On January 29, I participated in a mountain bike race in the Texas hill country in Comfort, TX. I’ve ridden and raced there many times before and was looking forward to using this event has a tough training session on the road to Ironman Texas. The race was being held only about a month and a half after I started back from my off season break, and while I knew I wasn’t in race shape, I thought this would be a good opportunity to find out where my fitness level was at and if I had made any gains since the last time I visited the course.

Flat Rock Ranch is a huge chunk of land northwest of San Antonio off Interstate 10 with a ton of hills – most of which are pretty smooth and flowy. The course has it’s technical sections (especially the upper loop) but for the most part, it’s a really enjoyable ride. The race, called Miles of DisComfort, had two options, the long race was 52 miles, the short race was 26. I chose the 26. While most of the course is fun and flowy, 26 miles of hills is still tough and this was only supposed to be a training ride.

The race started at 9am (awesome, I got to sleep in) and was pretty crowded. There were about 200 people total – about 100 in each race. I started in the middle of the pack and just focused on keeping my cadence high and my pace constant. I noticed the first change in myself after I completed a steep and twisty uphill segment known as The Pipeline. The last time I raced the course, this section kicked my butt in hard. This time around, I navigated through all the uphill switchbacks and had a smile on my face at the top. It was going to be a good day.

I passed a few people and found a group that was riding about the same pace I was. I stayed with them for most of the rest of the race until one of the riders in the group and I slowly left the others behind. In the upper loop section of the course, about 3/4 of the way through, I noticed that I was still keeping up my cadence and pace. I was definitely tired (it had been over 2 hrs by this point) but my legs weren’t cramping up and they felt noticeably stronger in this area compared to the last time I raced there.

At the end I finished with the guy I had pulled away from the other group with and felt satisfied. My fitness level had improved dramatically – this was a confidence boosting day for sure. After loading up my bike I remembered to go check my race results – I ended up placing 13th over all! I missed the top 10 by only a few minutes! Not too bad for a training day!

Special thanks to Erin DeMarines and Tri3bar.com. Their Cocoa Crunch Energy bars provided some great fuel before the ride and a perfect blend of carbs, protein and fat for recovery afterwards. Awesome stuff! Thanks!