The heavens were open when I walked out to my car at 7 in the morning. I fumbled with my keys as I tried hurriedly to unlock the door. It was still nearly pitch-black outside. Rain came down sideways as massive puddles swept across the road, and I squinted up at the sky. Hordes of heavy clouds were rolling in one after another – this storm’s end was nowhere in sight.
I threw my bike into the back of van and slipped into the driver’s seat. With just 40 minutes to the start, I was fully kitted up with a base layer, skinsuit, arm warmers, knee warmers, Velotoze, and gloves. About 1500 calories worth of nutrition products was packed into my two deep pockets – I would soon realize that this wasn’t nearly enough. I shivered in my seat as I cranked up the heat en route to the race course.
Stillwater, Oklahoma – a nice little town outside of Tulsa. Big enough to have its own charm and Oklahoma State University. But I didn’t see much that hadn’t to do with the race. During Friday’s expo, I walked up and down the streets of downtown, but mostly staring at transplanted bikes, people, and products. And on race morning, I huddled in a bike shop – District Bicycles – along with hundreds of other racers clad in wet chamois and rain jackets.
When I heard the start was delayed 30 minutes to 8:30AM, I found a bench and plopped myself down while trying to keep as calm as possible. I *thought I knew what was to come: 7+ hours of suffering, racing through the cold and wet Oklahoma mud. I knew what to expect, but perhaps I was expecting a dirty peck on the lips. Instead, I got smacked in the face by Mike Tyson, if his glove was covered in manure.
After sitting in a cold and wet kit for far too long, I rolled up behind the start line with over a thousand others. My teeth were chattering and my legs were shaking. I tried calming myself down with a few deep breaths, but the cold was at my core and I just wanted to ride.
One eternity later… GO! The front row started, but I didn’t move. What I failed to realize at the time was how far back I was in the corral. Over a minute after the word Go, I finally moved, but I was already in 500th place. I’m not exaggerating – as the riders exited downtown and approached the first “gravel” section (side note: I would hardly classify this race as “Gravel”. Approx. 90% of it was mud, 5% pavement, and 5% actual gravel. Nevertheless, it was still a great race.), I could see the front of the field half a mile ahead of me.
By the time I realized my fatal mistake, it was already too late. I am a gravel newbie, and I failed to recognize the importance of my starting position in a race that would take more than seven hours. As a result, I was never in the race; I was far, far behind it, stuck chasing my tail and wondering what could have been. Bonus newbie move: I decided that I needed to chase hard for the first two or three hours in order to have any shot at a result.
Perhaps you’ve already read between the lines, but I blew up. Not completely – I didn’t come to a complete stop and quit (or pass out) – but I followed a slow decline all the way until the last couple miles of the race.
For the first 40 miles, which took me over two and a half hours to complete, I had a normalized power over 330 W. That’s a PR for me, by a long shot. I never really considered that I had nearly five hours to go.
I started to unravel at the first running section, a horribly wet and muddy climb in the midst of a gnarly section of fire road. Up until this point, I had ridden well. My only mistake had been overdressing, and not planning an exit strategy for my rain jacket – After a full minute of fumbling, I just stuffed the thing in the front of my jersey which I’m sure made me look pregnant. I am not, just to be clear.
At the bottom of the climb, I unclipped my left foot because everyone in front of me was running. There was no clear line and thus, I saw no other choice. But when I tried to unclip my right foot, I couldn’t. It was stuck. For two full minutes I pulled and yanked on my foot, twisting my ankle inside and out, trying desperately to get my foot out so that I could continue this masochistic suffering. Eventually the light bulb finally went off in my head to spray water on the damn thing, you idiot. It worked. Remember, I’m a newbie.
That kerfuffle probably cost me 30 positions, and I thought my race was over. But I got back into it as fast as I could, and continued passing people because I was a man on a mission. It was a mission with no end, no reward, and no reason, but I did it anyway.
Mile 40 is when I almost lost it. A right-hand turn put us onto this long, gradual climb that was the thickest, peanut butteriest mud on the course thus far. I tried to ride it – I tried sooo damn hard to ride it – but halfway up my wheels seized and were caked in mud. When I hopped off, I realized my whole frame, every nook, cranny, component, and pulley was covered in peanut butter. I tried to hoist my bike onto my shoulder, but bailed when I realized it now weighed 50 pounds. So I pulled to the side of the road and got out my paint stick. I scraped and jabbed, pushed and pulled as much mud as I could out of my once-beautiful race machine. When it seemed to be good enough, I tried turning the pedals. The squeals and creaks that came from my bike are the soundtrack of nightmares. Three more minutes of scraping and my bike was finally functional.
I rolled into the checkpoint at Mile 55 kissing the sweet, sweet pavement that gave my body and mind a break as I considered the quality and quantity of calories I was about to consume. Before pulling into the Panaracer pit stop, I grabbed two Snickers from the football field of food that was the feedzone. I downed a sleeve of Clif Shot Bloks and a Clif Bar while my bike was being cleaned, and slipped on a fresh pair of gloves for the race’s second half. Oh, and I got rid of that rain jacket in my jersey, of course.
Those handful of minutes at the checkpoint were pure bliss. Food, water, bathrooms, towels, clean clothes, pavement, and people… It was all gone in the blink of an eye, and I rolled down the road towards Mile 56 and another four hours of suffering.
The knowledgeable warned me that the second half of this course was going to be worse – the mud would be deeper, thicker, more difficult and sometimes impossible to ride. I hit the first section after the checkpoint and it wasn’t that bad. Maybe this will be all right. I can do this!
The second section came and I could see at least eight people in front of me walking up a mud mountain. Oh no. A sketchy river crossing forced everyone to dismount at the bottom of the climb, and the mud afterwards was so thick that no one around me could ride it. I spent five minutes trudging up that hill, with my shoulder pounding in pain and the left side of my back completely knotted up. When I made it to the top, I had to take a second. Breathe, stretch, relax…
The “real race” was so far gone at this point that I just wanted to finish. I was still going to ride hard – as I often do to my own detriment – and I wasn’t going to give up. My bike will have to break before I do.
The next three hours are a blur. Lots of mud, at least three sections of walking, but not as much cursing as you would think – I was too tired. Every hill was a feat. I would pedal hard to the top, keep the pressure on until I hit the downhill, and then soak up as much energy as I could by coasting down the other side. It felt like a slow motion time trial, where everything hurt and I felt like I could bonk at any moment.
My final newbie mistake was not bringing enough food. You see, I had planned to bring enough calories. But that plan involved me grabbing the second half of my supply at the checkpoint. At Mile 55 I was already so exhausted that I could barely think straight. I completely forgot to take my second-half stash, meaning that with 30 miles to go I reached into my pocket and felt only a single gel. Sh*t.
BY THE GRACE OF GOD there was a Skratch Labs feedzone around Mile 85. They had pancakes, energy bars, Oreos, chips, rice cakes, and more. I ate almost all of it, and that gave me the confidence that I could finish. And not only finish, but finish strong. For the next 20 miles I continued leapfrogging riders and then watching them pass me as I stopped to clean mud off my bike. I still didn’t know how much I needed to stop, how often I needed to clean, and how thoroughly I needed to go. (Remember: newbie.) In hindsight, I completely overdid it, and my forty minutes of stoppage time surely could’ve been condensed into ten or fifteen.
Nearing the end – of the course, of myself and my sanity – I approached a river crossing. And when I say river crossing, I mean river crossing. It had a serious flow, rushing to my right into some sort of barricade; which I hoped would stop me if I gave up mid-swim. The river was over two feet deep, and it instantly flooded my shoes as I was up to my thighs in ice cold water. Despite the shivers, it was actually a nice bath after spending six hours caked in mud.
Pro tip: do put your bike in the water when given the opportunity during a muddy race. It provides a quick and thorough cleanse that no paint stick can match.
That was the last walking section. I did stop once more when my chain got jammed in one of the derailleur pulleys. Mud which had caked the surface eventually dried and completely seized it. A quick water spray and paint stick scrub and I was on my way.
I thought I had 10 miles to go when a group of three caught me as I waited to cross a county road – gravel races are open-road, and it’s still weird to me putting a foot down at a stop sign mid-race. When we reached pavement shortly thereafter, I suddenly realized we were only a couple miles from the finish. My failing brain had actually helped me this time. With Stillwater in sight, I felt a tiny surge of energy, the only energy left after nearly eight hours of slogging through the mud.
With a simple 300 W pull, I broke away from our group and caught my teammate, Michael, with less than a mile to go to the finish. We rolled in together – I finished in 33rd place, over an hour and a half behind the winner of the men’s race, Payson McElveen, andover 10 minutes behind the women’s winner, Hannah Finchamp.
Mid-South Gravel was truly a humbling experience. Between the cold, rain, and mud to come, I was fearfully shivering on the start line. But in hindsight, I really had no idea – I had no idea how important my starting position was, how important it was to have the right pedal/cleat combo, how important it is to carry a paint stick during a bike race, and I had no idea how f***ing hard 100 miles could be.
I made a lot of mistakes in the Oklahoma mud, but in those eight hours, I also learned more than I ever could in 1000 dry and boring gravel races. The 2020 Mid-South Gravel will live in infamy. Every single rider who rolled over the start line that day will remember their experience whether they finished or not. And a thousand more who stayed home will remember that same weekend – as the world turned on its head due to the coronavirus pandemic, a brave bunch continued on to Oklahoma as news was beginning to spread. The race organizers and local authorities made the final call: the race would go on.
Despite a work days’ worth of suffering and swallowing copious amounts of Oklahoma mud, I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I raced Mid-South, and I am proud that I finished the damn thing. And when racing finally returns, I’ll be looking for redemption.
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Race website: https://www.midsouthgravel.com/