The summer is nearly gone and I know this because my current athletic focus is less than two months away and it is in October!  It has been a couple years since I focused on a long race in the first part of October.  I have not been to Kona since 2009. The three recent years I have been done competing the first week of September, I was at Ironman Wisconsin or Rev3.

So my next race is Furnace Creek 508. It is a 508 mile solo (they have teams categories) bike race across the deserts of Southern California during which I am required to have a support crew. It is one of the largest solo ultra-cycling races in the world with 72 on the start list. This is my first solo event where I am utilizing a crew. I have been eying this race for several years and these are the goals/dreams:

Content- with just finishing.

Happy- with sub 31 hours.

Very Happy- with sub 30 hours and top 3

Ecstatic- winning with any time below 30 hours

AND IF CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT- I want to break the course record of 27 hours and 15 minutes held by duathlon great, Kenny Souza which will require an 18.5 mph average.

This event is a long time coming. Ironman training really was my ultra-cycling beginning, because I often pushed it farther and faster than most for normal ironman training. Here are some classic examples:

Jan 2005- Rode with road cycling bad-ass Paul Walnuts Ward for 123 miles for fun in my prep for IM Arizona.

May 2006- I got lost at the east coast Mountains of Misery double century. I literally rode into West Virginia and over an additional mountain pass making my double metric century into 156 miles!

May 2007- Rode a 300k brevet with Lara’s prep for PBP 2007. I got caught up in a course record run and we went 9:27, smokin fast for an unsupported 186 mile bike ride (19.6 mph even with stops)

August 2010- Rode a 400k brevet to get myself priority when registering for PBP 2011.

May 2011- Rode 300k, 600k, and 400k in back to back to back weekend so I could qualify for PBP 2011 and also be able to taper for Ironman CDA. I did the 600k in less than 24 hours (yup, 349 miles in less than a day)

August 2011- Paris-Brest-Paris- 1230km in 48 hours and 46 minutes tied for 24th out of about 5000 starters. Although this is not a race, the first several hundred riders do race it from the start.

June 2012 and 2013- Took ultra-cycling to a different area with 8 man Team RAAM with Team4Mil

October 5-6 of 2013- Furnace Creek- the story has yet to be written. It would be great to set my 24 hour personal best by going well over 400 miles.

Suffering on the bike has always been pretty fun for me. I often find that I am not the fastest in the fast groups, but I know that as the day get longer, I grow stronger. Time to really test my mettle with some real racing and lengthy suffering.

This is my foray back to blogging regularly, but I wanted to start with talking about my athletic pursuits.  Wish me luck with that as I possibly conclude the RAAM 2012 journey, talk about upcoming coaching ventures and triathlon in the NCAA;  as well as, cover some other fun adventures in endurance and family life.