Bataan Is Completed...Part 1...

Sunday was race day, and at 3:00AM I heard the first of 3 alarms go off. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep too well the night before, because I was quite a bit nervous about the race. So far though, the entire trip had been going exactly as planned. We flew out of San Antonio early Saturday morning with no problems at all. Jason had taken care of the plane tickets in advance for us, and we flew in to El Paso, secured the rental van, and headed to Las Cruces where we would get our hotel rooms. From the very beginning when we decided to do Bataan, Brandon had become the man that would be taking care of all logistical planning. He did one heck of a job. We had an itinerary for every day that he designed, and it really made the trip go very well. Once the rooms were secured, we had lunch. While we ate, we all joked around about how the sun seemed to be much closer to us since we arrived in New Mexico. It’s hot in Texas, but out in the desert is felt hotter. Real hot. After the lunch of chicken breast and a double serving of brown rice, we headed out.

Group Pic At White Sands Museum

I rode out to White Sands Missile Range for final registration with the out of state member of our team, Dr. Srdjan Mirkovic. Brandon and the Doc had both gone through the SealFit course, and as we were putting a Bataan training group together, Dr. Mirkovic joined us. He did all of his training on his own in the Chicago area, but he communicated with us via email concerning training techniques and progress. He was definitely a member of our team, and a fun guy to compete with at Bataan.

Once we got to White Sands we found the area for registration with no problems. The lines were fairly long, but we completed the registration process, and still had time to explore the base. We took this opportunity to go by the White Sands Missile Range Museum, and take some photos. While we were at the museum, we did our best to scope out the course and figure out where the infamous Mineral Hill was. Mineral Hill is widely known as one of the tougher parts of the course where the runner is faced with an elevation gain of over 1,500 feet. We thought we could see the hill off in the distance. Mineral Hill. I couldn’t wait to meet the hill in the morning.

Clay and I scoping out the infamous Mineral Hill.

We loaded up in the vans, and headed back to town for last minute gear checks, and one final carb loading meal of chicken, rice, and rice crispy treats for dessert. After dinner, we headed to the hotel for some sleep. Brandon had secured some extra rooms for us, so I ended up having a room all to my self. Leigh stayed in the same room with Heather the night before the race so I would have no distractions. The gear and uniform was ready, and I crawled into bed at 8:30PM. First call was going to come early.