Was UNBOUND Gravel worth it?
My race recap, Lachlan and Rosa win, New Zwift KOM climb, Hyperice gets Elite, and more...
👋 Good morning and happy Friday! Welcome to the Front Pack newsletter, your source for all things endurance. Click here for the web edition.
We’re back in Austin, TX after a long weekend in Emporia, Kansas. I can’t sit here and say I missed this 95 degree heat because it sure was beautiful 9 hours north. Comfortable days and cool evenings with our rented RV windows open. ahhh that was the life. Not the life was turning on the RV water heater and having it smell like the worst rotten eggs you’ve ever smelled but hey, you win some and lose some I guess. Good thing the RV park had bathrooms and showers or it would have been a long weekend of being dirty. Hope everyone is staying hydrated and you have some good summer plans.
Thanks for subscribing and as always, share with a friend.
Stay moving…✌🏼 - Scott
Headlines
🚴 Everyone Loves Lachy: There isn’t anyone out there that doesn’t love Lachlan Morton (USA) winning the 2024 LIFETIME UNBOUND Gravel 200 pro men’s race. He’s universally beloved and lives that “spirit of gravel” mentality. Chill guy who hilariously downs a beer the day before racing, has a PBR immediately after, and makes himself totally available to anyone who wants to chat. He just gets it. On the course, he was able to put getting lost aside and still came out on top, beating 2nd place finisher Chad Haga (USA) at the finish line by 1 second with a time of 9:11:47. Tobias Kongstad (DNK) would finish 3rd. Lachlan who was sitting in 32nd place at mile 101 battled to 1st by mile 133 and was able to keep in the top 3 the remaining 67 miles. Read more…
🚴 Rosa at the Finish Line: Like the men’s pro race, the pro women’s 200 also came down to the wire, but instead of a final two after 200 miles, there were eight women fighting for the win. As the first UNBOUND that had the women’s pro field start together without the men, there was a sense of a leveler playing field and they got to battle together all day. It was Rosa Kloser (DNK) beating Geerike Schreurs (NLD) and Paige Onweller (USA) to secure the win with a time of 10:26:02. Kloser climbed from 11th place at mile 163 to ultimately win. Read more…
🏃 How many Ultra’s last weekend?: Over 51 ultramarathons took place across the US and Canada last weekend. Talk about growth! At the challenging Worlds End Ultramarathons 100k event, 118 runners completed the course in under 19 hours to earn their Western States qualifier. The first-place female (8th overall) title went to Mackenzie Nolan who ran the third-fastest course time to win in 13:50:49. In the men’s race, Trevor Fye was victorious in 11:39:24, with Enrik Mundt claiming second (12:05:25) and Craig Winters placing third (12:55:07).
🏊🚴🏃 Youri Struggles Again: Though he currently leads the T100 triathlon series standings, Youri Keulen has had a rough go at it ever since his impressive win in Singapore a month ago. This time, it was at IRONMAN 70.3 Switzerland where he would finish 14th, describing his performance as “all I could manage.” This just three weeks after a DNF at IRONMAN 70.3 Mallorca. Read more…
Meanwhile
🏊🚴🏃 Hyperice launches Normatec Elite: Air compression gone wireless. That’s what the brands new Elite are all about. The company has taken away the separate Control Unit and Hoses to make their top seller even more portable. Read more…
🚴 Forget ‘Road to Sky’, Zwift launches The Grade: Launching between June 11-13, The Grade is a new climb coming to the platform where cyclists climb the reverse side of the existing Epic KOM mountain. Read more…
🚴 The Best Cycling Products from May: The year isn’t halfway through yet but May brought 14 cycling products that could change the sport for the foreseeable future. From the new SRAM Red AXS system to the Hammerhead Karoo 3, check out what stuck out the most. Read more…
🏊🚴🏃 TriDot And 3x IRONMAN World Champion Craig Alexander Launch Exclusive Global Coaching Partnership: I’ve never used TriDot but know a lot of people do so this feels like big news in the triathlon world. The partnership will bring TriDot’s AI-driven endurance training platform to even more coaches and athletes, including Crowie’s renowned Sansego Triathlon Club. Read more…
My Favorite Race… Ever?
🚴 Maybe it’s the prestige of this race or that I was doing it with two friends and we made a trip out of it but after a lot racing in different places over the last few years, UNBOUND Gravel 2024 was the most special. A lot of hype usually always results in disappointment but this was the opposite. The hype was the hype and the vibes were real. And it wasn’t just another race; it was announced that more than 5,000 athletes from all 50 US States and 40 countries were participating. And unlike IRONMAN or other events, Emporia, a small town of 20,000+ had an electricity in the air you could feel, and only grew as you got downtown and walked the main drag of Commercial Street. The buzz of it all wasn’t something you could simply ignore. If you get the chance in 2025, sign up. Push your fitness and get involved. You won’t be disappointed.
The Players
Silverback Tinybladder - Lives in MN, 2 daughters, wife, relatively new at endurance cycling but a beast with a teenie tiny bladder.
Fashion First - Lives in ATX, dog guy, wife, saddle sore survivor, longtime cyclist. Lives by “look good, feel good.”
Seek & Destroy - Lives in ATX, 2 children, wife, avid endurance guy, questionably successful newsletter. Loves the trill of the hunt in racing.
Pre-Race
Leading up to the race I felt my fitness was in a good spot. Just a month ago, I did the Jailbreak 100, a gravel race and tackled a Memorial Day Olympic distance triathlon the weekend before Unbound. I was confident in whatever the course and Kansas weather threw at me.
At the Friday AM shakeout, we road 15 miles which showcased the first 5 and last 5 miles of the course. Hilariously, it gave a lot of people false confidence in what we’d be up against because the first and last 5 miles were flat and fast. The course was not. But overall, legs were feeling good.
The Set Up
Fuel - I had a goal of 100g of carbs an hour + 2K mg of sodium so I took two bottles of H2O with 1.5 Orange LMNTs and 3 scoops of RAW Endurance. Additionally I took in 1 gel every 30 minutes; a combination of Maurten 100 GEL/100 CAF and SIS. Lastly I had a USWE 2L pack of just H20. Once I got to the mile 54 aid station, the volunteers replenished me and I got going again. Plus one Snickers bar for all my hot boi summer bodies out there. 😎
Bike - Lauf Seigla ‘Weekend Warrior’ with their rigid fork; electronic SRAM shifting and Quarq power meter. I was surprised by how many Lauf’s I saw but given the price tag for the amazing specs, makes a lot of sense.
Wheels - Zipp 303 Firecrest with Orange Seal.
Tires - A hotly debated topic but I ran the MAXXIS Rambler 700c Gravel Tire 700 x 50mm - SilkShield at 32 PSI. They were thiccc and I definitely noticed a difference between them and the 45c I ran a month back but at the end of the day they were amazing, cushy, and took on everything I threw at them. No punctures, and my body wasn’t wrecked at the end of the day.
Pedals and shoes - Shimano road pedals and road shoes. I ultimately went with these to maximize foot comfort. After my last 100 mile gravel race when I ran mtn bike pedals and gravel shoes, my feet were dead so I wanted to see if the opposite would give me vastly more comfort. It hadn’t rained so I didn’t expect much hiking and wanted a larger footprint over smaller mtn bike pedals. Same with the road cleats versus my actual gravel shoes. It worked.
Aerobars - Profile Sonic Ergo aerobar. Bolt on but made a huge difference in going fast on the straights and stretching my back out.
The Start
Pro-tip. Never start a race in 691st place. That’s never where you want to be 🤪. But alas, that was the reality. We even arrived 30 minutes before the start. But the 100 miler had 1,500 participants so we began right in the middle, crossing the start line 2 minutes after the gun. So there was only one thing to do, get to work. By mile 20, we’d moved up 120+ spots to 570, then 439 by mile 40. No flats and fast racing by the mile 54 aid station.
“Kyle is Dead”
Following the mile 54 aid station things started to go South. Fashion First had surgery 6 weeks before the event and had only gotten back on the saddle two weeks before. He also later revealed that he wasn’t fueling properly (6 gels all day) so between fitness and fueling, a bonk was bound to happen. For a split second it crossed my mind to push on and get a killer time and place, but that’s not The Dirty Boys way. Instead, we pushed to all finish together as promised.
The End
We made it, together. We climbed to 373rd place by mile 80 but sadly, that’s as far as we got in the standings. Fashion First was hurting bad starting from mile 65 to the finish line, we’d ultimately finish 450th of 1500. But Unbound 2024 wasn’t about the result and as cliche as it is, this was really about the journey. I got to get away from the house, be with friends I never see, test myself and do something really hard, and be proud to see both friends finish their longest rides of their lives.
Training Tips
Because training is life.
🏊 Learn To Swim Freestyle: I feel like I’m posting a swimming video each week but that’s ok. There are a lot of bad swimmers out there. In its simplest form, GTN nails it on the stroke of freestyle. It’s 3 phases - catch, pull, push the water past you.
🚴 This is the Most Important Nutrient for Cyclists: Given a big theme of this newsletter was about bonking, make sure you’re getting enough Iron (whole foods, nuts and seeds) in addition to your carbs, hydration and other nutrients.
🏊🚴🏃 Maurten BiCarb System Review: The Best Supplement For Any Runner, Cyclist Or Triathlete?: Adding this one because I’ve used this BiCarb ahead of my last two races and felt like it mattered. Did it? That’s always the biggest question, right? But I felt like I had extra juice in the legs for longer. Check it out.
Rewatchables
Content for long training days inside or just everyday life.
🚴 2024 UNBOUND Gravel | Race Highlights: The LIFETIME team does an amazing job pushing out a full hour long recap within 48 hours of the race. No idea how they do it but congrats to them for another great watch.
🏃 Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim: Check this epic fully self supported race that has you running/hiking across the Grand Canyon and back. 44 miles with 24,000 feet of ascent/descent. 80 degrees in the valley and 30 with snow at the peak (8300 feet). 20 hours.
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