Thursday evening I joined Team Felt leader Marco Villarreal for what became a record setting, high-intensity bike ride on the famed “Helotes Loop” in Northwest San Antonio.

I say high-intensity because in the one hour and thirty-one minutes of actual ride time, a full 50 minutes were spent in my target heart rate zone and another 23 in the dreaded “Zone 5″ which is 90-100% of my maximum heart rate. Whew! What a ride!

I was on track to beating my previous time of 1 hour, 42 minutes and 54 seconds when, just 3 miles shy of the finish, I suffered a flat in…you guessed it. My rear tire.

Marco went on to pave a new record of 1 hour, 38 minutes and 6 seconds. Awesome!!

Fortunately, he cut his celebration short and drove north on Bandera road to provide SAG support for me. I had switched tubes but bent the tire valve and used up all the air in my 12 gram CO2 cartridge. I blamed oxygen deprivation for the clumsy maneuver!

This was a great ride and obviously a stellar workout. A good combination given that we are just a few short weeks away from the MS 150 “Bike to the Beach.”