The Older I Get...

The Older I get the more I learn age is just a number. After catching a down pour of rain on my long run Saturday morning. I drove over to Dallas and met my good friend Mr. Kelly Harris. Now Mr. Harris is twice my age, but one of the toughest and nicest guys I've ever met. I had about 2 hour break from my long run (with an hour of it driving). As soon as we started the ride Kelly takes off fast. I am like wow, this guy is amazing if he can keep this pace up. Sure enough he did just that. I was hurting and even caught a sidecramp biking. I didn't complain though because us triathletes are tough. We headed South into some strong headwind, never really drafting off each other. Then on the way back we encountered some challenging hills we both hammered. Kelly was extremely tough. I was impressed with his God given abilities. His wife Sharon sagged for us and gave us water and gatorade and had Subway sandwhiches waiting for us when we got back. Kelly would also wave to just about to every driver we encountered. I learned a lot from his character. Mr. Kelly Harris is a man I should strive to be more like. Super nice guy with a great family. Thank you!!!!

Later is was off to the Dallas Zoo where I met up with my college friend Linsey. We walked around for 90 minutes and my legs were tired from the running and biking. Walking up every uphill was hard and even worse with the downhills.


I didn't know my little brother would be there hanging out at the Zoo.

Sunday I scouted out the Tri-Benbrook Triathlon that is just west of Fort Worth. I had some old college buddies doing their first triathlon. IRP puts on good and safe races. I wish I would have been out there racing......then I thought about and was like nah...look at this wind, it's worse than when I rode with Kelly.

Carlos from East Texas Baptist University (Alum) on an old Schwinn. I saved him a penalty when I yelled "Get off the bike" at the dismount line. He was about to ride right over it.

This is Kelsey from UT Tyler seems to be having a lot of fun on the run. She is ready to sign up for another.

This is Jeremy Bosco at East Texas Baptist (Alum) and former baseball player.

Overall they are all had a good time and are excited about future events.

Band-Aid Run A 3.4 mile 5K.

This year I decided to support the community in which I now live. For the first and last time I ran in the 2nd Annual Band-Aid 5k run. The night before a group of us ate at this hole in the wall pasta place in Gun Barrel City called Mario's. About half the group liked the food. I was one of them. I ate my pasta along with some of parent's huge pizza they bought.

The next morning we woke up to a lot of rain. Fortunately there was no thunder and lightining and race went on. All ten of lined up and we were off. I had goals of hoping to break 16 unfortunatley there would be no one push me. The course was fairly simple go out a ways and then make this loop twice and come back. I was moving good the first loop but the second loop I knew I had slowed down a bit. Then someone forgot to tell us where to make the turn for the second loop and there was no sign either for it. When I got to 16 minutes my legs felt like giving out. I made it the line in 18.24 for the 3.4 miles that someone got on their Garmin.

After every one who had finished the rain came pouring down with rain and storms. I want to give a big shout out to Lance Vernon for finishing his first 5k run even though it's a little long. He finished in just over 29 minutes and his goal was to break 30 minutes (if it was 5k) so he crushed that. We're also trying to get him a bike so he can do a triathlon.

Congratulations to everyone particpated in this. It was only ten runners which makes this the smallest race I've ever done. The run benefitted the Mabank High School Band, but there was no band members out there helping out.

This week we've hit the training hard in our next to last training block before BSLT 70.3 this summer. This weekend I am going to go to DFW and watch my buddies Jeremy and Carlos do their second and first triathlons at Benbrook and offer support so it should be a fun weekend.

Lone Star Quarter Iron

Last weekend with my mom and friends Bonny and Chris we left Carthage, Texas early Saturday morning for the drive down to Galveston for the Lone Star triathlon that featured a sprint/qtr/half iron. On the way down there I knew I was well hydrated as I had to take the horse to the barn every couple hours. Also picked up a head/chest cold on Friday and was coughing and my nose was stopped up and runny. We had to find some sudafed for me start taking. Much of Galveston is still in rough condition as many homes and small business were destroyed or boarded up. Then we made to the race site for the very important "mandatory" meeting, picked our packets up, did the pre race workouts. Check out the transition area and the babes ;)



Later that day I had my first photoshoot with Justin O' Keith Photography as you can see from the previous blog. I think turned out pretty well. Then we had dinner at the Fisherman's Wharf with my East Texas Triathletes Club. As you can see I had every type of cake and pie they had. Not your typical pre race dinner but it works for me. Ok I am playing. I had some kind of very good shrimp pasta and stuff and along with the remains of whatever my mom had. My thoughts go out to our new club member Brandon who bought a womans tri top on accident and kept wandering why he couldn't fit into it. That had to be the hilarious story that was told over dinner.

Sunday morning we woke up at 4:00 a.m. got ready and and had breakfast. Then we went to the race site and got our stuff set up and I did a warm up jog and later ran into my BeginnerTriathlete.com rival buddy guy Stephen Milford and we exchanged some words, I mean some conversation ;)

The swim was somewhere around 0.6 miles or a 1000 meters in the bay at Moody Gardens. It was a lot more quiet than the ocean would have been. I was competing in the elite/pro wave. It was a bad swim for me, but all my swims are bad so it might have been decent. I couldn't find anybody really to get a good draft off but somebody thought I was good enough to draft off they kept hitting my feet and then my back I thought I was going to go under, when the hit my back I almost wanted to turn around and whack'em. I finished the swim in 16.52.





I had a nice and fast transition except for the part where the girl had a hard time getting my wetsuit leg over my left foot. Everything else went smooth. I could tell I was moving on the bike I didn't know how fast since I don't have a computer or anything. Stephen was a minute and half up on me starting out on the bike. I caught him at the 14 mile mark just at half way. There was two other guys riding near us that were drafting off me pretty bad. Where was the official? Neither of them wanted to share the work either. With about 1/4th, maybe a little more of the bike leg left I noticed the ride was starting feel rough. Then I was having to work a lot harder I got off the bike and checked my disc wheel and it was going flat. I jumped back on hoping to ride with whatever I had left in the air but it wasn't working. Stephen flew by me and patted me on the bottom and I hopped off the bike and started walking. Then the MAVIC support cab came around 10-15 minutes later and bailed me out switched out my wheel with and I got to finish the race. The view of the ocean was great from Seawood BLVD. After the flat I looked at plenty of it since I wasn't in a hurry anymore ;) However, Stephen

said I must have been going near 25 mph but with the wait had on the flat I finished in just over 21 mph. a 1:19.03 on

the 28 mile course.


I had an easy transition I didn't really rush it and I cruised through the 2 loop 6.55 mile run course at a 6.04 pace which put me at a 39.28. I ended up 27th OA with a time of 2:17.54. Ideally, given if I had a good run I think I could have been 5 or 6th OA, if not for that stupid flat, but it is what it is. I thank my Lord Jesus Christ for allowing to finish the race atleast I didn't have a bad wreck or anything like that. I'd also like to thank my travel partners my mom, Bonny, and Chris for EVERYTHING. Also thank SBR Multi Sports for their support and gear. Then I also want to thank my sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous who got me in the race.



The event is next weekend and it's a local 5k over here in Mabank the Band-Aid 5k run in support of the Mabank High School Band. Congrats to everyone who finished the Lone Star Triathlon!

Justin O'Keith Photoshoot

While I was in Galveston for the Lone Star Triathlon Festival (race blog later when photos are in) I did my first photoshoot with Justin O' Keith Photography the day before the race. Justin is an old college friend/roommate back from my early ETBU/UT Tyler days. I selected a few of my favorite shots to show you. I hope you enjoy them. You can also check out his other work by clicking the following link. http://www.myspace.com/justinokeithphotography. He also holds many awards and honors from the 2008 East Texas Fair Photography Contest.

All photographs appearing in the albums are the personal property of Justin O'Keith Higgs. Any unauthorized use, publication, or reproduction (including photo snatching, adding photos to a personal album not of the photographer, etc.) without the express permission of the photographer is prohibited.

Lone Star Live on the Web

The Lone Star Triathlon will be featured LIVE on the web beginning 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning for the spring and again at 7:00 a.m. CST on Sunday morning for the quarter and half iron distances. The Race Director is Mr. Keith Jordan also known for the Timberman, Mooseman, and Austin 70.3 (Longhorn) triathlons.

Visit this link to see the race LIVE http://lonestartri.com/lonestar/video.html