Chasing the Sun at Unbound 200

Chasing the Sun at Unbound 200

Unbound really snuck up on me fast this year. Before May 31st I hadn’t ever ridden more than 108 miles, road or gravel. My training never included a really long ride but I wasn’t worried. I trusted my coach Kenneth D Ramirez, my training, my equipment, and my body. The moment I found out that I got into the lottery I was buzzing. I knew I had signed up for something that was twice as hard as the hardest thing I’d ever done.

My journey to Unbound was a long one. I spent most of my adult life sedentary due to back and knee injuries. In fact I did this Unbound with a collapsing disk in my lower back. I stopped weighing myself at 285 lbs because I just didn’t want to know. I found the love of my life, Kristin Gaylor Salinas, after a devastating life event and she was my motivation to invest in myself. We bought bikes in May 2023, I was hooked. I bought a road bike in September of that year. Got into the lottery for Unbound 100 in January of 2024 and bought my gravel bike. I trained for that by doing mostly road events locally including the MS150 and a few gravel races in TX like the Rattlesnake Gravel Grind . After finishing Unbound Gravel 100, I moved on to Life Time Big Sugar Classic 100. Leading up to that event I was asked to share my story with Bicycling.com https://www.bicycling.com/.../how-cycling-changed-me.../ Once Big Sugar was behind me I threw my name in the lottery for Unbound 200 and got in.

Training for Unbound was mostly just grinding out ERG workouts on the trainer in my garage. So much time, so much sweat. Long outdoor rides on the weekend were a welcome change after doing 2-3 hour Zone 2 trainer rides for days. I have a great coach and great team. We did all the local gravel races together, I’ve never been on a podium but having been a big guy most of my life I was happy with finishing a hard thing and bonus for not being DFL. After The MidSouth was cancelled due to wildfires, boy what a harrowing experience that was for my wife and son, I registered for the century route at Rattlesnake Gravel Grind . David King puts on a great event and everyone should do that race. That event was my last long ride before Unbound. I would do a couple 80 mile rides after but nothing even close to 200 miles. Oddly I was confident, telling my coach “I know I can do this, I just don’t know how long it will take me”.

Leading up to the race I decided my primary goal was to beat the sun. It felt realistic but a stretch. Obviously the secondary goal was to just finish before the 3am cutoff. I did so much prep for the race, equipment checks, tire testing, prefilling water bottles and bladders, everything I could think of to have a smooth race. A crucial mistake here for me was a fear of cramping so I put LMNT in all of my water. SPOILER ALERT: this would be part of the cause of my troubles. My coach and other friends who have done endurance events like Ironman told me to conserve during the first 100 so that I had the energy to finish. We targeted a normalized power of 200-220 for the race.

First Leg (70 miles, avg spd 14.1 mph, avg pwr 184w, avg hr 123)

Race day felt much like last year. A lot of noise, everyone chatting nervously waiting for the start. A national anthem that dropped in and out (with the racers filling in the missing pieces) was a great lead up. And then it started! The gravel around Emporia is so fast. Especially with the weather conditions we had leading up to the race. Just like last year we had rain days before the race but had a sunny Friday so most of the course was dry, packed, and super fast. Start of race jitters got me good and I spent the first 40 miles at a much higher speed than I was supposed to be chasing, but around mile 40 I pulled things back and kept the pace around 14-15 mph. It was a cool morning which led me to neglect my hydration (first big mistake). The first leg was fun. Everyone is in great spirits and after 40-50 miles everything has been strung out a bit so you have room to be alone with your pain or chat it up with a racer to meet new people. I almost missed the two orange painted rocks (I think they were in the first leg) but luckily I saw them at the last minute. Bike handling is so important and especially this year with the ruts as bad as they were.

Alma (19 minutes)

My wife and son were my pit crew this year and it was so nice to come rolling into Alma and see them waiting for me. My son really got bitten by the cycling bug on this trip which was my hope so he spent a good amount of time rolling around the towns on his bmx bike. Once I got to the stop my pit crew went to work. They swapped out my bladder in my USWE pack and gave me fresh bottles. My son cleaned the mud off my rear light while I enjoyed a baggie of macaroni tossed in a bit of olive oil to fuel up. I was in good spirits, a bit thirsty, but feeling strong still.

Second Leg (78 miles, avg spd 12.6 mph, avg pwr 160w, avg hr 122)

For the first 20 miles or so I felt pretty strong. I felt so thirsty and kept drinking from my USWE pack. I started to feel dehydrated so I kept drinking, not thinking about the fact that all my water had LMNT salt in it might be causing me to feel dehydrated. Then, my pack was empty. I realized that I only had 2 33 oz bottles of salted water left and a bit of panic set in. I had 58 miles to ride with only 66 oz of salt water. I gathered my thoughts and rationed what salted water I had left until we passed through a town where they were handing out cokes. A lady there told me that there was a water stop near mile 110. I finally had some hope, maybe I can hang on long enough to get there and get some fresh water. The temperature kept going up and I kept seeing riders laying in the shade on the side of the road. The heat wasn’t bothering me, just this massive dehydration. When I finally got to the water station I was greeted by a volunteer from Wisconsin. He offered to fill my bottles for me. I still had 1.5 bottles worth of salt water so I dumped that in my water bladder and gave him the bottles to fill. I figured two 33 oz bottles of water could get me to Council Grove easily. What I should have done was fill my water bladder up with water as well. I had a short chat with the volunteer, he asked how I was feeling and I let him know I was doing ok but just had some dehydration. He asked about the heat and I told him that I’m from San Antonio, TX. He said “Ok that’s just cheating!”. I pulled away after taking a 5 minute break and continued down the road. I went through the two bottles of plain water within 25 miles and began using the salted water again in my USWE pack. The feeling of dehydration never left. My tongue felt dry, my mouth was sticky when I tried to talk. I just kept telling myself that I had already cycled further than I ever have in one day. If I can get that far, I can get to Council Grove and then regroup. Slowly but surely, I got there.

Council Grove (28 minutes)

Rolling into Council Grove was the biggest relief. My wife and son greeted me and I sat in the grass and drank a half gallon of water and chased that with my favorite Electrolyt, Grape! I ate some macaroni and just sat there while my wife packed ice packs in my jersey. It felt good to just rest. This was my longest stop but I needed every minute of that to recover. My mouth dryness went away, and I started to feel strong again. I kissed my wife and took off for the last and shortest leg of the race.

Last leg (54 miles, avg spd 15.3 mph, avg pwr 188w, avg hr 119)

The best way to describe how my legs felt here is that my climbing legs were tired but my base legs were strong. There were a few climbs in the first half of this leg where I was slow but largely my pace picked up significantly. I was back! My team was tracking me through my Garmin location sharing and I got so many encouraging messages about how great I was doing. This was a fun leg to ride as cloud cover brought cooler temps and the sun was going down. About 20 miles into the last leg I saw two storm cells off in the distance with lightning. I wasn’t sure how Lifetime handles this, do they scoop people up? I now know they don’t force people off the course but the fear that someone was going to come grab me off the course and kill my Unbound was more than enough to have me kick it into as high a gear I could sustain for 34 miles. I took advantage of every downhill to pick up speed. Some of the downs had really bad ruts at the bottom that you had to thread the needle to remain safe. I had a pedal strike on one that almost took me out but I was able to regain control. Once the sun went down I had my second learning opportunity. I hadn’t brought clear glasses! I had to remove my sunglasses and found that every bug in the area was being drawn to my headlight and were attempting to take me out. I had bugs flying into my eyes, my helmet, my chest. I got smacked in the face by what I assume was a huge grasshopper. The best solution I found was to get as low as possible into my aero bars. I let my hands take most of the bugs and just kept my eyes low enough to reduce bug strikes but high enough to be able to spot holes in the gravel in my path. Still on a mission to finish before the storms got to us, I pushed myself as much as I could muster. I remember seeing a group of men on the road ahead of me who were chatting it up. I was just coming off of a downhill and was doing 25mph and coming up on them fast. I called out “PASSING LEFT” and went around them and heard one of them say “HOLY S**T!”. Sorry guys! Because I didn’t have glasses I couldn’t ride anyone’s wheel either. Their tires kept kicking up dirt and gravel into my face so I just went at it alone. Having done the 100 last year I recognized the finish and total relief set in. I had just done something that felt impossible to me last year.

Finish (Total moving time 14:35, total race time 15:31, moving pace 13.8 mph, race pace 13.1 mph)

Crossing the finish line was a sweet feeling. Hearing your name and your hometown feels good but hearing your wife calling you is even better. I was greeted at the end with a swag bag and medal, snapped the obligatory finish line pic and moved along. My wife hugged me and I felt a lump in my throat. She looked at me and I said “I want to do that again”. What an amazing day!

Learnings

I learned I need to invest time in getting my salt intake and hydration dialed in. I’ve been playing guessing games with it thus far which works for that 60 mile group ride but doesn’t serve you when you’re doing crazy distances. I also learned that investing in glasses that are photochromic would be wise if you even suspect there is a chance you’re going to be riding at night. Last thing I took away is I’m definitely a fan of Teravail durable casing tires. I’ve now done Unbound Gravel 100, Life Time Big Sugar Classic 100, and Unbound Gravel 200 on Cannonballs or Rutlands in 42 mm with Orange seal endurance with 0 tire problems. I can’t tell you how many people I saw fixing flats at all these events.

Hopefully I get another shot at Unbound Gravel as I know if I can fix mistakes and have a similar day, I will definitely beat the sun. Kudos to everyone who lined up that morning, regardless of how your race ended. It takes a special kind of crazy person to do this and I’m proud to say that I’m one of you.

I wanted to take a moment to thank our team sponsors Olmos Park Physio for the last minute fit adjustment and Cognitive Function Bicycle Shop for last minute drive train troubleshooting. You made this possible for me.