It’s been raining for two weeks in north Texas. In the last 48 hours it’s rained 5 inches. The 2009 USARA 24 Hours National Championship is supposed to take place in and around Lake Ray Roberts. The problem is nobody is exactly sure where the shoreline for Lake Ray Roberts is anymore. UTM coordinates that were once on the shore are now 100 yards out in the lake. The race directors are scrambling around trying to salvage the course. Now the wind is blowing 25 mph and there are whitecaps on the lake.

David, Mary and I are holed up in our room watching countless episodes of Duck Commander and
Whitetail Massacre (OK – first one is real, second one is a guess). I have seen so many ducks blasted from the sky and deer pierced with arrows or lured to a blind with girl deer scent and then dropped in a hail of lead that I am thinking of becoming a vegan.

Not David, he wants to see if the local convenience store sells rifles. Mary is now sleeping up to 16 hours a day and has taken to accusing me of setting alarms just to annoy her. I am re-reading a 4-day old New York Times for the 5th time. The room seems small.

Finally the race directors get a course together that works and tell us to pick up the maps at 5:00 a.m. on race day. A lot of racers are disappointed that the original start, a paddle across the lake, has been canceled and instead we will bike
around it.

I wasn’t one of them.

The Start – 7:09 a.m.
Elapsed Time 00:00
It was dark, windy and cold whenthe gun went off (reflexively Ilooked for the dead deer…). Almost 70 teams poured out from under the start banner and bolted down the driveway of Lantana’s, the host hotel, about 300 yards to where our bikes awaited. With 200 red taillights flashing it looked like we were running into a multiple car pile-up.

Mary, David and I had agreed that we wouldn’t bolt to the bikes. Yeah, right. David is genetically incapable of holding back. I have hit my max heart rate 2 minutes into a 24-hour race more times than I can count. Mary and I stick to the plan and arrive at the bikes a few seconds behind David. We were on the bikes and headed out the long entrance road to Lantana’s, towards the town of Pilot Point.

We grab the wheel of a group that forms in front of us and confirm we are all together. I know we are going to the front of the race in the next few miles; it is all David can do to give us five minutes to warm
up. He is itching to go…

Town of Pilot Point – 7:21 a.m.
Elapsed time: 0 hours 12 minutes
It’s only 3 miles into town and we are there very quickly. We have already bridged up one or two packs
of riders. We hit the crossroads near the center of town; it’s deserted at this hour. Actually it’s deserted at
almost any hour…