Iceman race report a month later

Sorry for not updating this blog for a while.. Iceman went well, I won the Expert 15-18 regional championships by about 3 minutes! Here’s how it all went down. I started in the first wave of the day of like a billon… there’s so many waves of people it takes a full two hours to send everybody off, every five minutes. I didn’t have a great starting position at all, I was about 6 rows back. I hoped everyone would stay on the paved part of the starting chute as long as they could and I would hit the gravel and blast pass everyone and make it to the front by the time we hit the trail. I was 3rd going into the woods. I made the lead group of about 15-20 guys I’m not sure how many but it was a BIG lead group, the race is basically a road race on logging roads so there’s not much to brake people up. About three miles in there is a small steep little hill about 20 yards long. I hit the hill 2nd and attacked just to see how I felt, I go over the top and I look back to see what damage I did and its just me and two other guys off the front, I didn’t know if I should just pull the trigger and go for it or not figuring I would die near the finish. I tell the other two guys to just ride tempo and not blow up so fare from the finish. A few miles later it’s just me all by my self about 15 miles from the finish. I cross the Williamsburg road at 9 miles to go with a two minute gap on the rest of the chasers. 6 miles to go its really starting to hurt and the course is really hilly in the last 5 miles, lots of long climbs I make it over most of the hills, on the steepest one I start to cramp and I cant use my little ring (middle, I don’t have a granny) I kept getting chain suck in it so I had to keep it in the big boy gear. The last hill then its into the last mile of single track I can hear the announcer saying we should be seeing the lead group every soon. Did he know the lead group was one guy? I thought I would get caught in the last mile, I was really just trying to not cramp and going really slow I thought for sure someone was gunna ride up on me and I would lose but they didn’t and I crossed the line first with my arms in the air. I bet it looked SO PRO… I couldn’t see it though. I waited for while thinking they’ll be right behind me, but nope 3 minutes later the sprint for second, third, and fourth came in. guess who the third person was …..Ron S. on his single speed.

Thanks to Mike and Roger for letting me use the Felt Mountain bike it was a sweet ride!