This past weekend was the first stop of the Kenda East Coast Series(see www.mtb-uscup.com for details). The race was in Ductown, TN. An excellent venue that offers plenty of fast singletrack, along with a good 3 mile climb to get your heart rate sky rocketing at the beginning of the race. To add to the long climb, racers faced pouring rain all weekend making some of the course “river” like and very challenging.

Even in these conditions, many of Florida’s Endurance Factor clients headed that way. Of those, Steve Flynn, Brent Hall, and Chris Niles had excellent results. Brent Hall and Steve Flynn competed in the Cat 1 19-29 category. They duked it out against many of the northeastern riders and proved they could hold their own with 5th and 6th place finishes. In the XC 3 19-29 category, Chris Niles raced very well placing 3rd in his category. This being his first “true” climbing race, his result proved that he has the potential to do well against anyone in his category on a climbing course!

Great results from all three clients! Congratulations and keep up the hard work! Hope to see many of you at the next big XC race at Bump and Grind in Pelham, AL. Expect large turnouts in all categories because that is a Pro XCT series race! See you all there!

Chris Niles on the Podium in 3rd Place

Endurancefactor coach and athlete, Drew Edsall, finished 25th out of 153 in XC Pro Division at the 2009 Sea Otter Classic in Monterrey CA over the weekend.  A great early start to the 2009 season for Drew in very hot conditions against a strong field.

Way to go Drew!

Here is Drew at Sea Otter following Erik Tonkin up a climb.

The first SERC of 2009 began on March 8th with a solid turnout of Endurance Factor clients.

Martin Cox raced in the Pro category where around 20 of the top Pro’s in the South Eastern region turned out. He took a respectable 7th place which marks an excellent start to his Pro career for 2009.

In the 19-29 Cat 1 category, Brent Hall and Steve Flynn battled for the top three places on the podium. This was Steve’s first race at the Cat 1 category. He showed his strength on the bike and placed 2nd only 1:30 behind the winner. Close behind in 3rd place was Brent, who was fighting illness throughout the week, but still managed to stay positive and get on top of the podium. Expect to see more podium finishes from both of these athletes throughout the summer.

If any of you have the opportunity, visit www.goneriding.com for some of the Southeastern Regional races held throughout the summer! Hope to see many of you there! and congratulations to Martin, Brent, and Steve on a great start to racing in 2009!

Brent leading Steve through the rock quarry in the 19-29 Cat 1 race

Endurance Factor athlete, Pat Runo, raced in his second duathlon of the season this past weekend. It was the second of a series of three races all held at the same course in Gainesville, FL. Pat improved in all three splits of the duathlon resulting in a new personal record of 2:21:06. This was 7 minutes and 45 seconds faster then his first duathlon of the series. A 5.21% increase!

Excellent job Pat! Keep up the solid work and the improvements will continue to come!

Pat Runo finishing strong in the Second Waldo Duathlon. One more to go!

Congratulations to Drew, Endurancefactor coach and athlete, who won the Florida State cyclocross championship on January 18th.  Drew lapped the field during the Hobe Sound, FL race to take the state title.

Drew also won the Miami Cyclocross event on January 4th in Oleta River State Park.

Great results, especially considering this is his offseason!