Country Roads 10k

On September 20, 2008, Lisa, her friend Melissa, and I ran the Country Roads 10k in San Marcos, TX. After the disaster that was the Nike Human Race 10k, I was a little nervous going in and decided to take it easy.

Unlike the Nike race, the Country Road race was held in the morning, so it was about 20 degrees cooler than the Nike at 70 degrees. After so many days of upper 90s to 100 degrees, I felt very cold.

During the race I felt wonderful. Since I wake up so early in the morning to go to work, I normally run during the hottest part of the day. So a cool early morning run put in a Zen state pretty early. After I made a turn on an out and back section of road around mile 4, I saw Melissa was not to far behind me. So I kicked it down a gear until mile 5 when my back started to hurt. I ended up finishing with a time of 48:30, which was good enough for eighth place in my age group out of 16 people. Melissa won her age group. Lisa did well finishing sixth out of 21 in her age group.

After the race, we treated ourselves to a day at Schlitterbahn. Nothing beats a day at the water park after a good run.

RIP Marin Hawkhill

As you all have read, during my last mountain bike race I crashed, and bent my derailleur hanger. Well, after closer inspection with the hanger removed from the frame, we found that the frame was also bent. My bike frame is aluminum and can not easily be bent back. Also, Marin has discontinued making that particular type of hanger. Therefore, my Marin Hawkhill has been deemed toast.

I have replaced it with a new shiny 2008 model Mongoose Canaan Comp. Before you ask me if I purchased my new bike at Wal-Mart, I would like to tell you "NO". Mongoose has a full line of bikes. The bikes at Wal-Mart are their very low end bikes. The Canaan is their line of cross country race bikes.

I considered the new aluminum 2009 Scott Spark, but a Scott with the same components as the Mongoose ran $1,200 more. So I thought I could live without the Scott name.

Anyway, I am very pleased with my new bike, since it is a huge upgrade compared to my old bike. Though, I will say that I did love that Marin.

2008 Nike Human Race 10K

August 31, 2008 Nike Human Race 10K

Yes, after my mountain bike race I drove to Austin, TX to be w ith Lisa. Yes, I ran the 10K. Yes it really hurt, but I would do it all over again.

I was not planning on running the race, but after I spent some time walking around down town Austin with Lisa, I got excited about the race.

I did not bring my running shoes, but Nike had a demo booth. As long as I was entered into the race, Nike would loan me a pair a shoe for the race using my ID as collateral. When they asked what shoe I wanted, I told them any shoe for a neutral striker. They gave me a slightly used pair of Nike Zoom Vomero3. I was set to race.

At the time of the start of the race, it was in the 90s with high humidity. I was going to try and run alongside Lisa, but after 3 miles I started to cramp. I ended up doing a lot of walking to get through to the end. I was frustrated, but after the race, Nike let me keep the shoes.

In the end, I ended up with a free pair of shoes, a cool shirt, 10 power bars, Nike socks, and a Nike towel. Not bad. The race was worth it.

Camp Eagle Mountain Bike Festival 2008

August 31st, 2008 Camp Eagle Classic Mountain Bike Festival

As you can tell from the pictures, I now race for Team Sage Cycles. I was having a great race, and was somewhere in the top 10, but I ended up crashing.

Earlier in the race I hit a rock, and bent my rear derailleur hanger. Therefore, I only had 3 gears I could shift into. They were low gears so I could climb well, but would spin out during the downhills.

Eventually, I burped out all the air in my front tire on a drop, and went endo. I tried to repair my tire, but my CO2 cartridge was a dud so I could not finish the race. This was very disappointing since it was the best mountain bike race of my life up to this point.

Anyway, at least I have a few good pictures in rememberance of the race.