Devon and I braved the ice storm on Wednesday to make the long drive to Kansas City. Though the roads were in good condition, we drove through the remnants of the storms destruction including over 50 cars off of the sides of the roads. However, when the sun came out the conditions were truly beautiful. The inch of ice covering all of the trees made it look like they had been all dipped in silver while they sparkled in the sun.
Getting up early to pre-ride the course on Thursday, it was in decent condition. They had driven a 4-wheeler over the course to break up the crust of ice so it was mostly riding through ice-cubes. The conditions were quite varied with some mud, a few sheets of ice remaining, bits of snow, and a lot of the cubed icy mix. The course was well designed with a long open paved hill to start then entering the dirt with lots of turns and many challenging off-camber sections that became very slippery as it warmed up and the conditions turned to mud. Just before the finish there were two sets of stair run-ups and a few more tight hairpins before the big open finishing stretch.
Unfortunately, I had a starting position on the last row of about 50 riders as I just registered in the last week that it was available. I thought that the open climb would enable me to gain a lot of ground, but when the whistle blew everyone was going all out to get to the ice in the best possible position. I moved past 10 or 15 riders but my position was still not very good. No matter, I decided that I had to keep making ground early, so I ignored the grooved in line that had been created with the race before and just rode through ice chunks for the first half lap, passing many groups of people. When I passed by Devon and my Dad spectating they yelled that I had moved into the top 20 and I was behind a group of 4 or so more riders. Ahead of that the field was well strung out with the leaders far ahead. Starting strong and in good position makes a huge difference.
After the first half lap I was able to settle into my own pace, pushing hard in the straights and trying to not make mistakes in the corners where the course was either icy or turning to slippery mud. I ended up picking off the riders in the group ahead of me and was passed by one rider late in the race who was a bit faster than me around the corners but slower when we could power. We went back and forth for the last few laps, but in the last lap he was able to open up enough of a gap before the finish stretch so that I couldn't close the gap and come around (though I still gave it all I had to make him work a bit for it at the end). Overall the conditions made the course very challenging, but it was a fun race to try push myself and learn to handle my bike on new surfaces. Pushing through mud for 45+ minutes is always a challenge.
The temperatures rose later in the day turning the course into a mix of soupy mud and grass and causing ice to rain down from the trees that it had been covering. It will be interesting to see how the course holds up to 2000 racers over 4 days. The weather is now calling for 4-6 inches of snow tomorrow before we race again on Sunday. Up next for us is watching my brother compete in the 13-14 race today and my dad compete in the 50-55 race on Saturday. Sunday Devon races first in the Collegiate Women's race followed by me in the Collegiate Men and Devon finishing off the day in the Elite Women.
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