Well my second Iceman has come and gone.  I missed last year due to the infamous lottery.  This year was starting to look like a disaster in the making after the online registration debacle.  After letting in everyone who mailed in an entry, the race was at over 4,000 riders, twice the normal amount.  But turns out despite sucking at running the registration, the organizers hit a home run with the actual race operation.  Everything went off great, much better than 2 years ago.  The busing in particular was much faster, we didn’t have to wait at all after the race to get back to our car.

My night before meal of endless shrimp may not have been the best idea.  Stomach felt a little queasy early in the race.  I figured with cool weather I wouldn’t need much water and only partially filled my Camelbak – big mistake – it turned out warm as a spring day and I went dry with quite a few miles left at the end.  But no biggie.  Our hotel had a nice breakfast buffet, loaded up on waffles preride.

Weather was way too nice: sunny and 60s.  Not exactly icy conditions.  Race start this year was from downtown Kalkaska with a roughly 1 mile paved rollout before hitting the dirt.  The start was really fast but helped everyone settle in to the right order.  Not that passing was difficult anywhere on the course of 95% two-track.

I held pace with the group through the flat beginning but as usual, the hills separated those who were really prepared.  I didn’t have to walk the hills but I was moving at a pretty slow pace near the end.  Time was pretty lousy in my opinion at 2:52, only a 5 minute improvement over my last time.  The crowds were great too, the climb at Williamsburg road felt like a pro tour event in the mountains with a huge crowd of people shouting and ringing cowbells.

Post race was pretty awesome, with a food and beer tent featuring awesome Michigan breweries such as Short’s and Right Brain.

Couple of links here:

Complete Results

Write Up in the Traverse City Record Eagle

Photo Gallery in the Detroit News featuring yours truly

Some photos we took ourselves