Maah Daah Hey 100 MTB Race: Choosing a Specialty Phase

Hey all -

I’m coming up on the Maah Daah Hey 100 mountain bike race the first weekend in August, and trying to figure out what specialty phase to do. Complicating this is that I’ll only be able to do 5 weeks of the plan before raceday (poor planning / completion of other phases on my part :slightly_frowning_face:)

I know Leadville has been discussed a number of times, both on the #podcast and the forums, but haven’t really seen anything specific to this race. Here are a few stats:

  • 107 miles, almost entirely singletrack (like, I think fewer than 10 miles on pretty harsh gravel)
  • 13,000 feet of climbing, some long slow climbs, some punchy ones. Course profile screenshot
  • temperatures often peaking over 100ºF
  • Course record of 8:53:20

It’s a hard race. I’ve tried and failed twice, quitting at 58 miles the first time and being pulled from the course (but feeling pretty good still?) at 67 miles the second. One of my friends, one of the strongest riders I know, has finished every race he’s ever tried, including Leadville, and dropped out on MDH twice.

I’m better trained than I’ve ever been, but I’m still super nervous, and have no idea what to choose for a specialty phase, especially since I’ll only be able to do about 5 weeks of it. Anyone have any tips? Anyone else done the MDH before? It’s a beautiful, super hard race, in kind of an unexpected place – North Dakota, of all places – and I’d highly recommend riding there some time (there are actually campgrounds every 25 miles or so, so you don’t have to do it all at once)

Thanks for any advice!

[edit: I’m currently in week 5 of Sustained Power Build low volume, plus a weekly pretty-easy-most-of-the-time group ride that I lead]

I need to search, but they addressed this in the podcast from a specific question about the MDH 100. I think the requester was named John, and it was in the “recent past”. I will see if I can find it.

From memory, they recommended XC Marathon or Century for Specialty.

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Awesome, thanks! I’m not sure how I missed it, but I must have (although I guess there are a few episodes I haven’t listened to yet recently). If you figure out which episode it was, that’d be super cool.

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Found it.

  • Episode 185, about 0:10:50 for the question start (and a slight tangent) before the meat of the question around 0:13:00.

Quick Summary:

  • Base:
    • Sweet Spot Base
  • Build:
    • Sustained Power Build (could lead to XC Marathon for variation in efforts)
    • General Build (could lead to Century for variation in efforts)
  • Specialty:
    • XC Marathon (for shorter efforts and if you plan to push early)
    • Century (for longer efforts and if you plan to ride more steady)
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:tada: Thanks, I’ll give it a listen!

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I am in Billings, MT and plan to do the Bad Lands Gravel Battle next year, and maybe the MDH too (but not sure). I need to decide on distance choices for each and take the plunge.

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You won’t regret it. I’d do the 100 for the MDH, just because the first 50 miles have my favorite scenery and riding. Plus if I ever finish one of the shorter ones, I’ll wonder if I’d be able to finish the next one up…

I have to dig back in the forums and podcasts to find out about where to cut 2-3 weeks off of my Specialty plan now, and also figure out why my ramp test was so so so terrible today. Probably overdid things last week… I may possibly have more than doubled what the TSS was supposed to be…

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For cutting, you want to consider how much taper you need or want.

Then cut back from week 6 or 7 as needed. You may need to alter the timing of the one recovery week too.

Any of you doing the MDH 100 this summer @mcneese.chad @isaac_n or anyone else?

Super stoked!

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Not going to make it this year. Might try next year.

Good luck on your ride. :smiley:

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I’d love to, but I didn’t have anywhere near the $$$ when it was still at its most-discounted rate, and now it’s WAY too pricey for my budget (plus I’m not really trained for it, and you definitely need to be trained for it)

Plus I broke my full squish, so now I have to spend those precious dollars on a bike :grimacing:

Pro: new bike. Con: money’s all gonna be gone :joy:

I’ll be there. We have a group of people from WI that will be travelling out. Some have done it before, others have not. I’m in the latter group.

I’m still nervous about finishing. Some hot/humid rides in June really put the hurt on me and its a drive to find hills, so I don’t ride them as much as I should. I did do a flat gravel 100miler on my mountain bike and felt especially good though, so I’m trying to carry some optimism there. I’m doing my last long ride before the event this Saturday…a 128m/5k ft gravel/road event that I’ll do on my mountain bike. I mainly want to finish the MDH, but as usual I always want to feel like I put in just the right amount of extra effort to do the best I could have…but that is risky with this event.

To add to the original topic, I started training on Jan 1 with SSB 1&2, then Sustained Power, then a couple weeks back at SSB, then finished with Century specialty. All Low Volume. Early on when it was cold, I would add in a 1.5 to 2.5 hour endurance ride on the trainer on the weekend, but then tried my best to do longer outdoor rides every weekend (70 miles plus on the road minimum) once it warmed up. Since this long distance is new to me, I worked in a local 10hr single track mountain bike race (did 56 miles, 6k ft climbing in 95F, high humidity in 7 hours) which taught me a lot about holding back early on, heat, fueling, and stomach tolerance for certain electrolyte mixes. I then did a gravel century on my mtn bike to again work out nutrition and will finish up with a 128m gravel event (not racing it!) on the mtn bike two weeks out. I also tried to pull in an ultra training technique of riding on tired legs, so some of my road centuries would occur after a hard training day. Also, this year has been a lot about comfort (saddle, chamois, minor fit adjustments), as early on even 2-3 hours were painful in the saddle, but now long events aren’t a problem.

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I can tell you, there is no worry about too much humidity at MDH. I visited my parents for the 4th holiday, (they live about a half hour east of the trail about mid way), and it’s an epic drought. Like usual, it will likely be quite hot, but dry heat. If you have trained in high heat with humidity, you should be fine for this one. Unfortunately I can’t make it out for this one, maybe next year.

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All good info, thanks for this. I just tried and failed the High Cascades 100 in Bend OR with similar characteristics of this event. And similar situation of trying to train with so little time due to work, life, etc. Maybe after recovery and a few weeks/months of thinking of signing up again, I’ll be better prepared knowing what plans to use.