This was m second attempt at IronMike's Ironcross Death March. On the first attempt 3 years ago I had my pedal cross threaded and fell off around 45 minutes into the ride. I was hoping that this time around would go better. Mike had been spending time over the prior 2 weeks planning a course that would closely mimic the actual Ironcross course and hopefully be just a little bit harder.
He did an exquisite job right down to the minor details. There was a little paved road, lots of gravel roads, washed out mud/gravel descents, an awesome excursion onto a new trail sponsored by the folks at TMR.
Mike was even nice enough to throw in a nice muddy, wash out "run up", similar to the climbs "Insult" and "Injury" (the two killer power-line climbs in Ironcross) and not only did we get to ride it, when we got done trudging to the top we immediately rode back to the bottom made 3 left turns and did it again just to accurately match Ironcross. 
Mike asked me at the beginning of the ride if I considered us to be friends. Of course I answered "yes." Then he said "I hope you still say that at the end of the day." It was an awesome day and great ride. It was one of those epic rides that you talk about for years and everyone wonders how you can remember such miniscule details about a seemingly meaningless training ride. I'm sorry more people couldn't make it out to ride with us. The ride ended up lasting 4.5 hours and included less than 10 feet of flat ground (I think). I just want to take one last second to thank Mike again for planning such a great ride. Great ride, great fun! Now I'm Fast Like Pancakes for Ironcross.
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