Out at Ironman Texas!

Treked out to watch the first Ironman in Texas! Oh, that is the first FULL Ironman in Texas, all 140.6 miles of it. These guys swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles, and then ran 26.2 miles to take it to the house. First of all I like to say congratulations to everyone who did this huge and extremely hard event. You have to have to be missing some part of the rationale in your brain to even sign up for such a thing. Think about it....It's May, it's in the Woodlands which means it's going to be hot and humid. Regardless congrats, especially to all my friends who competed and work so very hard over the winter to make it possible. There are too many of you to mention by name but each of  you know who you are. Thank you to Stephen Milford for letting us crash at his place all weekend and a huge thank you to the grill man from the Houston Triathlon Racing Club for the bbq and OnUrLeft Sports for having the best spot on course!

OUL Elite athlete Michael Barney enjoying his day shooting Ironman athletes by cooling them off. 

OUL Elite athlete Stephen Milford in a hoola skirt shaking the booty for everyone. 

Michael Barney, Stephen Milford and Jenn at the OUL extreme spot. 

Tim O' Donnell chasing down Luke Bell and Eneko Ellanos. 

Luke Bell (Left) and Eneko battling it out. 

Chris Lieto on the first loop before dropping out. 

None other than Chris Lieto first off the bike. 

OUL athletes at their best. 

Stephen and I on our ride. Jenn taking looks from behind. 

The ultimate sun protection team. This is not what it looks like. 

The weekend was fun hanging out doing some training and all at the same time. I am heading ot Austin for Memorial weekend to race in the Cap Tex triathlon and then that same weekned here in Dallas I'll race Play Tri fest. I owe Richard Miller and Nathan Villa a big thank youfor making this possible! Without these guys I would have to skip these to events. 

McKinney Tri

Where do I even start with this one? I am sitting here at the Starbucks near the Galleria Mall. I have been putting this blog post off but I absolutely know you are wanting to know my thoughts regarding what happened at the McKinney triathlon. Let me just say I appreciate guys like Aaron Palaian with OnUrLeft and his attention to detail.  Now don't get me wrong, me and the other ten guys should have known the course and things happen and thats how it is.

Pre race warmup routine. 

I was looking forward to having fun with this race as I was competing on my old road bike that Bicycles Plus fixed up for me. I even had my headlight on the blinking mode the whole time. "The Spanish Beauty" is needing some beauty work herself, she wasn't able to make it out this time.

I wasn't expecting to see my buddy and old competitor Tyler Johnson who has a few up on me in the short distance races. He started just before I did and I was after him, I tried real hard to get on his feet I only got right on his feet right at the end. I came into T1 a split second behind him in 4:25 for the 300 yard swim.

I knew the race would be between me and TJ. Our bike

s were close to each other, since I was on a road bike I knew this would cost me some time here as I waited for him to leave t1 first so I could "legally draft" off of him. Well, that didn't turn out so well, as he rode away. Just moments after that it became a downpour of a storm, with crazy winds, and hail. Let me just say that crap hurt, the hail. The bike was technical and there were several times I thought I was heading towards a ditch, but fortunately I saved just in time. Finally making my way around towards the major turn around, I notice TJ not that far ahead as I thought along with another guy and Aaron Patel was closing in on me. Well all of us that

 I know of in that group blew by this turn we were supposed to make, it was absolutely not visible. I understand if it was just me, because we all know I suck at navigating, but when a considerable amount of people go by it..... When I was turning around the officer says "you have to go that way." and I said, "no, I missed my turn so I'm gonna go back that way." I catch up to this one guy and he tells me that the leader missed the turn too, that is how he knew to turn there, so I was like well maybe he isn't too far ahead so I start hammering again. Perhaps  my slowest bike split ever of 18 mph an hour...ok if you included the extra mile and half I rode it would have been 20 mph. 

Jumped off the bike without diving into the pavement this time. 

On a mission now, got the look.  

Starting the run I couldn't  feel my feet. It took a good mile to get into it, I wasn't feeling good, then and was debating to drop out because I didn't think I could hold it, but after that I was running fairly strong and convinced my mind to stay with it. I ended up holding a 6:01 average, I didn't think it was too bad after not running for 3 weeks. I made up a lot of time but I was still down 3 minutes, when it was all said it done. I was 8th overall and 2nd in my age group.

Bringing it in ot the finish! 

I owe all my sponsors a huge thank you!!! The guys at Bicycles Plus for working hard on my bikes. (I hope to get a better result next time for you guys!! ) A big thank you to Jenn for coming and standing in the crazy wind, rain, and hail. Praise to the Lord for watching over us and keeping us safe from serious injury!

Next up is Cap Tex in Austin on Memorial day and maybe Play Tri Fest June 5th. Thanks for reading!