By David Kirkpatrick
Heck if I know. Jay was telling me about some dag nasty absolute nutty training that's been going down out there, so either way you'd better nut up and get to work. Me? I've got the best excuse in the book, if I even get to race the thing.
Jay and I did a lap of the course yesterday in the cold. It was less than 20F out while we were riding so we weren't exactly hammering it, and we were sort of taking notes on the fly. The deal with the course is that there are two climbs, one tough false flat and two fast descents. The climbs are in the neighborhood of 5 minutes when done at non-psychotic pace. Ones a bit shorter, ones a bit longer. At the pace we went up them yesterday I was near threshold (with several short jaunts over threshold) just to get up them. Go to Great Falls, do the climb out of there, and imagine that the average and max grades of the smaller climb on the Classic course are higher, and the false flat in the middle is shorter. The bigger climb is similar too, but more spiky and less regular.
The superintendent of the county department of transportation agreed to give the course loop some special consideration in his spring paving schedule, and will send a sweeper through before the race. This is huge, because the descents are going to be speedy affairs.
By the time all is said and done, Jay, Audrey and I might be part of the Congressional delegation from WV. We are getting pretty good at politics. If you ever run into a woman named Lisa Basye, she is the unsung hero of this whole deal. Tremendously helpful woman
Fields are likely to be as follows: cat 5, cat 4, cat 3, women's open, p-1-2, and masters. Probably 3 laps for the 5, 4 for the women and 4s, 5 for the 3s and masters and 8 for the elites.