Spirit of Hope 5K

The 5,000 meter run brings a whole new pain level compared to that of your longer distance races. Pain, so intense and you may spill guts at any moment or suddenly can't lift your legs. That was basically my experience towards the second half of the 5k. 

Believe it or not I was actually excited to race this and nervous at the same time. I watched the Prefontaine movie with my Wife and boy, Rylan the night before as he has a cross country meet the next day also. Driving too the race I could feel the pressure running through my veins. Man, I've sure missed racing the 5k road race. 

This was the first 5K run that I've done in about 4 years or so. I didn't know for sure what I was able to do. I just knew I was fit going into it and I've been running good intervals for the half-marathon/half iron distance. I knew that Tomas, a runner from Longview just ran a 16:40 a month ago and that it was going to take a sub 16:30 to win it. 

My parents and me before I started my warmups. 

Chatting with Jimmie Jones. Believe it or not, about 15 years ago me and him would be fighting it out for whatever  place we were running for at the time.

I executed my plan just like I was planning to do. The course record for this was only 18 minutes, however Tomas, was here. Trying to run just below 18 minuteswas out of the question. It was a recovery week for me as I was in between training blocks, I didn't want to run any harder than I needed to. 

We take off and it starts out basically with three of us. This kid in blue takes out, he has nice running shoes so I figured I better get caught up to him in case he's a young speedster. Leaving the high school campus Tomas pulls ahead and I get right behind him. We hit the first mile in a cruisy 5:15. We slowed down quite a bit after the first mile.   I stay directly behind him before we turned into the residential area just after 1.5 miles in. At that point, I attacked and ran fast him around him so he wouldn't have a chance to respond and go with me. My two mile split was 5:17. I glanced behind me to see how far he was and  he was still right there, in stricking distance. I took no chances and kept pressing the pace up a false flat out of the residential area back up to main street surging the turns to keep adding distance between myself and him.  

Getting close to getting out of the residential and back on to Main street. 

 Turning onto Main Street my arms became heavy with fatigue and my turnover felt like it was slowing down. I also didn't know if I was going to be able to keep that pizza down from the night before. I came to third mile in 5:18, keeping fairly consistent splits, even though the effort had sky rocketed compared to the beginning.

On Main Street in my hometown heading back to Carthage High School you can see Tomas close behind. 

I came a way as the 2014 Spirt of Hope 5K Champion in my hometown and put my stamp on the course record of 16:29.2 at least for now distancing myself by 31 seconds on the second half of the race from Tomas. This race has the potential to be a must-do race in East Texas.

Finish!

I thank God for the allowing me to compete and win! Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors and volunteers who made this race possible for it's 4th annual and my supportive Wife, Parents, the Cobb Mobb, and Extremus teams.  It's going to be a tough 3 more weeks of training but I'm excited to compete in the Austin 70.3 and the Oilman Texas Half Ironman coming up within a month.

Coleman Chevrolet Stage Race by Edge City Cycling - Racing 4 Blaise

 Last weekend I had the priveledge to race my bicycle with the Fresh Racing Team in a small town near Texarkana called Douglasville, Tx. It had one stoplight in the whole town, actually I think it might have been just a 4 way with a stop sign. This was a team effort  as we raced to raise money for Kristin Blaise. Blaise was hit by a young man in Tyler, Tx on her bicycle a few weeks ago who was paying more attention to his phone than the road. The Tyler cycling and community has been raising money for her out of pocket costs with medical bills as she works 3 jobs to support herself including a Vet Technician.

I raced in the Category 4/5 division with Matthew Ramirez and Clay Emge on our Fresh Racing Team. The first race of the day consisted of a double loop course totaling just over 60 miles.

Credit to Robert Spangle Photography

Here we are all smiles before we get ready to go. Also in the race is Whit Somerall the guy who I race a few weeks ago in Louisana. This was a hilly race featuring over 3,000 feet of climbing. The pace of this race was a lot faster than last time and 15 miles into the race Whit is off the front and Clay creeps by the pack and I roll in behind him. I know if I don't go with Clay it could be game over for the rest of us. We were able to sneak away with a considerable gap from the field with Clay, Whit  (La'Sport), Evan (RBM Matrix), and me. It was pretty much a 4 man break for us the rest of the way. We put pressure on to keep the pack from catching us. It wasn't long into the breakway where I started regretting those 5x1 mile repeats on Thursday night as I turned to Jen Voit's famous saying "Shut Up Legs".

Here we are after the first loop taking in some of the water hand outs. I was doing all I could do to keep taking pulls and not get dropped. Going up some of the hills my quads would be on fire and I thought I would crack and pop off the back of the group any minute. The last 10 miles of the loop it was straight into the headwind and our pulls were getting shorter and shorter as no one wanted to be out front. With just over a mile to go Clay attacks for the finish line Whit and Evan were able to go with him but my legs could barely turn the pedals. It didn't take long for Clay as he had another gear left to pop off Whit and Evan in the final kilometer. The last mile I was light headed and barely turning over the pedals. I was worried that the pack my catch me. It was such a relief to reach the top of the hill at the finish line - bent over the bars catching my breath and wating for my legs to stop screaming.

A few hours and a couple of burgers later was the 4.6 mile Time Trial. The legs were still quite fatigued and there seemed to be more hills in this race than the map originally showed. I was able to post a 10:06 split or a 27.8 mph average which put me at 3rd overall in the 4/5 division behind Clay and Whit and moved me up to 3rd over Evan. Our time trial times were much slower than some of the other divisions just showing how much harder we rode in the road race.  

The next day was a 50 mile road race. Clay was almost a minute over Whit and Whit was a minute over me. I had a 15 second lead on Evan. I knew there was no way I was going to make that much time up over Whit.  Our goal today was to keep the race to a pack finish and not let anybody get away. My goal specifically was to stay with Evan if he tried to attacked. There isn't too much to write about this one as we all kept everybody together. People would try to attack but nobody was strong enough to make a break. Clay and I would finish 7th and 8th in the road race maintaining our GC positions of 1st and 3rd.

Fresh Raced well this weekend!  Some of the other GC contenders in Fresh included: Virgil was 3rd in the 60+ GC, Lacey Thomas won the womens 1-4 division and Seth was 3rd in the 3/4 division.

Kristin's recovery I hear is going well. There will be a Silent Auction in Tyler on October 2nd.  Info can be found here. https://www.facebook.com/events/753512608027673/?ref=br_tf. Currently there is over $9,000 worth of product and services to bid on (not all of it is bicycle gear).  

To also help with Kristin's recovery you can also purchase this cool shirt http://teespring.com/sharethespacekristinblaiseseta with just a few hours to go.

With a little over a month ago I'll be wrapping up this triathlon season with Austin 70.3 and the Oilman Texas Half Ironman back to back weekends.

Calley's 2014 Birthday

A couple of weekends ago we celebrated Calley's birthday at Pinot's Pallet. A painting party. The three of us Rylan, Calley, and me. We had a great time and the paintings turned out much better than we thought they would, including mine. The least artistic.  

Rylan, I'm 14 too cool for a picture, dude. 

My Birthday Wife and Rylan.  

Our family picture at the end of with all of our paintings. 

On Calley's actual birthday August 18th she opened her presents. 

                                     

Road ID ICE 

Her bird house that I got for her on Etsy. 

An over-sized birthday gift wrapped box. 

Onto another box for another birthday gift wrapped box. 

Hey it's a Cobb saddle.... 

 Just kidding, it's the Fly 6 tail light and camera to record your rides from behind you, ICE. 

My Birthday Wife received a few other nice things but these are the photos I wanted to share on my blog. 

Rocky Mount Stage Race

Fresh Cat 5 Racers before the start of the Cat 5 Road Race

 This weekend as a big weekend for some intense cycling I entered the Cat 5 Rocky Mount Stage Race to compete for the GC (Grand Contender) as the best overall rider which consisted of 3 races over the weekend of a 31 mile road race, 5 mile time trial, and a 30 minute crit race. I love riding my bike and I've been doing pretty well riding with the "Pain Train" in Tyler on Tuesday night' has given me some experience riding in a big group at a fast clip.  I rode with Matthew Ramirez over to Louisiana we had a good trip and discussed a few tactics.

We had about 30 riders total in the road race for the most part I stayed in the top 15-20 riders, probably a little further back then I should have been. I tried to keep myself nearby and protected by Fresh riders. The overall pace felt pretty slow for me the most part, but I also knew time trialing it on my own I would probably get pulled back in. At 15 miles I did  go off on my own just for a little bit after this big hill as I unintentionally got out of the pace line somehow so I went to the front had rode off. I wasn't pedaling hard and put a good size gap but saw them coming back I knew the Fresh team would be trying to slow the pace down for me but against everyone else it would be too much.  About 5 miles out from the finish somehow Me, Brian Phillips, and another guy started leaning against each other - I thought was going down. Somehow we miraculously all stayed up right and avoided a crash. I had already crashed the week of  in a training ride and didn't really want to go down (again).  Closer to 3 miles ago Darrell Allen comes by and starts rolling up to the front and I get behind him to get closer to the front to plan an attack. With a mile to go I'm thinking about going off the front but it was an uphill finish, maybe I was incompetent in my abilities. Then I saw the 1k sign and Matthew Ramirez comes by me and says "We gotta go now." I jumped on his wheel but somehow Jonathan's rear wheel got caught in my front skewer and broke his spoke. I eventually got around and rocketed off the front. I though I had won the road race at first but heard someone had got away that I didn't know about it. It would be Whit, who finished just 8 seconds up. Whit got a 10 second time bonus and I got a 6 second time bonus putting me 13 seconds behind.

4 hours and 2 hamburgers later it was time for the 5 mile Time Trial. I had no idea how much time Whit had on me at the time before the TT. The Time Trial course was mostly downhill and flat the first half then all uphill the second half. I knew he was a bigger guy so he had a better chance at putting time on me on the downhills and I had a better chance of putting time going up the hill, but I haven't been too good at climbing lately so I had to dig deep on this one. I put the hammer (feet) to the pedals and dug deep, I kept telling myself it was only 5 miles and counting down the miles. We got to the turn with all the hills for the second half and I was hurting quite bad at this point and also I was feeling (tasting) those two hamburgers I ate earlier and pretty close to hurling them up as I they tasted like throw up. I made to the top of the hill and finish line in 11:22 and 25.4 mph. I found out later in the day that I had regained the lead for the GC by 1 second, gaining 14 seconds on the time trial.

Receiving some unclear instructions about the prime. 

The 30 min Cat 5 Crit race would be the next day.  Matthew and I departed from Tyler again at 4:30 a.m. the next day (that means I started getting ready 3:40 a.m. Sunday morning and had my breakfast to go). We were one of the first ones there and got several warm up laps in to study the course so we would know all the turns. I knew what I had to do and that was to stay behind Whit and just come around for the finish...easier said that done. I even put my Shama Cycling socks on for the crit.  Matthew led us out the first lap or two before Whit put in an attack.

First couple of laps with Matthew leading the way.  

I jumped on Whit's wheel and Gerrit also on the same team as him was trying to keep me off of it. I had to fight hard to hold my position on his wheel even flicked him a little elbow when he got to close for my comfort. The first prime was merchandise and none of us knew about this prime, we all through it was for time which is what we cared about. I swung around Whit, but it was too early and he was able to pass me and he also rode away after that and opened a huge gap that I couldn't close even with some help. We all agree we wish we had known about this prime because it wasn't posted in the "race bible" (instructions). 

A few laps later the next prime was up, the real one for time. I came in second here as you see but was pretty whooped at this point and trying to hang on.

                                                                         2nd and 3rd battle for one of the primes. 

   Just before the last lap I was leading the back and then the bell rang and David and Gerrit came around me and I didn't have anything left to hold their wheel. I came 4th in the crit and second in the Cat 5 GC.

                                      

It was a triathlete sweep, 1st Whip, Second me, Third Gerrit in the Cat 5 GC.   

 This was my first ever road race, I'm not sure why it took me so long to try one other than my stubborn triathlete state of mind. Thanks to the God for keeping us safe out there especially with all the close calls from the road race. The Fresh team for helping me out and teaching me how to be a smart road racer and helping protect me and during the road race and Matthew during the crit. Also to Cobb Cycling & the Cobb Mobb team, Extremus, & X-1 Audio. Also to my supportive family my parents, Wife, and Rylan. It was a fun time and it is TBD how serious of a road racer I will become...

X-1 Audio

My friend Ginger Spansel introduced me to X-1 Audio earlier this year and I've been using their sweat proof Momentum Earbuds on the bike trainer since. 

X-1 Audio recently expanded their Brand Ambassador line I applied and was accepted! It's the same team that sponsors two long time and successful triathletes Greg and Laura Bennett. 

I usually always have the music or a song stuck in my head. The power of music can bring can inspire and/or effect our emotions us in multiple of ways and music can also lead us to worship.  When I listen to music on the bike trainer my top choices on a playlist would include:

1. Lecrae - Christian Rap
2. Trip Lee - Christian Rap
3. Skillet - Hard Christian Rock
4. Thousand Foot Krutch - Christian Rock
5. Kutless - Christian Rock
6. Linkin Park - Rock
7. Drowning Pool - Metal/Hard Rock
8. Three Days Grace - Hard Rock
9. 116 Clique - Christian Rap
10. Flame - Christian Rap

As you see I love to listen to of Hard/Metal Rock, Christian Rock and Christian Rap. Believe it or not the beats of the Christian rap music these days is far superior to the secular ones you hear on the radio and mtv today, with cleaner lyrics also.   I also heard Randy Travis released an new album called "Influence" and "Influence 2" so that maybe next. 

I'm excited to be part of this new team. The athletes on this team come from a wide variety of endurance and extreme sports.  I am eager to try out some of the other and newer products pretty soon including the waterproof headphone ipod shuffle to mix in my swim workouts. You can view my team bio here. 

I'm looking forward to representing Team X-1 Audio with my athletic endeavors. 

Kansas 5150

This time my Dad and I made a first time ever Father/Son road trip to Kansas 5150 for the weekend. Since the crash in Lubbock, my road rash took longer to heal than I thought would. Thanks to my N.P. I got a hold of some prescription cream but later had to go on antibiotics too. I ended up skipping out on a super fast field at the Shadow Creek Ranch sprint near Houston last week. 

Saturday morning we had big breakfast at the Global Cafe in downtown Lawrence of the main strip on Massachusetts St. This restaurant is where all the cyclist, yo-gist, and hippies go. After that we went to the Clinton State Park Lake for an easy packet pickup trip and got in a short open water swim and bike ride on the course. 

Race morning there were all these moths around transition and several at the edge of the lake as we walked in for the swim. I was in the amateur elite division and we were a small group of just 12 guys. Most of these guys could really swim in the 20-22 min range for 1500 meters. I had pretty bad swim and shouldn't have been that slow. It was barely wetsuit legal and honestly too hot. I would love to see USAT lower the wetsuit rule down to 76 degrees. I exited the water in just over 27 min. 

I had no idea how fast I was going on the bike as I was running a straight chronograph mode on Calley's Timex watch I'm using right now until I replace mine. Some would agree the bike course was long but that's ok with me. I finished the "40K" ride in over an 1:07. 

I felt really solid on the run and felt I was running fast on the two loop course. However my split was 36:44. Putting me 10th in the amateur elite division.  

These weren't the results I was looking for I swam, bike, and ran slow while the other guys were simply much faster. It's ok, I've been mostly on a taper mode since Lubbock and due to the crash. Time to suck it up and prepare for the next one. I'm thankful that God helped my Dad and I travel safe and my leg is pretty  much healed up. My Parents and Wife for always supporting me and my support from the Cobb Mobb by Cobb Cycling, Extremus, and X-1 Audio Teams!

Fresh15 Monday Motivational 7.21.14

The Fresh15 a local road race, but one of the very best and well managed road races to do in the East Texas area are introducing local runners every Monday. I was the first one to go. The Fresh 15k is in March, if you can make it out. You won't be disappointed. 

"We are proud to present our FIRST ever #MotivationalMonday piece, spotlighting local triathlete William Ritter."

More about William....

• How long have you been running? I've been running since 1996. My PE teacher would have us run laps around the playground field and I would usually start last and try to catch everyone. I entered a few field day competitions and won the 800 meter by a split second. I was always a shy kid growing up and so I missed the opportunity to be on the 7th grade junior high team, but my mom talked to the principal and I signed up for the Marine Corps 5k. I was 12-years-old at the time and can still remember my time  - 21:21. After that I joined the Longview Running Club and the Carthage Bulldogs Junior High School Team.
• What motivaties you to continue even when it's hard? I'm super competitive and love the daily grind of what training brings.
• Do you have any tips to share with newbie runners? Start very easy at first and get your bones and muscles adapted first before adding too much. A run/walk plan is great to build up your endurance. Example: 10 minutes of 1-minute jog/2-minute walk. Total time would be 30 minutes. Don't rush the process, everyone is different.
• Do you have any rituals that help you prepare for race day? I used to be more ritualistic but not so much anymore. I do ice baths about once a week at the end of a hard week and try to get in an epsom salt bath in the middle of race week. I also try to incorporate some light stretching and foam rolling about every day.
• William graduated from UT Tyler in 2007 with a degree in Health & Kinesiology. He was the 5th man on a very fast cross country team in 2006, having run at East Texas Baptist University prior to UT Tyler. He moved back to Tyler this year and recently married his best friend, Calley Borocz, in March. William says, "I love the tight-knit community here."

Palo Duro Camping Trip

Last weekend my Wife and I made a camping trip to the Palo Duro Canyon out near Amarillo, Tx. We did some hiking and mountain biking. Thanks to Jonathan Johnson for letting me borrow his Trek mountain bike so Calley and I could both mountain bike.  We had an excellent time --- but we did call our trip short due to the stinging  horse flies that come out during the day.  

These are the most aggressive flies ever and they showed no remorse. They chased us on our bikes biting us on our legs and even on the rear through our clothes. 

                                       

The scenery was pretty amazing out there. Driving out there it is super flat then all of sudden you enter this massive canyon.   

                                      

The first day there we did some exploring and climbed into this little rock cave and about an hour before sunset on this little trail we came across probably 6-8 tarantula's.   

Believe it or not these little critters are super fast! 

The next day we did the Lighthouse trail a 6 mile hike. At the very end of it you are literally crawling on your way on these rocks to get to the top. We survived it! 

The Rock Garden trail would become my nemesis as I attempted to try to mountain bike up trail. It was labeled as a "difficult" trail. How bad can it be? I've mountain biked in some woods in Tyler before and did ok. This was something else it was so steep there were plenty of times I couldn't pedal any  more and the front tire would lift up and I would have to jump off or crash. The switchbacks were so sharp I couldn't make those. The Rock Garden Trail is a little over 2 miles long, I made it up just over a mile before I thought I might die out here if I don't turn around --- going down was somewhat easier, but only somewhat. I did more walking than riding this trail.  I went back to ride with Calley after that and we chose "easier" trails to say the least we didn't know what we were in for as it turned out to be pretty rough. Calley did have a better crash record than me 0-3. I lost control hitting some sand, then I ran into a small tree, finally a horse fly bit me on the butt and I lost control trying to swipe it off and fell over in this slice your hand bush. We couldn't drink enough water, gatorade, and nuun out there it was so hot. I saw a temperature of a 105 degrees. 

We did  have a full moon both nights out there which still made it scenic at night. 

The next day I would go pay the Rock Garden back with a run up the trail. Steep it was my average pace the whole time was 9:02 per mile. The Rock Garden would still knock me down as I tripped over a rock coming down and landing on my "bad" side.  

We did get some other animals and critters:  

This was a very sick bunny we found limping across the one of the trails. Calley has a good heart and tried to save it but it was too late and we had to lay it to rest.  

 We only saw one horned frog the whole trip.

A dragon fly did a face plant into the mud. 

One of the many lizards we saw. Some of these had some very long tails.  

 Overall, we had a great time! I can't wait for our next camping trip. 

Buffalo Springs 70.3

Cobb Mobb departing from HQ. My flip flops broke just before this.

Coming off Kansas 3 weeks ago, I was once again ready to race. We had a good road trip to Lubbock where seven of us stayed in a house together. Ryan & Cori Moore who both had a great races were nice to carry my bike with them as we were loaded down. When left alone with these two  my bike "The Spanish Beauty" becomes a freak. 

This was my fifth time to do this race, regardless how well you came off your last race this course deservers a lot of respect and it can and it will humble you. As expected this course is hilly, windy, and hot. It turned into one of the most toughest years. People were melting and having epic blowups. Our swim was with the 25-29 and 30-34 year old age groups. That is a lot of high testosterone starting at the same time. I got off to a decent start or so I thought. I jumped on Seth Cooke's feet for maybe about 10 seconds.  My swimming rhythm has been coming along well. I do wish I had started out more aggressive. The lake temperature was 75 degrees which got warm quick with a wetsuit. Our age group was the last age group wave to go and they were sending the waves off really close together, so the course became really crowded and somewhat hard to get around some other swimmers. I finished in 32:17 a second best half iron swim for me, but it felt worse.  It was a lot more crowded than Kansas was.  I still need to work on staying on those faster feet at the beginning. This put me in 16th with the 30-34 males.

The bike the course takes a hard left and it's straight up a steep hill as soon as you start. Since I know it gets hot here I'm sipping on my water and sports drink every 10 minutes and taking water at the aid stations on the bike when I could catch some water.  My goal was to get a strong bike in but not to over-bike it. The wind here was tough averaging 18 mph with high winds 30 mph with gust of 35 mph. Out here there is nothing to protect you from the wind, no East Texas pine trees out here.  On a flat section about 23 miles into the bike or about an hour into it we were experiencing a strong crosswind pushing us and I was riding about 25 mph when all of sudden and for no real explanation flew off my bike and skidded into the ditch. I'm not sure if I hit something or if the wind blew me off. I quickly gathered myself passed everyone who just rode by  me. Not long later after this bizarre crash my hands started cramping then my adductors and finally the quads by the end of the ride. This maybe due to most of my blood was going to my banged up right leg. The bike course also contained two staircase like climbs and descents. Going down was fun as I was being about aggressive as I could be and almost ran over someone as I was testing my brakes and almost didn't make a tight turn with a fence on the other side of the road. My bike was just under 2:37, one of my slowest bikes ever but it still put me in number 6th in my age group with Seth Cooke, my buddy just up the road. I was thinking if I could pull out a solid run I would be able to catch him, but Seth is super strong and knows how to suffer a lot. I knew because of history (Prairieman Half Iron 2010 - DNF) with cramps in my legs like this only an hour into the bike this run coming up was not going to be pretty.

My initial plan for the run was not to run any faster than a 6:15 starting out as I paid the price in Kansas for going a little fast even though it felt comfortable and my heart rate was reading low numbers it added up quickly after the huge hill there.  I was already rethinking that coming off the bike with the leg cramps I was having a 6:30 would be acceptable today. When I actually started running I wasn't anywhere near that and I knew it was about to be a long day, legs didn't want to go and I was having a hard time keeping my breath under control. I definitely respect more people who run half marathons in over 2 hours now.

Just after this pic was an epic blow up. 

 I kept trying to run but it wasn't working out today.  I came close pulling a DNF but for some reason kept going forward. My boy Phil Royston caught me almost near the halfway point on the run and I stayed with him the rest of the way. At first I thought I was helping him out then by the end of it he was helping push me. As I also struggled with my calves cramping up. It got pretty bad by the last mile or two and I was pretty determined to finish with Phil. We crossed the line together and gave each other a fist bump. Phil finished 7th in his age group and I finished 12th in mine. I never saw him after that the rest of the time I was there.

running to the finish with Phil. 

Stacy McKinney caught one of my finer moments at the race. Once I finished I got treatment on my leg and an IV.

While this one didn't go to plan I'm ready to fight next one....just kidding. I'm working on trying to get my  road rash healed up so I can get back out there to fight another one. The next planned race is Shadow Creek Ranch sprint tri with my boy Jeremy and then Kansas 5150.  Praise God, this crash (again) wasn't serious as it could have been a lot worse.  Thanks to the Cobb Mobb team by Cobb Cycling and the Extremus Team for backing me up. Also my Wife for always supporting me and who is taking care of my road rash too and pouring that lovely hydrogen peroxide all over it as she gets to watch me scream like a little girl.