it stays on that course. They will always get high surf because it’s wintertime, and they will always get heavy rain. I just won’t subject myself to that again because it wasn’t fun. And that’s why I do it, for the fun.”
XTERRA
Warrior Award
Despite feeling disappointment from Sunday’s race, Minor received an early surprise as she was honored as the 2018 Dave DeSantis XTERRA Warrior Award winner at the Night of Champions dinner on the Friday before the race.
“I was just stunned,” Minor said. “It’s an amazing award given to an amazing individual. You never know who it will be as you never know what people are putting up with in their life. I was sitting next to my daughter and granddaughter who had huge tears. I had huge tears in my eyes and thought that I better get a grip because I’ll need to go up there to make a speech.”
According to the XTERRA Planet website, XTERRA has honored a member of its Tribe since 2003 who has shown exemplary courage in the face of adversity, gone above and beyond to help the greater community, or personified the “Live More” spirit.
For Minor, who often competes as the oldest female among the women’s age group field, that couldn’t be more true.
Last year, just two weeks prior to what would have been her 12th XTERRA World Championships, Minor incurred a terrifying Strep B infection in her right knee that began from a superficial cut on her right shin.
She wound up being admitted into the hospital, placed on IV antibiotics, and had surgery to remove the large infection out of her knee. Her yearlong road to recovery wasn’t pretty, but it was her “Live More” spirit that got her back to the start line and the reason why she was this year’s honoree.
“I remember when Willie Stewart won the award,” she said. “He lost his left arm in a work accident years ago and he did the whole XTERRA with one arm. What was even more amazing was that Willie did the race this year, swimming in that high surf with just one arm, and finished in that horrible mud. He is just amazing.
“And the fellow the award is now named after, Dave DeSantis, in 2015 he was fighting cancer. He decided that he was going to do 16 XTERRAS to raise $16,000 in funds for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. He died of cancer last year. These are a few of the amazing stories out there, just doing their thing, living life to the max while going through some kind of adversity.”
Last year, XTERRA re-named the Warrior Award in his honor, and it will now forever be known as the Dave DeSantis XTERRA Warrior Award.
“Just to become one of the Warrior Award winners — they are just an unbelievable group of people,” Minor said. “And to now be one of them is just an amazing honor. I still get goose bumps thinking about it. It’s a monstrous honor.”
Race Notes
Rom Akerson from Costa Rica and Lesley Patterson from Scotland were the male and female champions with their times of 2:52:41 and 3:29:07 respectively.
Kailua-Kona’s Jose Graca was the top Big Island finisher and also captured silver in “The Double,” which is awarded to the athletes with the fastest combined times in the Ironman World Championship (8:58:58), and XTERRA World Championships (4:07:15). Graca had a total time of 13:06:13.
Staci Lovell of Kailua-Kona was the youngest female to compete at the age of 15. Lovell finished in an impressive time of 6:34:47.
Next year’s XTERRA Hawaii Island qualifier will once again offer 25 slots to the XTERRA World Championships and is slated for Sunday, Aug. 25.