Hotter N Hell 2010 100 mile bike ride

Riding 100 miles on a bicycle seemed unreachable to me when I started training on my road bike in April. I guess it was about May when I decided I would make my first bike race the 100 mile Hotter N Hell ride in Wichita Falls. The race is always held 2 weekends prior to Labor Day, so that puts it toward the end of August and yep, you guessed it, 100 degree heat. After about 3000 miles of training in the 5 months leading up to the race, I guessed my finishing time would be about 6 hours if everything went well. This was an absolute guess since my longest training rides were about 65 miles.
Hell's Gate is located 62 miles into the race. Three hours and 19 minutes was my time as I stopped my watch at Hell's Gate to refill water bottles. I was way ahead of schedule and feeling better than I thought I would. Just after Hell's Gate you make a turn to the west to head back into Wichita Falls. Immediately after making the turn, somewhere around mile 70, I realized it was going to be a long ride home as the 25 mile per hour wind hit me right in the chest. I hunkered down in my aero bars, put my head down, and just kept turning the crank.
My legs felt like they were on fire as I crossed the finish line in 5 hours, 50 minutes, coming in 10 minutes faster than goal time. I got off the bike, reached down to take off my shoes and my legs immediately cramped terribly. Wow, what the hell am I doing this for was what I thought for only a few seconds. My mind quickly went back to the overwhelming sense of accomplishment I felt as my tires rolled across that finish line. Every workout, every ride, every run, every weightlifting session, hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of training all added up to this moment that made it all worthwhile.
Next year I will be entered again and have a new goal to break 5 hours, which means I will have to average over 20 miles per hour. Man is that going to hurt. I can't wait.

Cowtown 5K February 2010

This was the first race I entered after getting back into some kind of shape after about 18 months of pretty faithful workouts at Anytime Fitness. Why 18 months ?
I have always been very competitive when it comes to sports, so when I decided to get back into shape it was not without purpose. I knew I would be competing in races, running, cycling and triathlon from the moment I committed myself, but would not enter a race until I felt I was in good enough shape to be competitive with athletes in my age group. So my beautiful wife Traci and I got on a training plan and entered the race. My time in the 5K was 25:13 which put me 21st out of about 200 in my age group which was then 45 to 49 year olds (turned 50 in July of this year) Overall I finished 231st of 3798 runners. A top 10% finish was all I needed to pick up the pace on training days and begin my journey to better physical fitness.

Las Vegas Half Marathon

A little over two weeks remaining until the Las Vegas Half Marathon December 5th. I have been training really hard to reach my race goal time of 1:50 or better. I am very confident that I can achieve my goal knowing how much work I have put into training.