4 States Triathlon 2008

Chancey Deller came away as the overall winner in this years 4 States Triathlon with a time of 57:57 a minute and 49 seconds ahead of second place. Not bad considering he puked twice during the race.

Sydni Barnhart won 1st place in the 15 and under division with a time of 1:21:12 which would have given her 1st in the 16-19 division and she would have still placed 2nd in the 20 to 24 division.Eric Deller came home with 2nd place in the 25-29 division with a time of 1:01:46. I expect the next time that Eric and his brother meet at a triathlon that Eric will do whatever it takes to come out on top.

Lisa Barnhart accepting her 4th place trophey with a time of 1:27:25 which you might notice is nearly 6 minutes slower than her daughter Sydni. Lisa and I couldn't have been more proud to have her beat us both so badly. I don't need to publish my time here you will have to do your own research to see how poorly I finished.

Shelley Beaty bested the competition in the 35-39 division with a time of 1:14:06. Shelley also beat another close competitor and training partner of hers for the first time. Mike Laborde and Donna relaxing after the race. Donna was a great volunteer and she stood out among the title sponsors volunteers from Hooters.
It was a great day for a race and a good time was had by all the after party was steller as always for results follow this link http://www.doitsports.com/results/page.tcl?id=193832

Products That Don't Suck

By Devon Ratcliff CI-CPT

Periodically I will be testing various products of lesser popularity that we carry. Those that don’t suck will be featured here.
I was surprisingly impressed by the Precor S3.21 home strength training system. I’ve spent a lot of time working out in different gyms and health clubs and, until now, I hadn’t seen a home gym that I’d actually recommend. Needless to say I was very skeptical about this machine, almost to the point of wanting to not like it. One exercise at a time the S3.21 began to change my mind.
One can perform over twenty five different exercises using the S3.21, and a detailed wall chart of these exercises is included. What I find most surprising is the fact that back extension (roman chair) is one of the exercises. A few of the exercises took a little getting used to as I’ve been spoiled by the stand alone units for each exercise, and/or free weights at the gym. Once I got past the fact that I was not at a health club and that this unit only requires 6’6” by 5’of floor space, I was able to perform each of the exercises listed on the wall chart with ease. The S3.21 didn’t whine, squeak, cry, or rattle a single time during my workout, which is a lot more than I can say for my body.
The S3.21 (with the heavy weight stack and leg press option) is truly a total body workout. I’ve never been convinced that one could attain a “Bowflex body” using any home gym, but working out on the S3.21 has definitely got me rethinking that opinion. I would highly recommend the Precor S3.21 home strength training system to anyone looking to achieve or maintain a respectable level of fitness.

Superbowl Ride

For the past several years we have been getting a group of people together to ride on Superbowl Sunday. The ride starts in the morning at one of our homes or more correctly we gather in the morning the riding doesn't typically start until about noon or so. This year we gathered at my house for bloody mary's and a couple of breakfast beers. Once we had a good group gathered up we loaded up for our ride. The typical Superbowl ride bike isn't your typical road bike as the ride takes us down sidewalks over curbs and through ditches most people opt to ride their moutain bikes. However, for style points and style is important in this ride several people this year rode thier cruiser bikes, single speed coaster brake bikes with nice wide balloon tires for a smooth carefree ride. Our journey took us nearly 4 blocks down the road to Steve and Nancy's house where we parked ourselves in their driveway and wouldn't leave until we either convinced them to ride with us or until we drank their fridge dry. We were unsuccesful in recruiting Steve and Nancy into riding with us although we were very close to bringing them down to our level, they had a prior commitment to rode ride with Mark Lane. As a peace offering or just to get us out of thier driveway they graciously gave us a fresh ice cold bottle of Jagermister straight out of the freezer. Our next stop had begun as a tradition for us last year and I think we just crashed the party this year as I don't know if we were actually invited. A friend of Mike Laborde's has a great "Man Town" in the form of a very nicely finished metal shop behind his house. Man Town consists of a pool table, poker table, large screen TV, beer fridge, recliner and a whole host of other ammenties that any man would envy. We enjoyed this well deserved rest stop after the 4 hard miles that we had put in to make it to this point on our journey. After departing Man Town we made our way to David and Kristine Plants brand new home in fact they had moved in just the night before so we gave their neighbors a first hand look at what they will be up against in the years to come. Steve, Nancy, Mark and Dwight caught up to us at David's house, I didn't realize that one speed cruisers, mountain bikes and a bike loaded down with a trailer would be faster than an Itailan road bike but I guess when you put that type of team together there is no defeating a team so dedicated to the sport. We finished our ride at Devon's house where Devon pulled out the skateboards and we all proceeded to injure ourselves in one way or another. The first run, no problem, Devon, Brandon, and I bomb down the hill with agility and grace wowing the spectators glaring out their breakfast nooks and peaking through their blinds. Upon completion of our first run Devon decided that we were accomplished enough to tackle and even larger and longer hill. Little did we know that the hill would end up "tackling" us. Devon rode the hill with the grace of a Eli Manning scrambling out of the pocket compared to Brandon and I's exhibition. Brandon was behind Devon but ahead of me when things started to take a turn for the worse as reported by Brandon. I guess the speed generated by the steeper longer hill influenced the dynamic stability of the board and through no fault of his own the board began to break loose of Brandon leaving him no choice but to take a sack face first hands down onto the asphalt. The most unfortunate part of the wreck according to Brandon was that no one got the chance to see it. If there are any witnesses out there that did see this please come forward with your account of the events. I came around the corner passing an injured Brandon being helped off the field by Devon. I was able to make the first turn and was gaining speed up to the second turn when it became evident that I was not going to scramble my way out of this situation so I found a nice soft place to take a dive, even landing on the turf I did suffer a little bit of turf rash but I was able to shake it off to play again. The ride ended at Devon's with each of us licking our wounds and going our separate ways looking forward to next years ride.

Wheelie Clinic

Brandon, Mark and I put on a little wheelie clinic for those at the Hamby trail this past weekend. As you can see Brandon had some difficulty getting much vertical lift under his front wheel and not much distance. Mark came up behind him with better vertical and held the wheel off the ground quite a bit longer. Both Mark and Brandon were not committed enough to their wheelies as they were not riding clipped in. I on the other hand wanted to give all that I had to the demonstration of the wheelie, being fully clipped in, I wanted to get as close to vertical as possible and hold on regardless of the results. As you can see I preformed not only a well executed wheelie but a full 180 to finish off the demonstration. Come out to the trail next week when we demonstrate at speed tree hugging.

Wonderland Run 5k

The Wonderland Run 5k held every year in Marshall, TX it is a nice run starting and ending at the Marshall Courthouse. The course winds its way through Marshall giving you a chance to check out the lights along the way.
Jeff Soape threw down an impressive time to bring home a 3rd place ribbon for Longview. Not to be out done Harrison Beaty also pulled off an impressive 3rd place finish in his first Wonderland Run. We look for many good things to come from Harrison in the near future. Congratulations Harrison!
The Beaty family dominated this race with Amanda placing an impressive 5th place in a very competitive field. I look for Amanda to come back next year and blow away the competition. Way to go Amanda!Shelly Beaty came home with the most accolades from the Wonderland Run for the Beaty family with a time besting all but one in her age group to come home with 2nd. Speaking with Shelly she said that she trains all year for this race and expects to come out on top next year. This being Shelly's "A" race of the year she plans to double up her training to come out on top next year with plans for 2 IronMan's and a HalfMaxx championship just to be in prime shape for the 2008 Wonderland Run.

White Rock Marathon/Half Marathon Dallas 2007

Here we are decked out in our new Crown Royal vests for Brandon and I, and a Crown cape for Mikey. Fuel belts were filled with Crown Royal but do to an oversight on my part we didn't have any mixer we were able to improvise at the first aid station, turns out Crown and Gatorade make a great combination. Our race stats are as follows: 5 Crown stops 1 bathroom break for Mikey 1 beer stop at a spectators house followed by a short photo shoot and 1 twisted ankle at mile 7 or 8 on my part but was able to walk it off in a couple of blocks. Finishing time 2:12:44 10:08 pace

Group of first time Half marathoners except for Shelly on the left she is the veteran, it was her daughter Amanda's first next to her my niece Mallory's first as well as Sydni, Donna, and Annette's. Sydni and Shelly ran together for the whole race with the rest of the ladies running together until Amanda told them she was feeling good and ran off on her own. Mallory held on with Donna and Annette until about mile 10 when she started having knee problems and found an aid station. It wasn't a great surprise that she was having a bit of trouble as she said that she hadn't ran at all in the past year. Mallory did catch a ride to within a 1/2 mile of the finish and had them drop her off so she could run across the finish line so she covered the distance maybe next time there won't be a vehicle involved.
A view of the race start with about 5300 participants for the 1/2 Marathon
Shelly and Sydni Smiling big for the camera.

Shad Hicks and Clint Funderburk of Longview both competed in the Marathon, this was Clint's first marathon and Shad's second in less than a month after completing his first in Tulsa, OK just a few weeks prior to the White Rock Marathon. Pat Stevens also did the Marathon with a great time of something like 3:24 we don't know the exact time as he forgot his chip. Although, had he been wearing his chip his time would have qualified him for Boston. Congratulations to all who participated in this race look forward to seeing you all back again next year.

Longhorn Half Iron Distance 2007

Shad and I going over our game plan for our first Half Iron Distance Triathlon.
Jeff fresh off of his great finish at IronMan Canada in the middle of his post IronMan recovery. What better recovery than doing a Half Iron Distance tri? Jeff and his wife Shelly both went on to win a spot at the HalfMax National Triathlon in Las Vegas, NV October 2008.
My plan of spending 1 hour and 9 minutes in the water to give my competition a false sense of security is really paying off, you don't see anyone behind me.
Lisa with a big smile on her face because she can see me just ahead of her coming out of the water. The only problem for me is I left about 25 minutes before her. Just starting out on the run my plan of lulling the rest of the field into a false sense of security worked well until my flat on the bike and my slow shuffle on the run gave my competition a Real sense of security. Now that my plan was shot I might as well pose for the camera if you aren't going to have a good race you may as well look good doing it.