Wanaka endurance athlete Braden Currie could not have been closer in finishing second in his latest race in the United States yesterday.
He was literally a wrong foot away from wining the Xterra Pan America Championship in Utah, United States, sliding towards the finish tape in the ultimate attempt to wrest the inaugural title from Josiah Middaugh.
Currie had led the race the whole way and was in a sprint to the line with Middaugh.
In the final metre of the race, Currie thrust his foot forward to try to grab the win, as the timing device for each athlete was on one of their feet.
Unfortunately for Currie, it was the wrong foot he threw forward and Middaugh ended up winning by .07 of a second.
Not surprisingly, it was the smallest winning margin in the event’s history.
Middaugh covered the 1.5km swim, 28km mountain bike and 10km trail race in 2hr 20min 23.57sec.
Currie (30) had led Colorado-based Middaugh for the whole race up until the final second.
He was ruing the fact he did not know what leg the timing device was on but had taken some encouragement from his performance.
He started well in the swim and worked his way into the top bunch of four to exit with them into the first transition.
Using his lightning quick changeover skills, Currie was first away on the especially steep 28km mountain bike ride.
It featured 1036m of climbing and was an uphill slog for the entire first hour.
"This sort of big climbing course seems to suit me. I got to the Sardine Peak Trail summit (2225m) and this is where Josiah caught me last year, so my goal this year was to get there without him [Middaugh] in sight, which I did," he said.
A technical descent followed and he kept the pace up to arrive into the run transition 23 seconds ahead of Middaugh.
The run, which began at Snowbasin resort at 1950m, was pretty brutal, Currie said.
"I felt like I was breathing through a straw on the climbs. I knew that would be the toughest part with Josiah, as he is really strong on the climbing because he lives and trains at altitude in Vail, Colorado."
Middaugh alternately gained and lost time to Currie over the single-loop run, which zigzags its way along a scenic trail and features a few short, very steep uphill sections with about 250m of climbing.
The last fateful descent was where Middaugh started to gain ground on his rival.Currie would now look at training for the Xterra world championships, which are in Hawaii late next month.
"I intend to put everything into the next five weeks and plan to stay in Lake Tahoe and train. It is the best possible training environment I could hope for going into the Hawaiian event."
