As part of his training for the Race Across America cycling competition happening in June, Hoover's Brian Toone earned first place in the 517-mile Heart of the South bicycle race last weekend.

Toone averaged 17.14 miles per hour with a total time of 30 hours and 13 minutes in the race. Racers along the course that traveled between Birmingham's Colonnade and north-central Georgia faced tough conditions including pounding rain, frigid temperatures and climbing Mount Cheaha and Fort Mountain.

For Toone, one of the biggest challenges he fought was the need to sleep.

"I did miss the course record. That's something I was on track to break the record all the way up and over Cheaha, which is about 435 miles into the race, and then I made it down the other side of Cheaha and it just kind of hit me all at once. I just got really sleepy. I was able to keep on riding but my pace dropped at that point," Toone said in a phone interview today.

Toone had been riding almost exactly 24 hours when he hit roughly 435 miles. The race for the men's solo riders started at 8 p.m. on Friday.

Although he didn't beat the record -- which is completing the course with an average speed of 17.3 miles per hour -- Toone outperformed his result from last year of 31 hours and 48 minutes last year. He spent about an hour not riding his bike during this year's race, compared to close to two hours last year.

"I was able to stay on the bike longer and ride faster. My time was an hour and a half faster than last year, too," he said.

His achievements came as Toone, the 38-year-old assistant professor of computer sciences at Samford University, prepares for riding in the Race Across America, also known as RAAM. The 3,000-mile race starts June 16 in Oceanside in southern California and ends in Annapolis, Md.

"The average speed over that whole distance was pretty much what I need to do, maybe a little bit faster for RAAM," he said about last weekend's race. "If this had been RAAM, I would have called my crew to get the RV and come back and I would have stopped probably a couple hours before the actual finish. It is so inefficient to ride that slow when you're sleepy and it's dangerous."

Toone is shooting to finish RAAM in eight days or less, which means he doesn't have to ride on such little sleep as he did during the Heart of the South race. "I was pushing myself way hard -- and I knew it, too -- way harder than I would during RAAM," he said. "During RAAM, I am going to pace myself a little better both in terms of speed and sleep, too."

Other finishers in the Heart of the South included Erik Newsholme of Stone Mountain, Ga., who finished with an average speed of 14.12 miles per hour for a total time of 36 hours and 49 minutes. Newsholme, who is competing in RAAM this year, was the second finisher in the solo men's division behind Toone.

In the solo women's division, Sarah Cooper of Iowa earned a record in the race with an average speed of 15.3 miles per hour and a total time of 33 hours and 47 minutes.

Finishing first in the 2X men's division were Andy Christensen and Rob White with an average speed of 16.67 miles per hour and a total finish time of 31 hours and 1 minute.

Toone had planned to sleep for about 90 minutes after the Heart of the South race and attempt to ride in preparation for the RAAM as a way to test his body. "Six hours maybe before the end of the race, I had already decided I was not going ride. I could already feel my legs were just, I am pushing so hard right now," he remembered thinking.

Instead, Toone slept for three hours after he got home around 3 a.m. on Sunday. "I set my alarm for 3 hours and I was able to get up no problem," he said, noting that his two kids were already awake for Easter Sunday.

He decided not to ride his bike so quickly after finishing the race because he knew his legs and his knees needed "some serious rest."

"It's maybe 10 weeks out and I don't want to risk an injury. The way my knees were feeling toward the very end of the race, I knew it would be smarter" not to ride, he said. "I didn't get the course record. I went ahead and decided not to ride right away just to avoid risking the injury, but I'm still taking this as a big confidence booster for RAAM. I feel like everything is on track for a really good race."