Iron Cross VII, mud, blood, sweat and tears in the woods

I pre-reged for this race a while ago when I had the 70 dollars to blow on a race. As the date for the race drew nearer I felt less and less prepared and motivated to do it and more and more people that said they were going to go dropped out. At the 11th hour I got hooked up with a ride with Team Bike Therapy's newest/first/oldest team member Misha (I hope I'm spelling that right) and Warren from Alliance. Misha was one of the founders of the team that would one day become Team Bicycle Therapy, he recently quit Amoroso's to go back to Therapy to start racing cross at the age of 60. Warren is a crit/ track powerhouse rider and is one of the riders responsible to pushing the drives ride to 36 mph on the first lap.
I have to thank Lee for helping to cut out a whole lot of driving time by helping tune Misha's Subaru WRX, it is a very quick car even, loaded with gear, three people and bikes. But we got to the camp ground where the IC lite race was earlier that day, and sat down to our spaghetti dinner in the dining hall. There were about 30 to 40 people in sweat shirts and flannels packing down second helpings of pasta. After dinner we grabbed a bunk house, it was a small partially open shelter with no heat or insulation or bunks. We all laid our sleeping bags and pads our and did our preped for the next day, filling camel backs, ect. Warren and Misha both brought a bottle of wine so we emptied both using our new iron cross pint glasses. As we where getting ready to turn in Chris Pagoda from ciclismo popped his head in the bunk house looking for a place to sleep.

The next morning it was cold, I was freezing after I got out of my sleeping bag. I did push ups to warm up every few minutes, put my chamios cream on with a cold hand and colder cream. Misha made some really good strong coffee but I really didn't wake up until after the first hard road climb and fire road climb. Check point one seamed to come really fast, I was in that early morning auto pilot until the first single track section that I conservatively picked my way though while everyone I passed on the climbs blew by me. But the whole ride until the third check point was pure pleasure. Crisp sunny day, 40+ mph descents on fire roads, bridging up to a small group on the roads and flat sections of fire roads and organizing a pace line, the leaves were at their peak fall colors and shimmered in the sun. The coarse was very well marked, the volunteers at the aid stations were extremely helpful.

Even the long hike-a-bikes where you shoulder your bike and hike for over a mile up the side of a mountain, where hard but not all that bad. After check point three, the road pitched up toward the sky, you would reach what from below looked like the top thinking it couldn't keep going, and it did, for about 5 miles of hard fire road climbing. My tempo was a bit to fast and on the rollers at the top of the climb I came within an inch of cracking. Which is where Warren did crack, after getting three flat tires both of his legs cramped up and he feel over, still clipped in and then started to cry from the pain. That is how hard of a race it was. The single track after the rollers was really tough, and the last hard climb on the single track is where I did crack, my legs cramped up and I had to walk my bike up the last part of the climb before the last hike-a-bike. Mercifully the last 5 miles of riding where on the road, they flew by, I rolled over the finish line after four hours and thirty five minutes in 45th place and received my iron cross socks.


The winner did it in three hours and fourty five mintues, and the last person in finished in seven hours and fourty minutes. Most races are as hard as you make them but this race is just hard period. But I'll be back next year, maybe I'll break 4 hours.

Images are from Felkerino's Flickr site