Xterra off road triathlon

Two weekends ago I broke training for Kona long enough to do the Mountain man Xterra triathlon out at Kualoa ranch. I got it in my head that this might be the only time in my life that it was convienient to do the Ironman and Xterra championships back to back. So I dusted off the old mountain bike and gave it a shot. Qualifying at the race here on Oahu is much easier than on the mainland because of the large number of slots they give away here and the small field size. I attribute the small turnout to 2 reasons. One, triathletes (we have a ton here) don't mountain bike. There's just not many places to ride. Two, the few hard core mountain bikers here don't swim. Whatever the case I placed second in my age group behind my training partner Mark, and 11th overall. All those great New Mexico and Arizona MTB skills came in handy and I got my ticket punched for the Maui Xterra championships which is a few weeks after Kona this year. The valley that we raced in has bus and ATV tours but is normally closed to the general public.It is used to film movies and TV such as Jurrasic park and "Lost" They have signs up in different area's to denote were certain scenes were shot. Hence the "Lost" sign I'm running by in the photo. Sort of struck a chord with me when I ran by it though as I had just been passed by two people.