USARA Nationals 2009 Suunto Logs

Smartbelt Log


T6 Log* (includes altitude data**)


* pods not used due to race rigors
** T6 log stopped early due to full memory

Back on the Horse: Glen Rose Recap

I guess that now that all the insanity of the wedding has died down and racing season is pretty much coming to a slow close, I can get back to blogging. Then again, I doubt anyone really missed my entries—didn’t hear a peep from anyone during the past 3 or so months regarding it! Either way, I will try to keep this bad boy going for at least a little longer, but I would like a bit of input to know if anyone even reads this garbage!

So, lets see. I pretty much stopped communication right before the final sprint of the season—I’ll try to recap what I remember from the race. It was hot…again. We had to drive all the way out to Glen Rose, which was basically west and south of Dallas. Scottie was already there, so I met up with her and then did a preride of the course by myself since she had already previewed it. After a bit of screwing around at the race site, we retired to the hotel with Dave P.

Race was brutal because of the nasty climbs and the temps. It started off with a run with an immediate hill climb. It went alright and we were keeping a good pace and were still in the top pack by the time we got back to transition. We had to ride to the boat put in where we ran head on, literally, with a bad omen. I was towing Scottie on the bike down this jeep trail when all the sudden a cow starts barreling down at us! At first I figured it would see us and get out of the way…nope! It kept running towards us until, at the last second, we both veered away from each other! Damn cow was playing chicken! I escaped harm, but Scottie lost control and crashed. We collected ourselves, still wondering if that really happened, then continued to the boat drop.

We started off rough on the paddle as SOMEONE forgot their seat. :) Oh well, we would manage. We actually were paddling really strong; I seem to remember us being in the top 10 or something like that. We consistently started passing teams. We got back to the boat drop and had to lug that rubber duckie up the steep dropoff. We were back on our bikes and had to head back to transition—it was mandatory as a precaution against the heat, to give teams a chance to take on more water.

We start off on the bike and realize we are in front of iMOAT for probably the first time in the series! We tried to keep our lead, but the heat and hilly terrain was just too much for us. We had to actually turn it back a notch so that we didn’t blow a gasket. This was probably our slowest race. Somehow we make it through the course and get back to TA. We have one final leg, a special test. It was kinda wimpy as we had to put on and take off jerseys successively and that was it. We sprinted to the finish with all kinds of anguish showing on our faces. We finished 4th in the race and 4th overall for the entire season, which are both good considering the competition.

I stayed for the awards ceremony then left to Dallas to get Mo’s wedding band…and that was it. Drove back home from there and was back in time for dinner. The sprint series was over and I was pretty happy about it. So, I will stop there and start on the No Sweat race for the next entry. Whew, that was exhausting!

Glacier Backpack Rewind

K-SPoT's Bachelor Week Backpacking Adventure in Glacier at SpotAdventures

Map created by SpotAdventures:GPS Geotagging

I'm still working on uploading all the photos and the videos from my bachelor party week, but I did get a chance to use the Spot Adventures website to put together an interactive summary of our backpacking trip! Even cooler is that you can download a KML file and open it up in Google Earth and watch a playback of the tracks in 3D mode! Amazing! CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE THE MAP WIDGET TO CHECK IT OUT!

Glacier Backpacking Days 2 and 4 Suunto T6 Logs

Day 2: Triple Divide Pass Ascent:



Day 4: Pitamakan Pass Ascent:

Spokane Wedding Planning, Tele-CUS-ference, Glacier Triple Divide Pass and more...

Alright, Glen Rose blog will just have to wait until after I get back from my trip to the Pacific Northwest--just did not have enough time to put it together! In the meantime, here's a map of our itinerary through Glacier, and, more importantly, starting on Wednesday, July 22, you can track us using THIS LINK.

Glen Rose Sprint AR Suunto T6 Log

* events:

- 3.08mi run
- 0.72mi bike
- 1.64mi paddle
- 8.82mi bike
- special test

total = 14.26mi

** altitude about 160ft below actual
*** drops in HR reading possibly due to my heart giving out momentarily or strap slippage

Hot at Huntsville

Well, we knew this was the weather we would get on race day since its been like this for about the past month! Hot and humid! At least at Muleshoe it wasnt humid. It would be different at Huntsville, so we trained in the nastiness as much as possible to try and get acclimated to it...but who can really get totally acclimated to this damn weather?! So we started off the week after Muleshoe with HART training on Monday and Tuesday, I took the next couple of days off for no explainable reason, swim on Friday, trail bike on Saturday, and then another recon at Huntsville on Sunday. Dave P, Monica K, and Dennis P were there as well. I could stay for only one lap, so I tried to make the most of it and pushed the pace. I was sopping wet with sweat at the end. With that, I left them with the rest of their training session while I zipped back to the H to move stuff into my office in the new building.

Race week started with HART training on Tuesday and Thursday and I swam on Friday to keep the muscles loose. It was nice not having to drive on Friday and sleep in my own bed...but the risk was that it was a different routine. I was starting to get used to the leave work in the early afternoon, drive to race site, pre-ride, dinner, sleep routine. Oh well, my body would just have to deal with the increase in rest. I did go over to Whit and Aaron's to meet his parents, but we were back home by around 9 or so. The big "L" he signed over his forehead said it all, but I had to race early in the morning! I left with no remorse.

We got up early and made the drive north to exit 109. We were one of the first racers there, so I was able to save a good spot for all the HART teams--there would be a lot of us this time because it was so close to Houston. I think there were 17 or so teams from HART alone. Scottie went off to do her registration volunteer thing while I set up TA and re-rigged her bike...long story short, after borrowing Mo's bike after running over hers, she got hers back in time from the shop, just after wrecking Mo's and sending it to the shop. By the time I was all set up, TA was full with racers and pretty much all the HART teams were there.

After all the pre-race rituals, we were there at the starting line, in the front row again. I wanted to keep pace as long as possible with the top teams. With no fanfare, we were off! Pace was fast, but I was still feeling good. We again let the super fast go and kept a pretty good clip still, faster than the past races. We were actually in front of Keith and Bobby's team and the first place coed team in the series for once! But I knew with the heat my pace would most likely slow down a bit and it did. Scottie egged me on to tow faster, but I was going as fast as my legs would go--brain said, "go faster!", legs said, "hell no!" So we kept a steady, somewhat slower pace for the last portion of the run.

We made it back to TA still in front of a few of the fast teams and transitioned to the boat. This is where the real hell happened. We got in the boat relatively fast, but then I noticed something a bit different this time. There was a small amount of water in the boat. At first I figured that we must have just brought it in with our soaked shoes when getting in, but at the first turn at the observation stand, we were swamped with water! WTF?!? The boat wasnt going flat, so it wasnt that--I just couldnt figure out where the water was coming from! It eventually got up past my knees! I guess we could have stopped and bailed, but without knowing where it was coming from, I figured it would just fill up again. So we were paddling very hard just to keep us and our swamped rubber duckie moving forward. Normally we would be passing or keeping pace with the teams around us, but we were continuously getting passed like we were standing still! Frick! I was distraught, but with no other option I went into overdrive to no avail. We eventually made it back to shore, but not before being passed by almost 10 teams!

At this point I was spent from muscling that extra water around the lake. Still, I tried to mash on the bike to catch up to the other coed teams. We were still catching up to teams, but not at the furious pace that we usually do. Frank, on a coed masters team, for some reason called us out before the race even though we werent in the same category, so we kinda wanted to at least beat them this race as a goal since our primary one was out the door after that paddle. Scottie was doing great on the tow until one bumpy section dislodged the T.O.W. This wasnt a problem, but when she tried to reconnect, we hit a sandy spot and she was down. It was at this point that Raymund and Ferley passed us and spit on us as we lay in the dirt...okay, so they didnt spit on us and they did check to make sure we were okay.

We eventually got hooked back up and were moving, fast enough to catch Frank and Helena. I got ahead of myself and thought we needed to pass them as soon as possible so that we dont get caught behind them if they happen to crash. So, of course, instead, as we tried to pass we crashed and broke the tow. We tried to quickly get reattached, but the first crash had partly damaged the retracting device and as I started to roll on, the tow wire got tangled in my wheel and ripped the T.O.W. clean off my bike! Double Frick! Complete systems failure--that was it for towing that day. But it didnt seem to matter to Scottie--the whole incident seemed to spark a flame under her! She had had enough it seemed and she motored out of there with me keeping pace! We quickly caught back up with Frank and Helena and Scottie made the move and passed. There was no slowing her down now! We made it back to the finish straight and now it was down to the final special test.

My legs were just jello at this point. We had to run over to the swimming area, but before we could get into the water we had to scale this mountainous slide and slide down...okay, it just felt mountainous. We then waded through the lukewarm lake water which did not refresh us at all, but it did mean our race was soon over so I tried to trudge through it as fast as I could. We made it back to shore and it was back over the slide, backwards, and then a sprint to the finish. With that we were done.

We finished in just under 2hrs and got 4th place. Good, but we were hoping for better for sure! We had a great run and good bike...that damn boat! Oh well. We are now tied for 2nd place in the series. We now have one last race if we ever want to make a dramatic move up in the standings. Its highly unlikely, but we are still gonna give it our best shot. Glen Rose, feel our vengeance!