S F S L D J U P H T M E A L G E S R S M
P C J N I P Q L H W S C A B O C T R D P
F C O F A U U E K E R R O E K U A K L O
D O Y U K E T W E W I Y S B Y R M T O F
X Y U E T A B H J M Y D J K K P P L V C
B D U S S I C F E Z C H W P N S O F X Q
I H D T E N N R E G N U H P Q E U W B D
N J E S C T C G C X G W L D L U T G R C
L N I A F O A K F J T A X Z R L H W U T
K Y M W U O T L T O N V R H Q B U A S P
T W A N J Q O X P U R A C G N O N D Q A
T X T M W D A D T T P F L U R D G O F X
T Y M U Q L A L B F A R O T O I E N S U
S D O O G D E N N A C E W O C U R A E E
Q C M V F Z F N R F N A R W D N H T D T
I Q C E O X U A S N Q K J G W P I I A B
V I A J C A T B U Z A W T M S Q I O F F
I U I P D T T T F O O D D R I V E N S C
P U B A B T F L I S N L W S X F Y M R B
M Z E U X K F E N I E Z B I Y V G L N S
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| "Bye buddy. Hope you find your dad." |
Last year, my Dad was deployed in Afghanistan in the 29th Infantry Division of the Army National Guard. When he came back, after around thirteen months, you can imagine the excitement and relief of the whole family. The Urban Assault Ride was something fun I did with my Dad, just him and myself.
We entered just for fun in the family division, but it ended up that we actually had a chance.
Something my Dad and I share is the love of biking. During his service in Afghanistan, he wrote an article explaining how he rode his bike every day to work in the military base that was later published in the Bicycle Times magazine. When my Dad came back from Afghanistan, we started mountain biking together, and the difficult tracks we ran increased my passion for biking. When my Dad found out about the Urban Assault Ride coming to Richmond, we knew immediately that we were going to do it together.
We started biking together even more to train for the bike race, and got our bikes all fixed up for the race. Soon, the race was coming up just around the corner. We were all pumped, and extremely excited. The morning came, and we got up early, and headed downtown to the meeting/starting area. Eagerness was in the air that entire time we were down there, up until the starting time.
As soon as the sound went off, we raced to our bicycles. I was riding a GT mountain bike, and my Dad was riding a Canondale mountain bike. We were racing and pedaling like crazy, and we were bursting with thrill in the moments that our adrenaline took over. At the first stop it took us a while, but we made it through, and continued to follow our route. We came through the next few stops, including the mystery stop and the one at the YMCA where we jumped in the pool.
We were having such a great time, and were really impressed with ourselves to find that we actually finished the race pretty early. As we waited for all of the other contestants, we ate lunch, and tried the fun little mini games that were set up. After everyone was back, the award “ceremony” began. We ended up winning second place, and then the fun began, with relay races and dancing contests. In the end, the Urban Assault Bike race was something extremely fun and exciting that my Dad and I loved doing together.
Committed to Some Crazy Race
Ten years ago I approached my husband with the idea of being my partner in a crazy bicycle race around Austin. It appeared to be an awesome adventure to me, but he didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with me on this one. He just looked at me as if I’d had one too many glasses of wine and said “Let me get back to you on that”. On the morning of the race, as I moped around, he reluctantly agreed to join me in the 1st ever Urban Assault Race.
This is the day “Team Resistance” was born. We had no plan and no strategy; just the two of us and our bikes. We joined about 60 other teams as we made our way to several check points, but unfortunately we were more like the turtles than the hares. The winning team finished in a couple of hours, while we sweated our butts off to cross the line after about 4 hours.
The next year came and we had to try this challenge again; maybe we could improve our time. We trained for the race this time and when the checkpoints were announced we devised a strategy. We improved our time immensely but still…not good enough.
We continued to train and work on our strategy for each and every Urban Assault Race…this year will be the 10th. The race has grown in numbers each year, and we continue to improve. Being super athletic doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to kick butt in the competition. Strategy plays a large part in your results here. As we continued to improve our finish time with each race, we felt particularly confident one year. But our podium dreams were shot down after we misinterpreted a clue to a checkpoint. Our time was dismal. That’s why it’s called and adventure race!
Now with 850 teams in the Austin race, we are among some of the most “seasoned” racers (translation: oldest racers). For the last few years we have been placing in the top 3-4 coed teams (out of ~350 coed teams) and we claim this as some of our fondest accomplishments. We see teams half our age dashing for that finish line long after we have put our bikes away and are enjoying the post-race beers. Not only has this race given us the challenge we needed to improve and train hard, but the confidence to compete in other races. My husband now bikes in 100 mile rides and runs marathons. You can’t tell me that this race didn’t make an impact on “Mr. Resistance”.
This will be our tenth attempt at winning this race. Okay, maybe we won’t win, but we’ll be out there alongside 1700 other nuts who really enjoy the wackiest race Austin has ever seen. Thanks Josh for this wacky idea that has evolved into an Austin tradition.
Paul & Grace
Austin, TX
