Busy! Busy! Busy! Between training others, training ourselves, and all the other fun stuff in between we’ve got a heck of a lot going on! So we apologize for the delay in race reports. Over three weeks ago we kicked off The Irving Criterium Series. So for the next six or seven months our Wednesdays will be set aside to hammer it as hard as we can for some awesome high intensity training! It’s been really cool to see such an improvement in our fitness from last year to this year. Last year was the first time we had raced a crit and I have such awful memories of just holding on for dear life, grasping for air, all in horror of getting dropped…which OF COURSE I did (and more than once)!!! : / Last year the “C”Race was my challenge, so of course I had to start with that again this year. When the race was over my body said, “OK, I’m ready to race now!” I felt like such a wimp for watching even the junior kids do the “C” Race AND THEN the “B” Race! LOL So the next week I stepped it up and did just the “B.” Again, I felt great and was so proud that I could hang on with their 25+mph speeds in a group of 70! This was a major stepping stone for both of us this season to be on the road in such a large group. Talk about different from racing solo in single track! Carlos has been doing awesome by racing both “B” and “A!”  I decided last week to bring on the suffering and follow his lead, so I entered the “A” Race also and hung on as long as I could. Last week my computer clocked both races at over 26 mph avg!  So far so good with the Wednesday night crits. We’re ready for another good one this week and temperatures have been awesome!

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A few weeks ago we raced in Coldsprings, TX at Double Lake Resort. We’ve done this race in the past so we knew what to expect out of the trail. There’s not much to it besides being on the gas the entire 12+ miles. I still can’t think of a single spot where you can let up. Not to mention a section of single track was taken out this year due to some major muddy spots and in place of it was a little over a mile of jeep road, besides the other sections of jeep road that were already in the course…hence the “being on the gas” part! Rumor is that some don’t like this race because it’s not technical enough. I personally think they don’t like this race because it is a true test of fitness. With that being said, the turn out was really small, not to mention there was also the famous Ouachita Challenge this same weekend out in Arkansas. I’ve never raced it before, but I heard it’s pretty awesome! Anyway, in my race there were only two of us. Kim was having trouble getting a new tire she had recently mounted to seal so she knew that this might cut her race short. Unfortunately it did so I was left racing solo. I didn’t know this so I kept trying to push my own pace so I could at least compare my time to the guys that were also doing three laps. I went into this race trying to turn in a solid time. At the end I was really happy about my performance and my time and how great our training is coming along.

Carlos’ race was a smaller race as well. He had sixteen guys in his field and nine out of the top ten in the TMBRA standings were in the line up. It was a very fast, fun race and Carlos took 11th place. He was disappointed because he’s been struggling with his starts and this race was no exception. It really cost him not to get a front position before going into the trees. All in all, his time was really solid and his fitness is definitely there! He knows he still has areas he needs to work on but ultimately it was a great day of racing!  We both thank God for every race or ride that we can walk away and tell you guys about!