Friday, September 13, 2013

Summer Road Trip Part 3 & Hotter N Hell 100

25 Sept-

If you have not read through the previous 2 posts, here are the links to those:


After spending 8 days in Tennessee with Scott and Carrie I headed back towards Texas.  After a good long run along the creeper on Sunday morning I departed towards Memphis.  Along the drive I stopped in Nashville and had lunch/dinner with my cousins Jana and Brennan, who I had not seen since I was 10.  I got back on the road and ended up in Memphis Sunday night.

I woke up Monday morning and headed to a local YMCA to get a swim in bright and early at 0530.  It was a nice outdoor pool and swimming in the dark was quite interesting, the pool was not lit and there was very little lighting on the pool deck.  After the swim I made my way to Tulsa where I stayed with a fellow Team RWB member and pro triathlete Jessica Jones Meyers.

I stayed in Tulsa till Thursday morning.  During my time there I got to get in some solid training and attended the weekly Tulsa Wednesday night Worlds.  One of the harder rides I have been on, but not being in “cycling” shape really hurt my chances.  We hit some short steep climbs and out the back I went.  The ride was fast and fun, but it just proved to me that training as a triathlete is completely different than as a cyclist.  It was a great workout though and a great way to see some of Tulsa.

Thursday morning I got in a hot and humid run before heading to Wichita Falls for the Hotter N Hell 100 race weekend.  I was given the opportunity to help out at the Rudy Project booth at the Expo for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I took advantage of the opportunity as it was a great way to make some connections in the industry and network with other athletes.   The expo started Thursday afternoon and ran till Saturday afternoon.  I stayed with my buddy TJ who I was stationed in Turkey with while in Wichita Falls.

Friday morning I headed out and rode part of the race course before heading back to the expo.  I worked the expo for most of the afternoon and then headed back to TJs to meet up with a few of the other US Military Cycling Team riders.  There were 3 of us staying there and we were all racing the next day.  We did the usual pre-race stuff of pinning numbers and getting bottles ready for the race.

Woke up early on Saturday morning and headed out the door via bike for 4 miles in the dark to the race start.   It was a peaceful ride to the start and that was about the only peaceful part of the day.  The race started promptly at 0700 and the sun was just rising.  I had 3 bottles with me, 2 of OSMO Nutrition and 1 of coke.  I wanted to try and get into an early break knowing that it would be my best chance to survive the race.  I don’t have the snappy legs right now to hang with the constant punchy accelerations.  I tried for the first 30 miles to get into a break or start a break but nothing stuck.  Then finally something got up the road, I tried to bridge to it but got stuck in no man’s land between the break and the peloton.

I tried to get in a few more breaks that got up the road bridging to the main group but ended up just burning all my matches.  By mile 65 I was out the back and at that point we had averaged 26.5 mph.  I rode in the last 37 miles with 2 other guys and we managed to still finish just over 4 hours with an average of 24.5mph.

I finished off the rest of the day by helping out at the expo and then had a great dinner with the Military guys that were racing.

Sunday I headed over to watch our guys race the criterium and passed out some FRS to the fans at the race.  I packed up after that and headed back to Ft Worth.  Finished off the road trip and big training block with a mid-night long run of 2.5 hours.

I had a great time over the past 2.5 weeks and can’t thank everyone enough that helped me out by providing places to stay and people to train with.  I feel like this block really prepped me for the big upcoming race in Las Vegas, the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships.

Weekly Training Stats:

Training Stats:
Swim- 6.7k / 2hrs
Bike- 229 miles / 10.9hrs
Run- 39 miles / 5.1hrs
Total- 18hrs / 986 TSS
CTL Start- 126.6
CTL End- 129.4

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