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| I swear I saw this guy at the 10K to go flag |
Race: Iceman Cometh
What is that?: 30mile
point to point MTB
Where: Traverse City, MI
When: November 3rd,
2012
Time: 2:03
AG Rank: 7th
Overall: 298 / 2900
The Iceman lived up to its name this year. Morning temps were hovering right around
freezing with a steady 10mph breeze out of west. About an inch of snow was on the ground and
a freezing rain, snowy mix was falling.
Another cool thing about the ICEMAN…9am starts! Who
starts a race at 9am you ask? Well, mountain bikers for one and also when
day break in northern Michigan
doesn’t come until 8:30, the elements
leave you little choice.
I put too much faith in leaving the race day logistics up a
bus driver to shuttle me from Traverse City
to Kalkaska. The result was standing in
the cold with about 50 others that didn’t plan on wet/snowy/icy conditions and
as such the buses were running behind.
The biggest problem for me was that I was in the second wave and unless
I did something, I would definitely miss my start time. Luckily the young lady organizing the busing
had the idea to throw me in one of the Penske trucks they were using to shuttle
bikes to the start line. As it turns
out, I rode shotgun with my impromptu Iceman sherpa and avoided having to wait
any longer for the slow moving buses.
With a little push of the accelerator and some nicely placed passing
lanes, my driver got me to the start line with about 5 minutes to spare! It felt like I was in the Amazing Race! Stoopid rookie mistake. I gladly fell into the last row of my Wave
start of about 80 people. Zero warm-up
and come to mention it I was literally shivering all over the place waiting for
the GO!
The starting gun went off and the group was blast out of a
cannon. The first 2 miles were on paved
city streets and it helped break the group up a little before getting into the
two-track. Breaking up is an
understatement I guess. Within 30
seconds of the race I was red-lined trying to hold a wheel at 27 mph! I was hoping to advance my last row seeding in
these first couple of miles but I was lucky I didn’t get spit out the back
while there were spectators around.
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| Pot brownie anyone? |
The course was an incredible mix of mostly two-track with some killer sandy
climbs and a few 1-2 mile sections of tight single track thrown in sporadically
along the way. Other than all of the
sand, the trails were really sweet looking with the freshly fallen snow. I crashed once at about the halfway point, a
minor one, and I was back up on my feet rolling again within 5 seconds. In those 5 seconds, I lost 5 places. Seriously, there was little room for error as
everyone was looking for an opening to make a pass and move up.
After the insanely quick start (and the first 1/2 the race),
I settled in for the 3rd quarter of the race, with the plan to bring
it home strong. I don’t think my legs or
heart/lungs were quite ready for that intense of an effort, as I found myself
negotiating with myself to ride the climbs and flats hard and rest on the down
hills.
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| Me, caught negotiating |
I had two bottle of Ironman Perform along for the ride and
it was way overkill for this race. I
could have gotten away with one bottle. I also carried a EFS
hand grenade with a scoop of Pre-Race. I
took down ½ of the flask at the 45min mark and at 1:30 in I reached back and it was gone. Took much jostling I guess. No panicking, again when you don’t have to
run after your ride, the consequence for blowing your nutrition is much less
severe.
I turned on the gas with about 30min to go I made some solid
passes on the final climb and into the last section of single track before the
finish. In the end, I was about 2
minutes outside of the money (Top 5 in AG).
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| "alone, listless, breakfast table ..." |
At this is the point in a race report some would make a list
of lame ass excuses about why they sucked.
My excuse is simple. I didn’t
train hard enough, I’ve been eating like crap and I underestimated how frickin’
fast these guys on mountain bikes can go!!
There’s been some chatter around the social media outlets
about focusing on a single sport the off-season and I’m a full believer. Whether you decide to focus 100% of your time
on one sport or just push the emphasis a little, I’ll tell you one thing. Compete in a swim meet, a bike race or a foot
race and you’ll likely be humbled. While
many of us may be competitive in triathlon, I’ll be the first to admit, I ain’t
shit when I try to match up against any one of these single sport
athletes! This was just the motivation
and ego slap I needed to emphasize “Big Fish, Small Pond” and I need to get my ass in gear again as I officially
enter into my off-season (base training)!
P.S. The ICEMAN after
party is off the hook. Honestly the
biggest post race party I have ever seen!
I only had two beers, which I’m sure is a disgrace to all things ICEMAN,
but my wife and kids were back home and I love them way more than all of the
Bell’s Beer guzzling, shaggy faced, pony-tailed, ear gauged, hippies that I was
surrounded by.
I apologize, that was a horrible generalization. I forgot to throw in… many of whom had just kicked
my ass. Some seriously laid back, beer
drinking, ass kicking, hippies. Here’s
to you and your multiple disciplines!
Until next time,
Hope all is well.
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