Will depend on the final course…there are a few stream crossings usually.
Get a lacrosse ball or a TP massage ball and roll your glutes with it. Will help loosen the glutes and ease the tension on your IT band. You’ll know the points you need to work the second you hit them. 
Nice job today,you are doing the type of rides you need for Unbound. And take the hills with the gravel. It will only make you stronger for the race.
It’s nice seeing you approach your training like this. You found out a ton of things today which many people won’t find out until race day.
To take the pressure off yourself, I find that I’m always looking beyond the next race. Yes it’s five weeks or so until Unbound, but is also just a stepping stone towards the awesome competitor you have potential to be.
Keep posting. Am enjoying this thread.
Pretty sure its tightness in my “Gluteus Medius” I have a bunch of trouble in my rotation stretches. Ill work on loosening it up. Its hard to keep loose sitting on an oak chair 9-10 hours a day, but ill make it a priority.
I’m going to run the same tires. Used 38 Teravail Cannonballs in 2019 with no flats or problems. . But wanted a little more width and lower pressure this year.
What tire if its wet?
The route for Unbound 200 this year is the same as 2019. It is reasonably hilly. I wouldn’t go searching for flat gravel. There were enough hills that plenty of people were off walking their bikes up the hill 100+ miles on the race.
You “could” do it shimano Road but I wouldn’t recommend it. Do you want to do creek crossings in spd? Unless you are at the very front you will likely have a few walking creek crossings. Enough people around you will wade the creek so pretty hard to ride across. Also if conditions are rainy, muddy at all, road would be a poor choice.
Hope that helps
Running the same. I generally try to choose a tire that I can run regardless of condition. The weather can change so fast that you could start the race with a “dry” tire and by mid day you might need a mud tire. So I go with one that I can use regardless. I think the hurricane ridge fits that
Spoke to my fitter, it appears the xtr stack is 4mm higher then duraace stack. He wanted me to come in and go back over a few things, and raise the saddle.
Ordered my insoles to fix that issue, and will switch back to road cleats on the trainer bike. Will get back to the fitter when insoles come in.
Got a list of PT exercises to put at the top of my priority list. Also get my covid shot this week. appears I will have a rest week.
Finally got the bike outside - on real ground! Motivation was just obliterated the last several weeks. Really behind on weekend distance training but the days are longer now - and warmer - that I’m hoping to catch up soon.
The Vittoria gravel inserts felt good! Lowered pressure to ~32.
New power meter … it … registered power. [Shrug} I sprung for the power meter because I thought, hey - if I try to target a steady X range during the race, that will maybe save my legs because I just want to finish alive, 2 seconds before the time cutoff. But the numbers were not nearly as steady/stable as I was thinking they’d be. Not like on the trainer, anyway.
New shoe day! Cashed in the ol’ REI dividend for a discount on some super sweet Pearl Izumi gravel shoes. It really was worth every discounted penny to reach down to tighten the clicky thingy before destroying my 11yo in a race back to the house. Highly recommend.
That in the Endurance Plus casing is my choice.
My power meter has been essential to figuring out my pacing plan. Put Normalized Power and Lap NP (mine is a 5mi lap) on your head unit to give a real idea of your effort in both the short term and your ride overall. I’m aiming at an Intensity Factor of .68 for the first half and .72 for the second half as explained here:
Are you using the new power meter as your measuring device indoors? Do you have smoothing set fairly high on your trainer?
a negative split is hard/impossible on a 12+hour day, speaking from experience.
I definitely messed this up in 2019. Went too hard the first 56 miles and slowed every 50 miles after. I’m planning on going out much more slowly this year. It’s hard to do in the group. So I’m thinking about starting with the 16 hour group so I ride pretty chill the first 1/4. After the first checkpoint at mile 56, the race was very spread out. I had NP power and IF on my Wahoo and still couldn’t control myself 
It is really hard to let wheels go if they are in front of you…
How do they line up the start?
My recovery week is going awesome.
Minimal knee pain today, just did a nice easy 20 miles.
They do a call up for the top riders. For everyone else you self select into 12 hour, 14 hour, 16 hour and 18+ hour finish time groups. I lined up in 14 hour and it was still very fast for the first 3 hours. Even though I slowed by split every 50 miles, my placing moved up every time as people either DQ’d or fell back. Unless you think you can hang with the front group for the 100+ miles (which I definitely cannot), I don’t think it is worth trying to get up toward the front.
My goal is 12 hours. But I am still working on setting my pacing up. I will learn more in the coming weeks in terms of what will be obtainable.
Realistically did this group actually ride at a 14 hour pace at the beginning or were they getting a bit overzealous?
Way over zealous. Acted like they were trying to move up to the front! And it is so hard to just let everyone pass you. My guess is that even the 16 hour group went out too hard. My goal is to beating the sun (I think around 14 hours and 25 min). In 2019 I was way ahead of pace at the 1st checkpoint (mile 56), on target at the neutral water stop at mile 103, and then fell off because I spent way too long at this stop and the 2nd checkpoint trying to let my back recover—which I didn’t; just had to suffer back pains for the second 100 miles. Doing more yoga and core work this year.