Today is Sunday September 7 2025 and yesterday i raced the Pony Express Gravel Dash in Marysville, KS.
It was pretty great.
I raced the 65 mile course and raced significantly better than i did at Gravel Worlds two weeks ago.
(Yesterday i finished 32nd out of 140!)
The race was 2.5 hours away so the night before i drove thru an amazing sunset and stayed in a hotel in Hiawatha, KS. That was still an hour away so after staying up too late watching Jaws in the Best Western Hiawatha i was up at 5 and out the door at 5:30 for the 7:30 race start.
I only had about 20 minutes to warm up but that was fine since my plan was to start conservative and ramp it up from there. Spoiler alert, my plan worked.
Temps were very chilly and i was wearing my winter down jacket, warm gloves, and a thick stocking cap while warming up. For the race i went with a thin long sleeve base layer, warm socks, no gloves. My hands were kind of numb for the first two hours. Add to that my glasses fogging up in the first 30 minutes and it made for some challenging conditions. i was having to pull the glasses down to the tip of my nose so i could look over the top of them. Keep in mind they are prescription glasses and the prescription is pretty thick so this method was a little like using the force.
But it all worked out.
So i started conservative but i still pushed myself a bit. The course was awesome and conducive to going fast. It was the opposite of Gravel Worlds which was all 90 degree turns. Here the road was always ducking diving and sweeping, and they threw in a lot of fun and fast dirt road sections. plus the scenery was awesome. i think we were in the flint hills.
Early on after a very steep and grassy climb i hopped back on my bike cyclocross style and the seat post slipped down about 2 inches. it seemingly took me forever to get it back where i wanted it. Besides that i stopped once to pee but i those were my only two stops. i skipped all the aid stations.
i made several friends out on course. Matt, Florida Man (Brandon), the college kid doing his first gravel race ever who was a runner for KU but couldn't run at the moment because he was recovering from a broken leg (he was loving his first ever gravel race), the two guys with aero bars who i latched onto for maybe miles 20-30. They were chatting away and seemingly could have held their pace all day. Cool guys.
i observed that my handling, cornering, and pack riding skills seem to be a bit advanced compared to my fitness level because for the most part i was blowing the doors off the people around me in these moments. That made me feel good.
It became apparent pretty quickly that i was going a lot faster than at Gravel Worlds (significantly less climbing at Pony Express) so with about an hour left to race i really pushed it. i was still strong enough to be in control of how i wanted to ride. meaning i could attack a hill to keep momentum and then i could recover fast enough to keep pushing on the way down. it was a blast.
i was solo for this last hour but every time i looked back Matt my race buddy was slowly closing the gap, then with about 20 minutes to go a guy passed me out of nowhere, i kept him close and caught him with about a mile to go, then about 400 meters to go we started to sprint for the line only to realize we had a stop sign and the other cars didn't, luckily we were both paying attention and slammed the breaks otherwise we would have been hit by a car (very sketchy finish, maybe that's common in gravel but it had me scratching my head), meanwhile Matt the riding buddy was still closing the gap while me and the other dude started our sprint again, he beat me but i had to stay on the gas to stay ahead of Matt.
So it was a very exciting finish to a very fun race.
Afterwards i cooled down while checking out the fun little Marysville, KS downtown and then drove home with the windows down and the music blasting.
i'm thrilled that my fitness seems to be improving and totally pumped for the next few months of riding my bicycle.
it's going to be bad ass.
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