Gravel Worlds 2018

If Tyler can blog for the first time in ages, then I figure I can dust off the old blogger account too.

For the past several years I've wanted to race at Gravel Worlds. However, it has always been on the same day as the Papillion Twilight criterium. The crit is close enough that I can ride to it, my family can come watch (and they seem to enjoy it), and I stand a chance at winning in my category. Well, this year the crit is no more. I was quite disappointed to hear that, but it did open up the date to finally try Gravel Worlds.

I knew I was going to be best off using a hydration pack for a race like this. With the large number of oases that the event offers, you can easily get by with just the bottles on your frame, but then you have to stop so often and I wanted to see how fast I could finish and that means that stopping should be kept to a minimum. The new Camelbak Chase Vest sounded like the perfect hydration pack for me to use. I already owned a hydration pack, but it was much larger and meant that I could not access my jersey pockets with it on. It also doesn't allow for easy access to its own pockets without removing it, so it wasn't going to work for what I wanted, despite the large amount of water it can hold.

Fortunately, Cycle Works was offering 10% off any items racers were buying during the check-in event the night before the race, plus I still had a gift card for that shop that I had won two years earlier! So I asked them to hold a Chase vest for me for that Friday night. I wished I could have it earlier so I could test it out before the actual event, but budget-wise, this was how I needed to make it work.

Rob telling me to not try and ride with the lead group. That would not be a problem.

I tried stuffing as much as I could into the shoulder pockets of the Chase vest on Friday night. I was able to cram a lot of clif bars and SIS gels into them, but when I put the vest on and leaned forward into a riding position, I realized that the pockets would rub on my arms when they were so full. So, I moved to having less food in the shoulder pockets and more to my jersey pockets. No big deal. I still had three clif bars in the left shoulder pocket and like 5 gels in the right one. I filled the bladder up with electrolyte mix and tossed it in a cooler full of ice overnight.

The next morning when we got to the start, I finished kitting up really quickly, tossed the vest on, and rode to the start area looking for portapotties cause I had a bit of a nervous tummy, if you get my drift. The line for the three portapotties was stupid long! I waited for a few minutes and then realized that there was no way I was going to get to one before the start in 10 minutes. I thought about riding over the grocery store across the way real fast, but I still didn’t think I could get there and back fast enough. I just had to hope that my colon would settle itself, or that I could find a nice secluded spot out on course!

I jumped into line and the followed a guy on the Panaracer gravel team to get myself a better position. I found a spot I liked. I went to take a quick sip from the Camelbak and… I couldn’t get anything to come out! It was like there was a blockage in the hose or something! My teammate Brad Oldfield rolled up to me right then and I explained what was happening. He and I pulled the bladder out real fast and checked the quick release, which was fine. While that was out I blew through the hose while it was detached from the bladder and it flowed just fine. We put it back on the bladder and it still didn’t work! As we’re putting the bladder back in the pack, they started the race. Obviously, I decided that I would have to just do my best with my bottles only and I hoped that I could figure out a way to get the Camelbak to work.

The start line is NOT the place to be figuring out new equipment!

So, Brad and I started in the absolute back of the field. Not ideal. But, I hoped I could work my way up to a good group quickly enough. I tell Brad that I’m going to start moving up and so he heads to the right of the riders in front of us and I go left. Just as we are out of eyesight of each other, gels start falling out of my should pocket. WFT!? So, I have to stop, turn around, and pick up my gels. And each time I lean over, another gel falls out! SUMBITCH! I realized that I couldn’t just stuff the gels in the pocket, I had to then pull the zipper on the pocket as closed as possible too. Again, I’m completely in the back of the field (except for a bunch of riders who apparently showed up late).

At that point, I was feeling frustrated and pretty down. Any decent group was WAY up the road and I didn’t think riding hard to try and catch up was a great idea. I told myself that this was always going to be a mostly solo TT and to not worry about it, but I was having a hard time getting my head out of that dark place. I felt kind of embarrassed, like I didn’t deserve to be there and it was silly of me to think I would do well. It’s a weird place our heads will go over relatively trivial things!

Going back and looking at the live video that Gravel Guru put on FB, it appears that I was about three to five minutes behind groups that I figure I would have ended up in, so I figure this whole mess of a start had me at least that far back from any kind of good group to ride with.

I kept thinking about how to work with my Camelbak, cause I didn’t want to stop at every single oasis for more fluids. I found that I could pull the bite valve off the hose and then drink directly from the bladder that way. It meant riding with no hands and spilling water every time, but at least I could use it. It was still very frustrating. Not to mention that I had another gel fall out of my pocket maybe 15 miles in that caused me to turn around and retrace my steps a bit.

By the time I got to Touhy about 20ish miles in, I had to pee. So, I stopped and did my business and I took the time to pull of the bite valve and give it more of an inspection. I blew air through it and it flowed just fine just like before. I was still confused, but I did notice that blowing through the valve while biting down on it was kind of hard to do but when I had it pinched with my fingers, it worked okay. So, I put the valve back on the hose, used my fingers to pinch the valve and viola! The water started flowing! I was so relieved! Pretty soon, I didn’t even have to pinch the valve with my fingers, I could use my teeth like intended. I don’t know what was wrong, but at least it was working!

I kept riding and picking my way through the field. By mile 50 or so, I caught up to Brad. I chatted with him a bit and updated him on the Camelbak issue. He said he wasn’t very happy with how he was feeling only 50 miles in, though he looked fine to me still. I kept moving since he wasn’t quite riding at a speed I wanted to do. At this point, I was holding a 17 mph average which would definitely net me a sub-9 hour finish. I tried to keep my stop at the first checkpoint 58 miles in as brief as I could while refilling bottles and the Camelbak. I had to pee not long after that stop so I found a nice place to water some corn. While I was peeing, a group containing Dixon and FDR passed me. I caught up to them just riding my pace and FDR kept telling me to jump in their group. He was insistent. But I had caught them with no additional effort and they were hitting each hill harder than I wanted to go so I stayed out of it. Eventually I got past them and left them behind.

The rest of the ride was uneventful up to the second checkpoint at 128 miles in. I went through some mental ups and downs, stopped at mile 100 to restock and drink a red bull, and kept moving and passing riders. I witnessed a couple guys crash going uphill, which was entertaining. I was starting to feel pretty tired when I got to the second checkpoint. But it was only 22 miles to the finish after checkpoint 2 and I knew I would see Ken and Rachel there. I rolled in and Rachel grabbed my bottles. At mile 100, I had put CarboRocket in both bottles. I had finished one of those bottles and the second was still ¾ full. I told Rachel to not bother filling the empty bottle since there was only 22 miles to go and to just fill the nearly full one. Then I went to pee. I came back, chatted for a hot minute with Rachel and Ken, and then got back rolling again. I had felt like my pace was okay, but my average speed had dropped to 16 mph and I was 8 hours in so I knew the sub-9 finish was not going to happen. Oh well. I had held a NP of 196 watts all the way there which was pretty much my goal.

My stomach was not super happy with me and I was not loving the CarboRocket flavor, but I knew I needed the calories so I forced myself to take a drink a couple miles out of the checkpoint. Shit. Rachel had heard me say fill the bottle and thought I meant refill with cold water, so she had dumped the CarboRocket out! I should have said top it up or something more clear! That was going to be my calories for the rest of the race! I felt my back pockets for gels and came up with nothing. I didn’t think I had any clif bars left either. I just had to gut it out. The last 10 miles were a real struggle. My back was starting to hurt and my energy levels were dropping. Still, I did what I could and coasted wherever it didn’t lose me speed. My average power for the last 22 miles was solidly in zone 1, "active recovery." I was sorely low on energy!

Funny thing is, when I got back and tossed the Camelbak on the ground so I could lay down, there were two gels peeking out of the pockets! It didn’t even occur to me to check my Camelbak pockets! There was also two and a half clif bars I found later and a full baggie of CarbRocket I could have put in the water Rachel got me. My thought process goes to trash when I’m 8 hours in to a race/ride! I bet I would have finished feeling a lot better if I had just stopped to take inventory of my resources!

That feeling when even laying down is uncomfortable!

After most races of this length, I'm usually not ready to think about doing it again very soon. It usually takes me a couple weeks to think I might like to give it another try. Not this time. By the next morning I was already scheming how to do a better ride at Gravel Worlds next year! What if I had not had the troubles with the Camelbak and was able to get into a good group at the start? What if I finally get serious about core strength so my back and arms don't bother me as much in the final quarter of the race? What if I did an even better job hydrating and taking in calories in the final 1/3 of the race? I've got a few things to improve still! I can't wait!

I finished in just under 9 hours and 25 minutes which was good enough for 72nd overall and 45th in the open men category. I'd like to see if I can improve my time to sub-9, though I think my main goal next year will be more about getting a more perfect process in place.

While I have to wait a year for the next Gravel Worlds, we do have another longer gravel race coming up in just a couple weeks on September 8th. I can test out some pacing ideas at the OGRE which is a 100 mile mixed surface event my team is putting on. I say mixed surface because it's got pretty significant portions of pavement in it. Like 35 of the miles are on pavement. but there's also a few MMRs mixed into the remaining mileage. I previewed the course back in June and I think it should be a really good time!

Tour de Husker is back from the dead... kinda like this blog!

Both Fred and Jonathan have blogged about their Tour de Husker race experience already, and I thought this would be a good chance to bring my blog back from the dead! My writing is not as good or witty as Fred's nor is it as succinct as Jonathan's, but I had some time so, why not, right?!

I was excited that the Tour de Husker was back for 2018 after a year off. I don’t get to do many road races, so I jump at the chance when it’s available and fits our schedule. I would really like to Twin Bing too, but it’s on a Sunday and since we’ve committed to keep Sundays a family rest day, a Sabbath if you will, I won’t be making that one. We do make exceptions from time to time, but very rarely for a bike race.

Side note: I feel like even if we hadn’t structured our Sundays in this way, I would prefer to race on Saturdays so I could have Sunday to chill out before heading into a new work week. There must be some other advantage to racing on Sundays that I haven’t considered?

The last couple years have been good to me as far as training goes. I feel quite strong and I know I have the fitness to win a cat 4 race. In reality I feel like my fitness is at a place where I would fit in well at the cat 3 level. But, if I can’t put together a win in a cat 4 field, is it really a good idea to upgrade? If I was able to race a lot more, I would definitely stick it out in the 4s until I had at least a win or two. However, with a lack of race opportunities, it makes every race a race where I suddenly feel like I “have” to win. So, I’m still pondering the idea of requesting an upgrade. I pretty much have the points so…

On the other hand, this race fell at a point in my training where I would be pretty fatigued. It would be at the end of a three week block of pretty tough workouts. I considered dialing my workout the day before way back, but since TdH wasn’t really a target race for me this year, I decided it would be better to move forward with my training plan as scheduled. I know this flies in the face of wanting a win before upgrading, making it harder to accomplish. 

We had a decent sized field for a local cat 4 race. I think there were a total of 18 of us plus a masters racer or two. The first couple laps were relatively calm. There were several attacks happening, but everyone would close them down pretty quickly and it seemed like maybe the attackers were just testing the field cause the shut it down even before they were caught many times. No one seemed interested in counter-attacking either. 

By the time the second lap was maybe 75% done, I felt that if the race continued the way it was going, we’d probably end up in a group sprint. I sprint like a climber, so that wasn’t going to work for me. I decided that on the next time up the initial climb it needed to get harder than it had been. If no one else was going to push the pace, then I would.

We got to the climb and one of the guys from out of state went to the front and started riding pretty hard. I was right on his wheel and was happy that someone else was going to the work of pushing the pace. But then his speed started to drop and I could see the effort was already taking a toll on him and we were still on the early part of the section. So I came around him and upped the pace even more. I didn’t jump hard or anything. My goal wasn’t really to get a gap so much as it was to try and whittle the group down a bit. 

I looked back after maybe 30 seconds or so and I had one guy on my wheel. No one else had come with me. The guy who was with me was one of the guys who had been attacking a bunch earlier in the race. I kept the pressure on for a little while longer and then indicated that I wanted him to come around and contribute. He acted kind of surprised and asked if I wanted to really make a go at it. That kind of baffled me. Apparently he was content to sit on my wheel and see what would happen. Later on, I figured out that he was riding in support of another guy, so I suppose I should be surprised that he actually did come around and did some work.

We worked together for the rest of the northbound section where my breakmate suggested that we not kill ourselves on the climb and wait for the tailwind to really hit it hard. That made a kind of sense to me so I eased up a bit when I was on the front for the rest of the headwind section. In retrospect, I think maintaining a hard pace the whole way would have been better. I don’t think this guy was really in it for the long haul. 

Anyway, the group caught us not too long after that. I expected them to come around us with some sort of sense of urgency, but they seemed happy to have simply brought us back and their pace dropped right away. So I got back in the group and somehow ended up on the front again (I hate when I do that!). I didn’t really think I was riding all that hard, but I guess the rest of the bunch was tired, because suddenly it was me and the same dude with a gap again. He made some comment about how we had a gap again so it seemed like maybe the group was letting us go. So, I suggested that we just roll smooth and steady turns and see where it got us.

Well, got caught again. Again, I expected someone to come around and, I don’t know, start racing? But the same thing happened and there was an immediate lull in the pace. Not what I was expecting or wanting. I thought for sure someone would counter and I could hop on and we could maybe have a nice break form. It wasn’t to be though. 

At this point we were on the dam with a bit of a tailwind and the group was spread out across the road. Too easy. Again. So, I attacked. This time it was a full on attack. Out of the saddle and snappy. I went pretty hard 10 seconds or so, the settled down to a hard but sustainable pace, and then looked back to see if I had done any damage and who was coming with. It appeared as if not a single person had responded at all. I was all by my lonesome. Not ideal considering there was still nearly 20 miles left to race, but it didn’t seem like anyone else wanted to play. So, I went for it. 

I pretty much set it to threshold pace and tried to hold the burn at a just tolerable enough level to last another hour or so. Had I not done that hard workout the day before, maybe I could have gone a few percent harder for a while to really open up a gap, but that wasn’t happening with the condition my legs were in at that point. 

I made it to the next corner with a decent gap. Decent enough be able to hit the brakes to make sure I didn’t turn the corner right in front of a car coming through the intersection at the same time as me (thanks, corner marshal).

The next ~30 minutes or so consisted of being pretty uncomfortable and looking back over and over to see the main group gaining on me and then falling back over and over. I would think I was done for and then suddenly I would be hopeful again. I kept thinking that if I could just get to a corner with enough of a gap, I could be out of sight, but the course has too many straight sections for that to work with only a 20 second gap. 

I eventually got caught and figured that my chances were pretty well blown. But again, no one countered and I was able to slip back in to the group and recover. There was some pace put on for a bit as we hit the dam again, but nothing that was too concerning for me. When we got to the south side of the course, the group started getting smaller and smaller until there was just five of us left. I guess the chase after me had really taken its toll on the group. 

We rolled through the hills on the westward part of the course pretty steadily. There was a bit of a cross-wind but apparently everyone was feeling pretty generous cause no one put the group into the gutter. I was able to sit in the draft nice and easily for most of this time. They were even rotating and let me just sit on the back taking no turns whatsoever. Two of the guys were teammates, I believe. They were from out of town and, with the cold weather, team kits were hard to see with jackets on over them. 

Anyways, one of them (same guy as who went off the front with me a couple times earlier in the race) told the other to just sit in. He then went to the front and rode off. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong, but I distinctly remember him going to the front and just riding off. Like, he didn’t make a hard attack and create a gap, he just rode a little faster and the rest of us just watched him ride off to a few seconds’ lead. I was okay with it because I didn’t think he would get too much of a lead and I was happy to just sit back and see what would happen, but I was surprised that the guy who had been on his wheel didn’t match the change in pace at all.

So, we have one guy dangling off the front of the group by a few seconds, three other dudes rotating (including the guy who was instructed to sit in), and me sitting on the back and skipping pulls while enjoying the full benefit of the draft. I was sitting pretty.

Eventually, I got impatient with rate that we were not pulling back the guy off the front so I went to the front and increased the pace a little bit. That was a little stupid, since then everyone was quite happy to sit on my wheel. I only say a little stupid, because I was still only doing zone 2 power while on the front. I thought about just going for it again, but we were still far enough out that it would be a very hard effort to maintain and were close enough that they were almost guaranteed to chase, I thought.

The 5 of us eventually came back together and made our way back into the park for the final 2ish mile stretch. No one really pushed it here either and I was able to sit on some more. A small lead out was attempted by the two team mates, and they decided to open the sprint right at the last right-hand turn towards the finish line. Unfortunately, the lead out guy swung off right into the line I was going to take and I had to swing wide to avoid crashing, losing a bunch of momentum. I still had a shot though since they were starting the sprint way early. The guy who started the sprint faded pretty quickly. I knew how far out we were and so didn’t go full bore right away. But another guy went for it and, incredibly, held it all the way to the line. At one point, I tried to reaccelerate and I almost fell off my bike when my legs just about seized. 

I ended up in second place… again. On one hand I’m happy to be on the podium, but on the other hand, I know I had it in me to win and I just don’t seem to be able to put it together yet. Thinking back on it now, I can think of several things I could have done differently. For one, I think I should have pushed the pace on the cross-wind section, putting the group into the gutter. I get the impression that the rest of the group was pretty tired so forcing them to match my pace without much of a draft may have simply dropped them all. But could I have held that all the way to the line after spending so much time earlier off the front solo? Who knows?

It was still a great day on the bike regardless of not quite getting what I think I could have for a result. Next race is the first race of the Psycowpath series at Swanson. Hopefully the weather dries up in time. It would be nice to actually get to ride my mountain bike sometime before the race too!