Los Locos Du

First attempt at racing on a road bike today! Strong Journeymen Racing runner, Derek Morgan, and I teamed up for the Male Relay category. Ended up finishing 4th, just 30 seconds behind 3rd place. Was happy with my bike relay except I wish I would have pushed a bit harder about a mile earlier.

One of the first bikes coming out of the transition thanks to the strong run on the first leg!



Garmin info..
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/168409837


STRONG showing from Journeymen Racing today!!

Syllamo Training Trip

Two weeks ago a few of us headed up to Mtn. View, AR for a training trip of sorts to check out the Syllamo Mtn. Bike trail system since both myself and Damian were going to race the Syllamo's Revenge 50 miler in mid-May.

After a somewhat eventful drive over we ended up staying up somewhat late chatting and drinking a few brews out on the porch. The next morning we got up and headed out to the trail. We decided to ride the Green loop, then ride the orange connector over to the Blue Loop and do it. The Blue was rated the most difficult so we decided to dive in head first knowing that all other trails would be somewhat easier after we'd ridden the Blue. Two broken spokes, lots of water, a few creek crossings, lots of walking and a few hours later we finally made it back to the car. Wow! Rocks galore! Lots of sections on the blue you actually use much more energy trying to ride than you do walk, or at least that's what I was telling myself. ha! We were all wore out! Headed to Tommy's, devoured pizza, drank more beer, stayed up too late, rinse and repeat from the night before.

Day 1 Garmin info...
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163951798


Day 2, Sunday, we woke up a bit earlier so we could ride and get back to Memphis at a decent hour. We rode the Red trail, easiest of all loops, which was somewhat refreshing to actually RIDE our bikes! I think we were all a bit confused not having to walk like we became so fond of the previous day. Rode the Red, hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifad fun....Damian and I ventured a short distance onto the Yellow but not far.

Day 2 Garmin info...
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163951790


We had a blast and I'm hoping to get at least one more pre-ride in before the race.

Here are a few photos from the trip...

Spa City 6 Hour - March 10th, 2012

Race report from Spa City....

The weather ended up turning out extremely well considering they were calling for torrential rain earlier in the week. Nothing like a nice mid 60 degree sunny day on the mountain bike in the woods at the beginning of spring!

First lap was just as I expected.....a mess! The newbies gunned it and got ahead of a lot of riders and ended up causing pileups at the first obstacles on the singletrack, specifically the first creek crossing and switchback right before the first climb. Nothing like killing your momentum right before a nice climb. First lap was pretty uneventful aside from a lot of moaning, crying and generally being a jackoff from some guy about 5 riders behind me, there were 4 in front of me. Said "jackoff" was complaining the whole time saying "if you're not gonna stand up on the climbs then get outta the way". I will never understand the mentality of some of those guys. Surely they know this is gonna happen? I know I did. If you
are so badass, either run faster at the start or haul ass on the beginning road section. Midway through the first lap I realized that I had forgotten to unload my backup water supplies for the camelback and they were in my truck at the spa with my girlfriend....oooops. I did have all my water bottles but I was going through water pretty fast. Luckily at the pit I called for backup and was brought some water at lap 2! Thank goodness, I was kinda freaking out.

Brad and I coming into the pits after lap 1....




Lap 2, feeling it a bit more....calmed down and settled into the groove but ran out of water halfway into the lap.

Lap 3, still feeling it. Pedaled a bit harder. The ups and down started. One minute I would feel great, then 10 min. later I'd feel a bit zapped, 10 min. later great again. This continued on the rest of the race.

Lap 4, came in with an hour and a half left to get in by cut off. During this lap I was feeling the fatigue starting to set in and tried to keeping the cramps at bay. Left hamstring starting cramping so I switched all the power to the right
leg, right hamstring was start to cramp so I'd switch power to the left leg.....this continued til the end of the race.

Lap 5, the Journeymen motto came on full force. Just Get There. Don't blow up and cramp, don't wreck, keep a steady pace and finish. Andrea lapped me here at the longest climb with what seemed like endless switchbacks and made the comment, "they've got a few more hills than Memphis"...or something to that effect. Ended up finishing with about 15 min. to spare!

Great race, all the pro's were extremely nice and said "thanks" when letting them pass (which a lot of the non-pros could learn from). This was my 2nd year at this race and I'll definitely be back next year! Very well run and enjoyable event!

Here's my garmin info....
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157140535

and the smile on my face knowing this is the last lap!





and immediately after the finish line! anything felt more comfortable than that bike saddle, even gravel!



Overall I think I was most impressed with the fact that I didn't have any bad cramps and at how consistent my lap times were.

Click below for larger image of lap times...

Spring has sprung!

Been busy training for the first endurance race of the season, Spa City 6 hour, in Hot Spring two weeks from now. I'm getting really excited because I feel like the attention to detail in my training is really paying off (i.e. actual attempting to follow a training schedule). Due to the weather recently I haven't had a chance to do many long rides on the mountain bike. The only semi-race length ride I've done is the officially unofficial Tuff Guy ride in Oxford, MS last Saturday. The ride ended up being about 5 hours long and a little over 50 miles, about 25 on the road and 25 on the trail. Don't get me wrong, I felt tired after the ride but I wasn't slap worn out and never really cramped the whole ride regardless of the insane pace on some of the road sections. A roadie rode out and met us on one of the flats and the lead group of about 7 of us tucked in behind him, the paced kept getting faster and faster and I finally had to lay off the pace once they started hitting a steady 28+ mph. About 4 of the riders tucked in and staying on his wheel but eventually backed off once they got back in town.



Also got this sweet shirt afterwards...



Getting ready to start tapering down on the riding and spend some time working in my garden this weekend!

I'm starting to think Punxsutawney Phil may be wrong!! I think spring is here!

Forgot to mention....

....during the winter "down time" I picked up the paintbrush for the first time in years, thanks to the motivation from my girlfriend.

Here are my two latest creations...

(This one has already been sold and is now residing in Missouri)


(This one is hanging on the wall at my house)


At the moment I am out of canvas' but I've got lots of cool ideas whirling around in my head.

It's Been A While....

....no, I'm not singing that pitifully sad song by Staind from a few years ago (thank god). It's been a while since I've blogged but I am back and have my soul fully recharged for another great year!

Had a great spring > summer > fall due to some amazing company! Not diggin' these short, cold and sometimes mind numbing winter days though. I have however been editing some old GoPro footage I recorded last year here at our local trails (Bayou Point) as well as some from Slaughter Pen Trails in Bentonville, AR to pass the time.

I've also been gearing up for a few endurance races this year. The Spa City 6 Hour (Hot Springs, AR) in March is the first on my list, raced it last year as a team but plan on doing it solo this year. Second on my list (a big second I may add) is Syllamo's Revenge in May......thanks to one of my teammates (Brad Hopper) I decided to man up and finally commit to doing this race. This will be THE race I am training for all spring, Spa City will be somewhat of a training race to test me on a trail other than our local relatively flat trails. I've got several races planned in the fall as well (School of Hard Nox and 6 Hours of Herb) but those are in the back of my mind right now.

Enough of the "talk", here's some visual stimulation for you..

Slaughter Pen - Sept. 2011 from Evan Murphy on Vimeo.

Bayou Point Trails (8.23.11) from Evan Murphy on Vimeo.

Life is hard, you gotta change

A little shakeup in my life has had me re-evaluating my priorities and myself in general. More time devoted to family, friends and my passions (i.e. cycling) and less time wasting surfing the web. Drop the attitude, as with all of us we get in bad moods at times and sometimes they tend to linger and be contageous. Life is good, spring is near.

Haven't been cycling near as much as I'd like due to the weather and other personal stuff but I'm in the process of getting motivated and starting to torture myself a bit with 5 a.m. early morning rides and such.

Oh well, life is all about learning lessons and I've learned a few about myself recently