Rock Jayhawk Gravel

Saturday was the first Gravel road race of the year in Lawrence. Man it hurt. Cold and very windy with 25 others to share the pain with. The course consisted of a 5 mile neutral roll-out from town to the base of the "stair-step", then three 9 mile loops of gravel, each one up the stair step, with the finish at the top. I've always loved the fine roads of Douglas County, but fresh gravel up that steep climb really made things interesting. Brian Jensen attacked on the first of four times up the hill and really split things up, Adam Mills was really the only one who could follow. I pulled into 3rd shortly after the climb, and started my bridge up to Mills. I caught him about halfway through the first lap, feeling gassed, I was relieved to hear that he was good sharing a hard enough pace to keep the 3 chasers off our backs. We took turns pulling throughout the day with him putting time into me each time up the stair. I felt like I did my part to earn third. The whole field rode very strong with team mates John Giles finishing 4th and Josh Patterson finishing couple spots later. In the field we had 6 of us, which would've been more had promoting and volunteering not taken 3 more. I'm very proud to race with these guys on a weekly basis. The race was followed by lunch at Free State. Good times shared around a 10-top...and the Pumpkin Spice is truly on form this year!