While Karsten Madsen finished a little lower in the Xterra World Championships table than last year, the local triathlete actually felt better about his 2019 effort.
In finishing eighth a year after taking seventh, Madsen noted that this year's slate at Kapalua, Hawaii included ITU cross world champion Arthur Forissier and defending Xterra World Champion Rom Akerson, both of whom finished outside the top 10.
"It just showed that the level of guys that came are Xterra-focused guys, and everyone on that start list, there was a collection of 15 guys that, on their best day, would have had a shot at the title," he said. "It's one of those years where anyone who's anyone shows up and it turns into quite a fistfight.
"The top end of the guys were just riding on another level, so at the time, when I got onto the bike, I'm sitting on the wheel of last year's World Champion, Rom Akerson."
Finishing in two hours, 43 minutes and 40 seconds (2:43:40), Madsen was exactly 10 minutes back of winner Bradley Weiss of South Africa.
Madsen knows that whoever wins needs to not only give 100-per-cent effort, but also have the good fortune of having his body cooperate when the going gets tough.
"I put myself, I think, in a good position to have success on the day," he said. "The frustrating thing for me is I knew after Loop 1 that I was starting to get some cramping in the legs and I could tell that on these little, short hills, I was starting to lose the firepower that I had.
"At that point, I knew I wasn't having the day to win, so to speak, but I was thinking I could run my way into fifth or something."
Weather played a factor as well, as rain showers came in before the start of the race, so the top layer of dirt became slick.
Near the end of the bike course, Madsen suffered a crash, but he later discovered that most of his competitors also went down at some point. "I don't want to give the impression that the crash defined my race," he said "It definitely wakes you up a bit in terms of that you've got to rally and you don't feel 100 per cent once you pick yourself up off the ground, but you've kind of got to find a way to get it back on the run."
As a taller competitor at six-foot-three, Madsen felt that the course gave a bit of an edge to shorter challengers, though there are some preparations he could make to combat that in the future.
"Big guys can climb well, especially shallow grade and stuff, but some of the percentages of steepness on this course on some of the golf cart paths that we went up on the first climb were just so steep," he said. "I got caught up in doing a lot of long threshold workouts, long intervals.
"For this course, you still need that, but I needed a lot more out-of-the-saddle, maximum-two-minute VO2 [maximal oxygen uptake] hits.
"You do get a lot of that in Whistler just riding around certain trails, but the lower part, it was either you were up climbing at maximal effort as hard as you can go, or you were descending down and it was almost like you're fully not breathing hard at all."
All in all, Madsen was satisfied with his efforts, especially facing a challenging ocean swim that saw a large swell come in the day before the race, and in a year where he thought he hadn't generally swam all that well.
"It's a much more physical swim than any other ones," he said. "You're trying to hurdle waves, and then you're wanting to go diving under the waves. It's a rough chop the whole way so even when you're on the feet of people, you're still expending quite a bit of energy."
Madsen plans to take a rest but continue racing through the winter, though his participation in some planned races isn't yet confirmed.
Also from Whistler, John Blok earned third place in the men's 65-to-69 division, finishing in 4:23:32. Blok could not be reached before
Pique's deadline.
