We raced The Tour of the Tucson Mountains on Sunday, and it was amazing. The experience of the race was different for each of us on the team, so we’ll each tell our own stories our own ways. Mine will be a multi-parter, I’ve got way too much to say in one post. We started really gearing up for the race about two weeks ago. We were excited to put our training to the test and see how well the StrengthEngine program had been working. We ramped up our gym time and our time on the bike. We felt good and were looking forward to putting on a good showing for our sponsors.

On race day we got up at 3am, ate a huge breakfast, packed our gear, loaded our bikes, and headed to the start line in Marana. We got there about 5, race started at 6:30, so we had some time to kill. It was about 55 degrees that morning, so we stood around shivering until the sun came up. At about 6:15 we mounted our bikes, closed in on the start line (all 700 riders) and got ready for the 73 mile race. At 6:30 the horn blew, and we were off. The next 15 miles were the most intense, demanding, nerve wracking miles I’ve ever spent on a bike. The leaders spent this time breaking the pack, setting the pace, and dropping as many riders as they could. The StrengthEngine Test Team held on to the leaders for about 17 or 18 miles when about 15 riders broke away from the main group. A pack of around 50-60 of us tried to keep up but fell off, and we were the secondary group. The Test Team rotated through the front of that pack with about 7 or 8 other riders and set the pace. The next 30 miles were relatively uneventful. More riders dropped off the pack, and we rode at a steady pace, on track to finish in about 2 hours 50 minutes. We approached the intersection at Ajo Highway and Sandario Rd, and got ready to make a right turn. Police officers near the turn warned us of a cattle guard, so the pack swung out wide to the left for the turn. I crossed the guard and it felt like my left foot had come unclipped part of the way. I twisted my foot to get the clip out all the way, and it felt like my chain fell off… I looked down and my entire left crank had come off. I could have cried. I had to drop out of the race… I was on pace to finish only minutes behind the leaders, and to improve my previous time by over 2 hours. It was one of the most crushing moments in sports of my entire life. Stay tuned, over the next couple weeks I’ll tell you about everything I learned and experienced during the race, and what we took away from the whole thing. I’ll tell you this though, I couldn’t be more proud of our performance and can’t wait to race again.

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