Unbound!
It is hard to believe that Unbound is only a few days away. I am writing this on the plane as I am travelling from Barcelona to Emporia, Kansas. To be completely honest, I have mixed emotions about Unbound. I find the race both extremely exciting as well as daunting and stressful but a race I look forward to finishing. Not only does the distance make Unbound stressful but all the preparation, time, training and sacrifices that goes into Unbound to make it a successful race. It is also a race where it is hard not to compare yourself to everyone else competing. All over social media my competitors are posting their “Unbound training blocks” and new equipment. I find it a bit difficult not to get overwhelmed by seeing what others are doing and feeling like I am not prepared enough. Something I have really tried to do is not pay attention to what everyone else is doing. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing, but I made the conscious choice to not look at other rider’s set up, strategy or training leading up to this event. I decided to focus on dialing my equipment, nutrition and taking the advice from my team and teammates. To be transparent, I was quite overwhelmed with how late I was flying to the race. I am arriving late Wednesday evening and have Thursday and Friday to get quite a few things dialed for the race. This goes back to limiting myself on social media and to stop myself from getting worried that everyone else is already at the race. Instead, I looked at the positives. For example, coming from Europe, I have the advantage of the time change so waking up at 3:00 am on race day doesn’t seem as bad for me. I am going to keep my body in the European time zone the next few days going into the race for the early morning wakeup call to be easier. With all that being said, I want to focus on going over the course, my goals, and nutrition! Enjoy!
This will be my second Unbound and the race will follow the same course as last year. The race is a total of 327.4 km with 4011 meters of climbing. Normally I would think 4000 meters is a lot of climbing, however, in over 327 km, it is a relatively flat and fast course. The course features a lot of short and steep climbs, however, nothing over ten minutes. It is not the most ideal course for me; however, this is quite a unique race where a lot of factors come into play. Even though it is not typically a course I would love, I am still optimistic I can make something happen. For me the hardest part of the race is just digesting the actual distance and time of the course. I find it difficult to look at the race as just 327km. I would rather look at it in three different parts. The first part is the first 4 hours of the race to Feed Zone 1 at 113km, the second part is getting to Feed Zone 2 at 248 km and the last part of the race is getting to the finish. Last year my plan was to only take the amount of food I would need for the first 5 hours as I figured that everyone was planning to stop at the first feed. I was sadly mistaken as everyone rode through the first feed. I am not sure if it will be the same this year and if the heat will make a difference, but I am going to plan my nutrition to get me to the second and final check point at 248km which will be around 7 or so hours into the race. I learned from the Traka that my nutrition needs are even higher than I thought and I am going to overpack to what I calculated I need. For example, I normally aim for 75-90 grams of carbs per hour and by 7 hours I will need to have had around 11-12 gels as well as drink two to three bottles and most of my 2L pack of high carb mix. Knowing this I will have 16 gels. I decided on 5 extra gels for a mix of reasons. Firstly, I want to do everything possible to avoid the mistakes I made at the Traka of under fueling as well as I need to take in account that it could take me more than 7 hours to get to the second feed zone. There is a high chance the course will be extremely muddy, or a mechanical could happen. For example, what happened to me last year when my battery died and I was stuck in single speed for 3.5 hours, I ended up getting to the second feed almost an hour later than I originally expected. If anything, I learned that I need to expect anything to happen at Unbound, so I need to be prepared with my equipment, nutrition and mentally how I react.
Photo Credit: Nils Laengner
From hour 7 to the end which can be anywhere between 10.5-11.5 hours of racing I will consume roughly 20 gels, 4L of high carb mix from my hydro packs, and around 6 bottles with a combination of high carb mix and water. If you are reading this and thinking that is a LOT, it is! But I must do it and I have also trained my stomach to be able to handle that amount of carbs and sugar. Not a lot of people love doing this, but I exclusively train with gels and some bars for my stomach to adapt to be ready for a big day like Unbound.
Photo Credit: Chiara Redaschi
Next, I will be discussing my goals. The approach I am taking may not be conventional to what others do; however, this is what works for me. For other races like the Traka or Nationals, I have quite a concrete goal that I work towards. The approach I take for Unbound is completely different and unique only for this race. I do not have a placement goal as I truly believe it is impossible to have a placement goal in this race. Sure, I would love to win like everyone else lining up, but it is not the only thing I am thinking of. From the mechanical problem I had last year I learned that I need to use my energy on only focusing on the things I can control. Those things are my race prep, my mindset, nutrition, and dialling my equipment to best suit the conditions on the day of the race. I know I am stronger than I was last year, I am smarter, I feel more prepared and if I can focus on myself in a race like this anything is possible. Other than riding well, I also need to focus on having a positive mindset during the tough parts of the race and staying calm if I have any mechanical issues. Something I do before the race is to go over any potential mechanicals I have and how I would fix them. Doing this makes me feel more prepared and gives me more confidence if anything were to go wrong.
Finally, I want to highlight the equipment and nutrition I will be using! I will be racing on the Basso Palta, and I will probably be one of the few people using mechanical shifting. I will be racing on the Campagnolo Ekar 13 speed groupset. To minimize any issues, I have opted to go with the mechanical 1X groupset. I have confidence in this choice and hopefully I got out all my bad luck last year! For tires, I will be racing on Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M, 45 and using the Fulcrum Sharq wheels! I am confident with my set up this year and looking forward to seeing what I can do on race day. For nutrition I will be using Never Second. I will be using a mix of C30 gels and a handful of the C30 caffeine gels as well as using both the C30 and C90 high carb mix.
Photo Credit: Chiara Redaschi
If you made it to the end, thank you! This was a long one but there is a lot to cover for Unbound! Make sure to follow me on Instagram for my race day report and what I will be up to next!