Everyone going by me was such a blur at that point. Except Karen Jarchow, who I recognized and chatted until Petry caught us and she went with him. I was so blown.
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Cheers thanks! I guess a better way of saying it is: having a few gravel races prior will definitely take the edge off!
It definitely helps. 1st gravel event I ever did was a 70 mile event with almost 7000 feet of climbing and very technical descents. Not the smartest choice.
Looking back, having the ass saver on my bike was kind of a silly idea.
No asses were saved from the mud out there.
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Thanks for all the information from people whoâd done this before. The support provided by the event was excellent, though I was ahead of most of the people using it, so I had extra attention. I was less than 2 minutes at both stops in spite of weather conditions. Chain lube was a life saver, and So were aero bars. My only gripe was that there were some huge speed differentials in the finishing chute. Groups close to the front of the 200 could come up on groups in the chute with more than 20mph speed differential. Thatâs a dangerous situation in my opinion. It would be great if they widened the chute a bit and set up a passing lane on the left to address that. Otherwise, stellar. Lifetime, can you please let me back in next year?
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The post mega-race hangover is real.
Prepping for this race consumed my life and now itâs over and Iâm like 
Got a couple of short events before SBT Red but I canât even think of riding right now.
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Nice! What group did you win?
20-29. So the one that all the pros would be in. Basically I benefited from the rule change this year.
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Super fast time. 33rd overall is incredible. How long were you with the lead group. Mile 100? Next year theyâre going to stick you in the pro field.
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Congrats - that is super impressive!
That rule change was a good one.
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About mile 50. I struggled with their pace on steep hills, and I was caught behind several crashes early on. I rolled between the first and 2nd group for 30 minutes to an hour and then I was picked up by group 2. There were several big names, and I needed up rolling most of the day with Jeremiah bishop, Thomas Dekker, and Logan Kasper, among others. Iâm a big diesel this year, with the ability to roll long tempo, threshold, and high zone 2. That combined with aero bars meant I could roll really fast on the not steep sections on most of the course.
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I still had to hike around 2.5 miles. But yeah, what a great year for the XL. We got a beautiful sunny start and finish. When I saw the rain in the west the next morning I was like, uh-oh, looks like the 200ers are getting rained on.
Did you have a rockinâ first night? I that was my favorite part of the course. I was having so much fun between Eldorado and Eureka.
Iâm glad there was some adversity via mud otherwise I wouldâve felt cheated a true Unbound experience. I rolled in 30 minutes before midnight. This was my first Unbound and fourth gravel grinder. Good to cross one off the bucket list!
In case anyone is interested, I did a modified polarized training plan. 1 VO2Max + 1 Threshold session per week for ~1-1.5 hours each. Didnât do any endurance during the weekdays and dumped it all into long weekend rides. Lifted heavy when I could; the regimen wasnât cycling specific. 1-2 âbig liftsâ + 1 accessory + 1 core 2-4x a week along with post-ACLR quad rehab.
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Amazing achievement. Congratulations! How long and how frequent were your weekend rides? What zone did you ride in?
Moving time of weekend rides prior to the event:
- 7.5h (first day of nice weather)
- 5h
- 8.5h (C event, 9000ft of gravel hills) + 3.25h (next day)
- 8h (paved rollers of similar grade to Unbound)
- 2.5h (easy ride with friend)
- 18h elapsed time (200 mile overnight shakedown/race sim)
- 2h + 2h + 4.5h (bikepacking with friends over weekend)
- 3.5h (3x20 threshold and tuning race setup)
- Unbound XL
Not too crazy. I was only on a bike 3-4 times a week. I focused on singular long rides with minimal breaks and maximum time in saddle. I saw a lot of people squeezing in endurance volume wherever they could prior to Unbound. Iâm not sure thatâs better than one really long, quality endurance ride per week.
My endurance rides were generally Z2, but itâs hard to actually stick to Z2 when youâre doing tons of hills. For shorter rides (eg, that 5h one or the bikepacking, I ramped up the intensity with long sessions of Z4 or Z3).
I didnât take the winter offâI trained for winter ultras using a similar strategy without the endurance weekends. My only long rides during the winter were the ultras themselves (and sneaking in a metric century during a magical break of nice weather over Christmas).
EDIT: What an idealized version of my week would look like (image below). When I had a lot going on, sessions would get dropped or moved around. The only workouts that never got dropped were my 1 VO2Max and 1 Threshold session each week. The lifting got moved around a bunch. Bench is mostly a vanity lift, so it was the quickest to get the axe. Squat Day also got the axe quite a lot, largely because I am rehabbing my right VMO. If I only got to lift twice a week, it would be DL Day and PP+BOR Day. If I were uninjured, DL and Squat would be the most important days.
Lifting was performed immediately prior to bike work as it is dangerous to do it the other way around. DL didnât affect my interval sessions as much as I had initially predicted, it actually affected my endurance rides more (tight lower back for first several hours). On a focused day, I could get lifting, bike intervals, and a shower finished in under three hours at the gym. These gym sessions were usually performed while fasted in the morning, largely out of habit (I donât like eating before workouts). I skipped a lot of TR cooldowns for the sake of time. Saturday and Sunday were reserved for long ridesâwhichever day had the better weather would get the ride, generally speaking.
I hope that is helpful. There arenât a lot of training resources out there for events this long. I read a lot of different research and ideas and cobbled together a schedule that made sense for me. FWIW I am not that fast, I just ride very steady without breaks. My placement was a little shy of 50% in all categories.
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Thanks for sharing. You answered my question by showing you did a few pretty long rides. Congratulations again!
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I was having some fun looking at strava and I noticed that Both Adam Roberge and I did did a flat segment solo, but I put out 40 watts more and was only 2 seconds in 2:10 faster. I was in the aero bars for this effort, and my setup is not as dialed as his, but could that really be 40 watts? I had a camelback and top tube bag that he didnât, and basic alloy wheels on a not aero bike. Was using pathfinder pros which are within a couple watts of his Pirelli hard pack tires. This is making me feel like there was a fair amount of speed on the table, as I donât believe I am much larger than him.
Any ideas?
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Maybe he had a good gust of wind?
Curious. How could you tell he was solo?
This is great, could you explain PP, Rhomboid hell, Glute Hams and reverse hyper? I know what a split squat is but what is ATG? Ass to grass?
- PP = Push Press
- Rhomboid hell is my nickname for something similar to the batwing row. You do a regular batwing row but then pivot the shoulders so that the forearms are parallel to the ground/body and then shoulder press (above the head), then reverse the whole sequence. The weight used for this exercise is pretty light. I do this because my rhomboids are weak and I struggle to get a solid shoulder squeeze during bench. Itâs probably not bad for cycling either because it counters the rounded shoulder position we spend so many hours in.
- ATG split squat is the brainchild of kneesovertoesguy that has been taking over lifting instagram. It was recommended to me by someone who swore it fixed their knee issues and I have to say, itâs been a game changer for me as well. I hit ATG split squat before every session because I have lingering knee issues from an old ACL reconstruction. I do a lot of stuff recommended by kneesovertoesguy such as the reverse sled drag.
- Glute hams though Iâd like to progress to Nordic hamstring curls.
- Reverse hyperextensions can be done in a variety of waysâlacking the dedicated reverse hyper machine I do them on the gymâs glute-ham machine.
The latter two are classic posterior chain core exercises. When people think âcoreâ they tend to think mostly of anterior chain (crunches, leg ups, etc) but neglect the posterior, which is where a lot of explosive power comes from. My core rotation has two anterior, two posterior, and one lateral stabilizer. There are a lot of great exercises out thereâI was aiming for the most efficient routine that hit all the right notes. A well-rounded core is important when youâre taking a beating from hundreds of miles of gravel. I talked to a racer who DNFâd last year really close to the finish because her back was spazzing out. She reiterated the importance of core work. My lower back was tight at the end of the XL but I didnât have any pain or tenderness.
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