After their attitude of indifference about that brutal first hike a bike section, I said I wouldn’t be back, but I love the pre-race experience (expo and town support) and it is fairly close to were I live. It is a mini-vacation with my family because we have a camper. Although might be the last one because there are too many other cheaper races to try out there.
Waitlists make all the sense in the world…it is a win for all parties involved.
As for the money aspect, years ago I did quick financial analysis on the potential upside for WTC (Ironman) if they allowed entrants who couldn’t race (injury, personal conflicts, etc) a partial refund on their entry fee, along with charging people a small fee to get on a waiting list. It made no sense financially for them to do it and I’m sure a similar analysis for Lifetime would hold true, as well.
(I did that analysis just for gins and giggles as it was when IM races were selling out in minutes and you had to commit to racing them nearly a year out. Lots of complaints about not being able to transfer / cancel entries when you had to commit so far in advance. )
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56 days
Ended my recovery week and finally got on the dirt for the first time this year. Course recon for my first race of the year (next weekend). I got about 95 miles in (1.5 laps of the course) and did the first lap at high tempo (.85IF) for 3+ hours (pretty much race effort for that distance). Then, just rolled around for another couple hours. My body is a bit beat up, but legs felt pretty good. Beautiful weather and wildflowers and nearly zero traffic except the cows and dear. Kind got me in the Unbound groove with the cows running along with/from me.
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I’m at 600tss for the week and have 4 hours on the docket today. Next week looks great and hoping to get 1000tss. I feel like I have 6 weeks of training left.
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Two of our group is at the Unbound training camp this weekend…weather looks chilly, but they seems to be having a good time.
Another guy is deferring to next year……he just hasn’t been able to log the miles to get ins have. Kinda bummed as he is my best riding buddy.
Weather sucks today so back to the trainer. 
. At least I’ll have Roubaix to entertain me. 
A pretty good video from the guy who won the 55-59 age group last year. It’s an hour of subtitles and covers a bunch of topics, but has some good tips/perspective sprinkled in. I’m 55 this year (a young pup in this same age group, so no excuses). With 5 year age buckets and 5 deep podium, this is probably the only “big” national race I can realistically target a podium.
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finally some good weather on the weekend….unfortunately, with all the rain, our main gravel route (Des Plaines River Trail) is flooded in all the underpasses.
Some of the local guys are doing Driftless and they wanted to get one good test ride in, so we utilized one of the trails slightly to our west and linked up a bunch of the forest preserves for a pretty decent groad ride. Basically a figure-8 route with two 40 miles loops. Did that with the guys and then I went back out and did the southern loop again and ended up with 118 miles in about 7 hours of riding time, IF of .77 and a TSS of 408. Most importantly, my legs felt awesome the whole day…well, until the last 3 miles. Did not fuel enough on the last 40 mile loop and did not enjoy the last bit home. But definitely a fueling issue, not a fitness issue.
Sat on the front a lot when I was with the group and just set a nice steady tempo. When I peeled off from them, I was surprised to see the IF was ~.80 as my legs felt great and the pace was seemed easy.
Solid system check for Unbound and feeling better about everything now that I was able to log a long ride. Still need some more long rides to get being able to handle the full race distance (plus elevation and chunkier gravel!), but that should be manageable.
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Legit numbers there, sounds like a good day.
I had my first gravel race of the year today, felt really good to get out and mix it up. I really haven’t trained much intensity above threshold this year, so was happy to see the legs respond well to race efforts and surges. My last 20+ miles was solo and mostly into stiff wind after getting away from the group I was in (unfortunately not the lead group, but they wouldn’t have let me go if it was).
It was a good test of my aerobar setup for unbound, it felt like cheating and I think the group was happy to see me go. I’m finally getting comfortable putting out hard extended efforts in the aero bars, had to raise them a bit to do it but it’s still so much faster than riding the drops or hands on hoods. It was only a 62 mile (3 hour) race, but legs felt good all day and I was wishing for more miles. Next up is La Grind stage race in Emporia in early may along with a bunch of pre-riding to the north of Emporia.
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Yeah, I had aerobars on today and I am ambivalent right now. I just have to make too many adjustments to my regular setup to make it work (I have a very long and low position regularly). Already raised the stem 5mm.
Also, I don’t want to sacrifice the tops of my bars so I am using a pair of older Scott RCO clip ones where the arm pads are on a spring and flip up…which is great, but they rattle on rougher stuff. Dunno if I wanna deal with that in Unbound.
And I am VERY comfortable in aero bars with an aggressive position. My tri position tested under .20 CdA and I can ride that position all day.
Still have time to decide and will keep tweaking to see if I can get it right.
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I went back and forth on it last year and decided not to run them. Probably my biggest regret after spending half the day solo, but I really didn’t spend enough time getting used to them and I struggled to make power in that position (many years since my last proper TT). I’ll be ready with them this year and probably end up in groups all day 
But they still help inflict pain on others in the group when you are rolling on the front (payback to the riders surging hard on hills, which I hate).
Yup…that is my fear, especially since the prevailing wind is out of the south, IIRC.
You all are putting in miles. My longest ride is 95 miles.
Followed yesterday up with ~3 hours on the trail…160TSS and .75 IF. Legs felt surprisingly good after yesterday. We had a few high tempo / low threshold efforts on a few of the chunkier gravel sections (freshly laid gravel in the Cook Country section of the trail).
Another 1000 TSS week, 313 miles and 17.5 hours. Almost all of those hours were outside (finally). Only 1.5 hours on the trainer!
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6 weeks and 5 days
What’s everyone’s weekly load looking like.
7 weeks around 600tss with a b race sat
6 weeks 1000tss
5 weeks 1000tss
4 weeks rest
3 weeks 1000tss
2 weeks 1000tss
Race week hour a day with openers
I’m tossing around the idea of 2 big training weeks followed by rest or 4 weeks and 2 week taper
I don’t taper off too early for long events like unbound, but I’ll still cut volume in the 4 weeks prior. I’ll be doing a big push the next 3 weeks ending in the La Grind stage race in Emporia first week of may. I’ll do a big week of pre-riding on north course around emporia and show up to the stage race with my legs basically wasted, a final push on 4 weeks straight of big TSS. I’ve got a spreadsheet I used to plan blocks at a high level, TSS will be 800-1000+, typically building up withing the blocks. Cutting back to maybe ~600 in the taper leading into unbound.
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Got out for my first true gravel ride in preparation yesterday. 5:45 for 290 TSS. Had some really poor routing choices in Vermont that resulted in quite a bit of hike-a-bike (@FergusYL ex post facto consultation of the VTrans maps demonstrated I was on “discontinued” class IV roads 
). More germane to the thread—and why I’m posting—is that it was my first test of the Tufo Thunderos (40 mm). I was really pleased with them. They feel supple, roll nicely, and corner well. I was on standard dirt roads, chunky double track, and even some sandy roads. Really pleased overall and I think I’ll run them instead of Pathfinders. Last year when I was gearing up for Unbound before I got hit, I wasn’t in love with the transition between the smooth center and the side tread on the Pathfinders when cornering.
I’m not sold on the aero bars yet.
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What line did you choose in that second pic 
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