Hello Everyone!

I know it's been awhile since I did an update for the team's results but things were kinda slow and not many results were trickling in until last weekend. I'll start first with some long overdue kudos and then finish with results from the last two weekends. If I miss results for anyone please add yours in the comments section. AND in case you haven't read my reply to Rick's latest blog and lies, you must do so! :-)

Let's start with Superman Dave Harris:

Rim Ride in Moab; approx 95 miles; 2nd

Grand Loop Race; 360 miles, 2 days 19 hours and 47 minutes; 1st place and new course record by like 7 or 8 hours!!

Kaibab Monstor Cross, 132 miles; 1st place with new course record of 12 hours and 17 minutes!

BC Bike Race; most of you probably already read Dave and Lynda's blogs but I'll give a short recap. They were dominating the 6 day stage race and were up like 75 minutes or so on the second place team going into the last day which was like a short 25k or mile stage and Dave crashed and shattered his ankle and was knocked unconscious from the crash. They were unable to finish do to his injuries. Please click on Dave or Lynda's pictures and check out July's archives for a full story. Very good reading. Dave is recovering nicely and is now living in St. George, Utah (Lynda lives there also).

Alex Howard:

2nd in Nathrop semi pro

5th at Teva Moutain Games (you've all seen the picture of him putting the hurt on Floyd Landis right?!! He kicked his ass!

Teal Stetson Lee:

5th at Crested Butte Wildflower Rush race in Expert Women

6th Teva Mountain Games (Teal fights fires in the summer but still has time to race hard and have fantastic results!!)

Sabina "The Bean" Kraushaar

I know Sabina has raced a lot but she normally reports her results on her blog. Great, fun, entertaining writing there so please visit her blog at:

http://sabinakraushaar.blogspot.com/

Ok, so the Durango 100 (the road century) was not necessarily a race but Team HealthFX looked like a regular Tour De France team out there. All six of us that showed up for the ride made the lead group which included: Zach Shriver, Greg Lewis, Brent Winebarger, Ralph Winebarger, Andrew Ferguson and Me (Ken Armstrong). I think it ended up being Zach then Brent, then Greg then Ralph then Andrew and finally me! I had a bit of bother at about mile 80 and limped home from there. I have to say though I was really, really proud of our team and how many showed up. Where were YOU RICK!?

Finally, the last two weeks of racing were HUGE!

The Durango 100 Mountain bike race at Purgatory (18, 500 feet of elevation gain)!

Greg Lewis: 1st place in 10 hours and 30 minutes!

Miles Venzara: 2nd place in 11 hours and 3 minutes!

WOW, two HealthFX riders dominating THE hardest 100 mile mountain bike race in the country!! Plus 2 front page photos of these two in the Durango Herald Sports Section!!

The Hermosa Offroad Classic (36 mile race up Hermosa Creek, up Hotel Draw and down Correl Draw and back up to the Hermosa Creek Trail Head):

Sabina Kraushaar: 3rd Place Pro Women

Zach Shriver: 1st Place Semi- pro men

Alex Howard: 4th Place Semi-pro men

Andrew Ferguson: 1st Place Expert Men 39 years +

Ben Kraushaar: 2nd Place Junior Expert Men (20 Mile course)

Escalante Days Dolores Race:

Zach Shriver: 2nd Place Overall

Greg Lewis: 3rd Place Overall

Miles Venzara: 4th Place Overall

Rick Callies: 1st Place Men's 45+

Where was your Cap'n for all of this? On a boundry waters canoe trip in Canada. Good times but I sure did miss out on some fun around here. Oh well, next year!

Congrats to all of you and I hope all of our sponsors are as proud of this team as I am!!

Cap'n

Welp, Memorial Day Weekend is over and we had some super results but first I'm gonna let you in on a little pain and suffering! It all started out just fine. My 40-44 year old Master Men catagory rolled out the valley slower than snot due to a slight head wind. Of course none of the climbers wanted to pull on the flats nor did the horses in the group so we just rolled along chatting and feeling good. That was until Shalona. That's when local strong man Joel Bratch took the lead and the group quickly went from 142 riders to 9. The nine of us stayed together till the base of Colebank at which time 4 guys sprinted away from 5 through 9 (I wasn't one of those 4). Then we (5, 6 and 7) dropped 8 and 9. I was feeling really good all the way up Coalbank, in fact Joel and I reached the top together in round a bout (as Paul Ligget would say) 30 minutes. On the descent down to Molas, #7 caught up to Joel and I which I was kinda bummed about. Everything was great going up Molas(we had dropped #7 again) until just before Andrews Lake. That's when it happened! Joel went around me and I stood up to follow and.... you guessed it......CRAMPS!! At that point Joel rode away from me and I did my best to spin to the top at which point #7 caught me. That's when I looked down at this guys legs and noticed they were HUGE. Like I was going to out sprint this guy in Silverton. NOT! Anyway, we descended together into Silverton where he, as expected, sprinted away from me. So, #7 became #6 and I accepted being #7 (I mean it's actually my favorite number- that and #44. Thank goodness I wasn't 44th!). That's it. Your Cap'n gave her everything he had. Times were slow this year cause of the Valley but the suffering was equal or greater than years passed. Nuff said, now to the other results...please hold your applause till the end!!

Miles- 19th Pro Men road race

Mitch- 8th Pro Men road race

Ian- 13th Cat 3 Criterium

Alex- 22nd Cat 3 road race

Ben- 30th Cat 3 road race; 15th cat 3 criterium; 16th overall Omnium

Andrew- 23 Master Men 45-49 road race; 7th MM 45-49 Criterium; 6th overal Omnium

Sabrina- 22nd Womens Pro road race (read her recent blog!!)

Cap'n- 7th Master Men 40-44

Last but not Least... Rob Trudeaux- 2nd Master Men 35-39; 4th MM 35-39 Criterium; 1st PLACE OVERALL OMNIUM!!! WAY TO GO ROBERTO!! Rob also upgraded to Cat 3 after his stellar results this last weekend!

Greg Lewis missed the Iron Horse deadline so he went and raced over at Angle Fire last weekend- still waiting to hear his results.

Would like to congratulate our all of our sponsors who rode....Steve Owen, Nick Grosskopf, Terryl Peterson, Brad Tafoya, Trent Peterson, Rob Harries, John Kassay and anyone else I might be missing. Way to go everyone!!

Finally, I would like to thank all of the team and sponsors who were able to make it to Zia's for the meet and greet. What a wonderful group of people. Thanks to Tim and Becky for putting on a fabulous time with awesome food and drink. If there's enough interest maybe we could have an end of season party for the team and sponsors. Who's in?!?!

That's it for now....time to transition into mountain biking and running for me....except for the Tuesday night rides!!! :-)

Cap'n

The following blog is by Tim Turner of Zia Taqueria.

Happy May 1st Everyone,

I gotta say, this team is SUPER TOUGH this year. Our results just keep coming and coming.....

Let's start with two weekends ago at the Squawker Classic hosted by the Fort Lewis Cycling team. There was a team time trial on Saturday and a road race on Sunday. I think Ian Burnett and Alex Howard were part a 4 man team for Fort Lewis that won. Sabina was part of the women's A team that won for Fort Lewis. Way to go you guys! Andrew Ferguson and Mitch Moreman (with only two on the team made for 4) took 3rd place in the open division and myself, Rob Trudeaux and Steve Owen (Dental Associates sponsor and rider extraordinaire) were 4th or 5th- I never checked the results.

The men's cat 4-5/40 + group was dominated by Team HealthFX. Rob Trudueax rode a super strong last lap and won! Your Cap'n was second and Andrew Ferguson was a close 3rd. 1,2,3 for the team! We even worked a bit like a real team. It was pretty cool!

In the Men's A group (they did 9 hard laps compared to our 6 laps) with a stacked field, Mitch Moreman was 4th missing 3rd by a shoe string and Zach Shriver was 5th. My hats off to you two!!

Rick Callies did an adventure race in New Mexico with another Durangoan and won! Check out his blog "you win some, you lose some".

Finally, this past weekend a bunch of fellas went down to Aztec to race the Alien Race and as you might expect Team HealthFX was EVERYWHERE!! Zach Shriver won the expert male 25-35 division (I might have the classes screwed up but you'll get the picture). He was 2nd overall to only Travis Brown and only by about 6 seconds from what I heard. In the same class Greg Lewis was 3rd, Miles Venzara was 4th and Brent Winebarger was 6th. In the Expert master men 45+, Andrew Ferguson won!! I heard he was flying. Rick Callies was 2nd and Ralph Winbarger was 4th. Way to go everyone! You're making our sponsors proud!!

Finally, in Grand Junction, Sabina was a part of the women's A team for Ft. Lewis that won the team time trial and she took second in the women's road race. Ben Kraushaar went there as well and raced in the men's open race and took 3rd! Very Nice!!

If I missed anything, please email me and I'll update your results. The group ride starts in about 15 minutes so I gotta roll!

Happy riding

Cap'n

First, I need to make some early season updates:

Congrats to Miles Venzara and Andrew Ferguson for a great winter Nordic season. They both did several skate ski races with great results- no wonder they're so fit coming into March and April.

Congrats to Rick Callies and Andrew Ferguson for dominating the Monticello Winter Triathlon in early March. Rick, as the two time defending champion continued his streak and won the race. Andrew finished in a close 4th place overall.

A big hand for Dave Harris who came back strong from a smashed collorbone last fall and took 2nd place at the Old Pueblo 24 hour race solo division. Can you imagine riding 24 hours straight? Dave's a machine!!

Now for last weekends results at the Dawn til Dusk 12 hour race in Gallup, NM (there's a couple blogs about the race- one by me and one by Dave):

1st place Duo Team- Zach Shriver and Greg Lewis (these guys did 12 laps and dominated!!)

2nd place Duo Team- Miles Venzara and Andrew Ferguson (they did 11 laps!!)

2nd place Men's SOLO- Dave Harris (he did 10 laps and had 30 minutes of mechanicals!!)

2nd place Men's Master Solo- Me- Ken Armstrong (8 laps- read my blog as to why I didn't do 9 laps :-)

4th place Men's Master Solo- Rick Calles (8 laps without any support)

5th place Men's SOLO- Alex Howard (9 laps- nicely done Alex!)

I'm sure I've missed some earlier results from some early races so if I did let me know and I'll get them posted. I know Alex and Ian have been racing a lot of college races with awesome results. Anyone else, let me know.

Happy Spring!

Cap'n

Hello Sponsors,

Welp, We're on the podium again! Does that surprise anyone?! Here's the latest:

Brent Winebarger: Raced the Alien race in Aztec last weekend and WON the pro division. Even though it's in his back yard (almost literally) it's still a huge feat to win any race in todays stacked pro field. I bowed to Dave and Lynda last week... This week I bow to you, Brent!!

Miles Venzara: Raced the Alien race as well and placed 4th. WOW, nice job Miles. I think Miles is starting to get his legs. Look for other great finishes from Miles in the near future!!

Greg Lewis: Again, raced the Alien race and placed 5th in the pro division. I want to be like these guys! Great work Greg!

Shane Ellison: Title sponsor and HealthFx owner took 2nd in the sport division. Gotta like that! Your hard work and training is paying off!

There were others who raced there this weekend but this is all I've heard from. If more trinkle in I'll keep you apprised!

Cap'n

Hello Sponsors!!

Since I'm leaving tomorrow for a week and I haven't heard from anyone else regarding their results for the past two weekends, I'm just gonna give you a couple results. I will make more updates when I return home.

Ken Armstrong (aka Cap'n):       Raced the Solo 12 hour division of the Adventure Xtreme adventure race series here in Durango this past weekend and WON the overall and solo division! The next racer to cross the finish line was 40 minutes back. I definitely had the advantage of racing in my own back yard but it was still HARD! Check out www.gravityplay.com for all the excitement!

Pat Larson:                           Even though he's not officially on the team, he raced under the Team HealthFx umbrella and had an awesome race as well. He placed 5th overall and 4th in the solo division. He and I ran together through checkpoints 1 and 2 and then we lost each other descending this steep ravine. I have to say, he was pushing me on that run/trek section!

Ok, that's it for now.  I hope you sponsors are beginning to see what a great investment you made by sponsoring our team. And, we've really just begun the season- Lot's more great exposure to come.......

Just and FYI to all sponsors and team members. All future result updates will go in the Team HealthFx update page. This is a check to make sure that happens. If it doesn't I'll be contacting Davey Boy!

Cap'n

New Mexico's annual running of the Tour of the Gila got underway Wednesday with a rolling, windy time trail.  Take a look at these results from our Cat 3 team:

1     0:38:11.81  @ 00:00           406  Burnett, Ian 
8     0:39:57.30  @ 01:46           442  Lewis, Greg
24   0:41:19.68  @ 03:08           478  Winebarger, Brent     

Nice work fellas, that's a big fast field, and Ian - wow man,  looks like you're growing into those puppy feet this year.  Congrats on the win!!!

With 4 more days of racing in the mountains surrounding  Silver City, NM, it'll be fun to keep tabs of the progress.  Updates might be posted here, but race results will be here.     

Many thanks go out to Ken and Andrew for their work on the new kit design.  Thanks also go out to all of our sponsors who had a hand in helping us become the flashiest act in town.

Without further hesitation, we present our new look for '06.

Curious how we measure up in the press?  Here's a partial list of web articles.  We'll keep this page updated so check back periodically thoughout the season.

2006 Season

Cyclingnews.com does an article about Dave's 29er/26er comparisons

2005 Season

Anthony & Dave in Moab:

Granny Gear report
Durango Herald report

Other rider articles:

Anthony's Herald article

Dave's Herald article

Dave wins the E100 12 hour 

Lynda get's a free entry to Sleepless in the Saddle 24 Hour solo. How?  She volunteered to do her first ever 24 hour solo event with no support crew.  Lynda finished an impressive 3rd in the global series event.

About Lynda

Mitch 2nd in Iron Horse pro road race

Ben wins national championship

Great things are afoot for Team HealthFX and we're all pretty excited.  We met at Brent's house high noon yesterday for a little MTB action out in Brent's backyard.  You see, about 3-4 times a year he gets as many folks as possible to come do a group MTB ride with him.  Sure, he's a social character and tons of fun to be around...but he has an alterior motive!  Brent is a trail architect at heart, building new trails in the local public lands, so having us ride his new "trails" is more akin to trail work.  This shot is everyone catching their breath on the top of Skull Ridge as we were desperately trying to keep Brent in sight with varying degrees of success (see his grin?). 

After the ride it was time to get down to business with a team meeting.  We've got a new team manager this year, Ken Armstrong, who brings a level head and a lot of experience to the team.  Ken is helping manage team finances and sponsorship relationships.  He's a great guy and we are psyched to have him!  He'll be sharing his insider view of the team periodically, his blog is here.  Shane Ellison and HealthFX returns as our primary sponsor for '06.  It was Shane's idea to bring Ken in, that Shane is a sharp fella.

Miles was out of town and Lynda lives in Saint George, Utah, so we had set up a conference line for them...but technical difficulties nixed that seemingly great idea...so we were only able to connect with Lynda.  Sorry Miles!  Ian was out of commission with a broken wrist.  Not sure what he did but it's an impressive cast.  Not to worry about his dedication though - he hasn't missed a workout, keeping up the training on the indoor trainer.  Now that's dedication.  Chronic in training ;) 

We'll announce the full '06 lineup shortly, but here's one of the new riders, Ben Kraushaar:

Ben is the Junior Expert 15-16 '05 NORBA national champion and after yesterday's ride, I see why.  So long as he keeps air in his tires this kid can ride!

Finally, I surrendered the remote (note to self: don't schedule team meetings during a football Sunday afternoon) and we were treated to some fine cooking courtesy of Brent and Mackenzie.  There were cookies everywhere...a bunch of kids in a candy store.  2nd note to self:  keep tabs on Fergy's sugar intake.  He put me in the vulcan death grip, and after finally getting free, one look into his eyes told the story.  Cookies are Fergy's catnip...

All in all it was a great time.  We're excited for next year, and we promise to lay off the cookies, but not before New Years.