Carlos and I are a husband and wife team chasing a dream! We are both Certified Personal Trainers and have been involved in health and fitness our whole lives. We are both very competitive in nature! Carlos rode bulls all through his teenage years up until his mid 30’s. (He is now 40.) He competed in the College, Open and Pro levels. I probably started to play sports straight out of my mother's womb! : ) I was involved in everything from Soccer, Ballet, Tap and Jazz, Softball, Basketball, Track and Field, and my old time favorite, Volleyball! In 2009 I had a hip and knee injury that didn't allow me to run anymore. This led us to purchase our first set of mountain bikes, not really planning to even ride off-road as my background in cycling was extremely limited. Carlos grew up riding a bike through out nearly his entire childhood so he had somewhat a bit of experience from his BMX bike. Now me on the other hand, I was fortunate enough to have a nine speed bike growing up, which at the time I had no idea who or why anyone would need that many gears on a bike! Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was only allowed to ride my bike from one stop sign to the other and our street was completely flat! : ) So now, 20 years later we find ourselves talking about nothing but bikes everyday. Those first set of mountain bikes that I mentioned earlier were the beginning of this amazing journey. After having the bikes for only three months, Solavaca Ranch owner, Mack Hargrave convinced us to enter our first race. We were skeptical because of our lack of experience, but then again, life's too short so what did we have to lose? This is what started it all, from V-Brakes to Disk Brakes, from Hardtails to Full-Suspension, from Aluminum to Carbon, from 26 inch wheels to 29, from baggies to spandex, from knee pads to skin suit, from Cat 3 to Cat 1, from Cat 1 to Pro...ok, you get the picture! We are part of an amazing and supportive team, Plano Athletic Cycling Club or "PACC," whom has helped us to grow as racers and riders. But most important without our faith in God along with the constant guidance and support of my amazing husband and coach, I never in a million years would have pictured myself living our lives the way that we do now. I can truly say that cycling has changed our lives forever! What started as a hobby has become a lifestyle. From being scared and skeptical on that first race, today I have set a goal for myself to become a Professional Mountain Biker! We gladly invite you to follow us on this quest as we update with race reports, pictures, training, recipes, and all the other fun stuff in between!
"I Can Do All Things Through Christ Who Strengthens Me"
Philippians 4:13
First things first, Happy Friday!! I hope everyone has had a great week! We are on the road to Comfort, Tx for race #2 of the TMBRA series. Training was good this week and the forecast once again looks promising for another awesome race! We’re camping this time and I can’t wait! We both love that part about racing!
Ok, now guess what?!? Next weekend, what was going to be just race #3 of the series has now turned into the most important race of my life…so far. For those of you who don’t know and haven’t checked our Facebook page, my license has been upgraded to PRO!! Now I can compete in the Pro Mountain Bike Cross Country Tour (Pro XCT)! God is so amazing and He keeps blessing us with all these opportunities! The old saying states, where there is a will there is a way, but really, when it’s His will there is definitely a way! Now I’m sure if you have read the “About Us” part of our blog you know that things have happened SO fast! So, is his overwhelming? ABSOLUTELY! But it is definitely EXCITING! Now we all know how important sleeping is for training, and this news has sure kept me awake! LOL : ) A new element has been added to our training…outreach. This outreach is to help us afford traveling and racing. But I tell you what, two weeks ago we had no idea this was going to happen so soon. So if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. We’re going to continue to do what we’ve been doing, trusting in Him!
So on that note, we hope you guys have an awesome weekend and get to enjoy some beautiful weather wherever you are! Stay posted for a race recap and pictures!
P.S. Lalla, we’re working on a Plopper fan page ; )
Well, we got a pretty steady flow of rain this weekend. It started Friday evening all the way up until Saturday evening. We managed to beat the rain Friday and got us in an awesome dirt ride at the only trail open in the metroplex. We totally lucked out on that one! So while it was raining there was nothing better than giving “the girls” a bath….
and fix them up with new bike parts!!!! Our new XX Cassettes!
And then of course torture ourselves on the trainer, but we don’t really need to see pictures of that! ; )
Now let me introduce you to the third member of Team Uranga…
This is Plopper!!! And yes, this is a bacon treat on his head…this is also what we do when it is raining! : ) Anyway, hope everyone had a great weekend! Only four more days until we head out to Comfort, Tx for the second race of the spring series! Woo hoo!
Hi guys! I hope everyone has had a great week so far! After a super cold race weekend, the temperatures have been AMAZING this week! We have been able to get in some really great training rides in this beautiful weather! Today is our day off, so as I promised here are more pictures from the Warda Race, even more will be coming this weekend…I hope you guys like them!!!
Well, Winter decided to show up on the first race weekend! Holy Moses it was 30 something degrees and felt like 20 something! I don’t know about you guys, but I come from the El Paso desert and that was COLD!!! So we drove into town midday Saturday to pre-ride a couple of laps. The trail had quite a bit of rain about a week or a week and a half before this race, and not to mention a 12 hour race last weekend in the muddy mess. Thanks to all the Paydirters out there who put in several hours throughout the week to get the trail in tip-top amazing shape! It couldn’t have been any better to rail corners and pedal your bike! Based off our pre-ride I knew this was going to be a FAST race, and it was! Normally we would campout, but with this crazy weather we dished out the extra cash for a motel. In the morning we had the motel breakfast of champions….WAFFLES! Our start time was 11am, but several guys and gals on our team were starting at 9am so we rolled out early to cheer them on.
There ended up being five other girls lined up with me at the starting line. One was Jessica Rawlins who is the 2011 Cat 1 19-39 State Champion, and the other was Christina Gokey-Smith, Jessica’s coach and also Professional Road Racer for NOW and Novartis for MS cycling team. This was also the first time that they launched a group of guys with us girls at the start. Not only that, but there seemed to be no countdown at the start, just a loud, “GO!” It all caught me by surprise and I missed my pedal badly. As I fumbled around trying to get clipped in on this uphill start all the guys behind me started passing and I got caught in the middle of it all not being able to move up in the field. As soon as it opened up a little bit I charged to bridge the gap the best I could back to Christina and went into the single track in 3rd right behind Jessica. This is pretty much how the entire race was. Since Christina had the hole shot we went into the trail already behind. Jessica and I flip-flopped a few times holding 2nd and 3rd place the whole race. I felt great! Jessica was in front of me as we entered the last section of single track and I knew I had to stay as close to her wheel as possible if I was going to be able to have a chance at taking second. The final right hand turn popping out of the trail came quick and so did the finish line! There just weren’t enough yards to out sprint her. We both made the turn, got off our saddles and sprinted, and she crossed the line one second in front of me! It was such an AWESOME race! Christina finished one minute and thirty seconds in front of us.
Carlos’ field was 42 deep. There was a small crash about 100 yards from the start that he got tangled behind and ended up going into single track about 36th. He did the best he could to pass as many guys as he could and ended up in 19th. His legs felt great and sometimes things out of your hands will get in the way. All in all this race is a great benchmark to know how much our winter training has paid off!
Here are just a few pics and we will have more to come!!!
Tomorrow morning we are heading out to Warda, Tx for the season opener in the Texas Mountain Bike State Championship Series. It’s been a wonderful winter of awesome, yet strangely warm, winter weather, perfect for training! The forecast for this weekend looks promising. So far there are four women signed up in the Pro/Open Category and I know for a fact this race is going to be tight because Texas doesn’t joke around when it comes to women and bikes! Carlos has some steep competition in Cat 1 40-49 with 22 guys so far. Wish us luck and stay posted as we bring back a race report and some photos!
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