Since I moved to Texas, I’ve decided to embrace the new flatness of life and take up biking. While living in Utah I was a bit intimidated by the mountain passes and single track trails that my friends powered up and barreled down respectively. But Texas presented new challenges to the biker: we call it the F-350 truck.
Here there are few places to ride where I don’t fear getting nudged off the road by monster trucks. But, happily, the training while riding to and from work leads to some sweet organized bike rides that present a great challenge.
Two weeks ago I did the Muddy Buddy in Dallas, TX. This is an 8 mile course, of which I ran half and mountain biked half. Along the course there were five military obstacles, the last of which was an army crawl through a pit of mud. My friend Dave was my partner, and we had a great time training for the race in separate cities, and challenging each other when I’d visit Dallas for business. As race day approached we both kicked up our training. The weather was on our side, and the overcast days allowed us to run up to 5 miles without getting heat stroke. I was quite jazzed for the race, and it was a total blast. I’m already looking for other courses like this for next year.

100 messy feet to end it

Victory!
As if last weekend wasn’t enough, I signed up for the Tour de Donut in Katy this last weekend. The day after Halloween was a rough sell to my friends, but a few of the ladies joined me for 56 miles on the road bikes.

Alex, Kristin, Luwannah, and Leanna
The Tour de Donut also sponsors a race, but we decided to do the longer ride. For the race, riders travel 28 miles and eat donuts from Shipley’s at each rest stop. For each donut you eat, they subtract six minutes from your race time. So, long story short many riders finish with negative times by downing 30 donuts. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it!

They saved a few donuts for us 56 milers!
All in all, it was a great ride. I enjoyed the time with the girls, and fruit and donuts are great in my book. I wish I could pretend to be a tough girl, but honestly I could barely walk that evening. Luckily, Kim is a great long distance coach and instructed me how to care for my achy muscles and tender ligaments. I’m back in action and already hassling the boys to ride to work this week. We always need One Less Car on the road.

