The Traka 360
There are no super deep reasons as we often hear. I rode this race because:
- I like riding my bike
- I like testing myself and various theories I have on performance
- I like having fun
If we keep with simplicity there does not need to be other reasons. Maybe there is, maybe not. Maybe I still need time.
360km single stage gravel bike race around the stunning area of Girona Spain. Close to 4,000m elevation and just under 1,000 competitors from around the world coming together for what is Europe’s biggest and most sought after gravel race.
Registering for races fills me with maximal excitement and minimal anxiety. This is not a common trait in the endurance community and I am grateful I have it. A race deadline feeds my obsession and curiosity. It brings (more) focussed structure to my life which fits my personality down to a T. Doing something for the first time brings more excitement as many of the sensations are new.
The area of Girona is famous for its cycling in general and increasingly for its gravel offering which is off the charts. It made sense to do my first European Gravel race here. The sport is exploding and as with all sports that explode it draws a varied crowd. Ranging from genuinely “hard” human beings to absolute tossers who are just there for the gram. Fair play to anyone who shows up and chooses to do something active with their lives but it is hard from time to time not to tell people to wind their neck in. The good thing is that 20% climbs and descents on 45mm of rubber with no suspension repeated over 360km soon gets rid of the d**k heads.
I have loved racing off road all of my life. Mountain bikes were my addiction during my teenage years. Now I get to relive those years on a faster bike with narrower handle bars. The feelings are very similar, both the adrenaline and feeling of a turd making its way into your bib shorts as you descend out of control.
6:10am and we are off. Of course the plan is to take it easy for the first part of the race although it was one I never bought in to. I wanted to make sure I got with a decent group of riders as it makes a difference. To do so you need to work hard in the early parts which is essentially a climb right out of the gates.
This length of race is an ultra I guess you could say, but it compares different to running, as there are many sections of it where you are going full gas in the hope that at some point the pace will ease or you find a wheel to sit on and get a chance to recover. So no, bike races like this and ultra running are not the same, the only similarities they share are that they both require you to eat a shit ton and if you have some fitness both physical and mental then you will probably go ok.
Feed station 1 at 136km and almost 5 hours into the race seemed to arrive quickly believe it or not. The first test for my support crew Holly and Stevie and they were unreal. I was in and out in less than a minute as I left them close to 500grams of carb wrappers and picked up another 500grams for the next few hours.
Till now the racing had been racing, people fighting for position, crashes, attacks and shouting. The landscape serves up frequent punchy climbs which then drop onto wide gravel roads through fields with varying size pot holes and obstacles dotted around. Zero course markings so a huge reliance that people have and are using the GPS file on their bike computers. Sometimes it works, other times riders take the wrong turns and have to track back which results in plenty of shouting and more attacking to try and catch the people who have now over taken. It is chaos of the most awesome kind!
The section from feed station 1 to feed station 2 at 274km was predominantly flat which gave opportunity to turn up the speed and with that the dust, small stones and flies that land on your face, quite the cocktail if you get all three at once. I was in a group of 5 guys who surprisingly were all willing to work together to get us to the second feed station faster. This is rare, so when you get it you have to enjoy it and pull your turns on the front.
We soon found ourselves riding up onto the lead pack of the pro women who had started the race 10 minutes ahead of us. A new rule stated that women were not allowed to draft off men but did not say that men were not allowed to draft off women. There is a slightly complex part to this but it is a good rule for the sport and for the continued rise of females in the sport. As we arrived on the back of the group the guys that I had worked with to get to them decided it may be a good idea to take a breather and get pulled along for a few KM as about 10 other guys were doing. This would allow us to save the legs a bit for later. Who was I to argue?
15km out from the second feed station a few of the guys made the decision that it was time to work again so we took off hard like the next feed station would be closed if we didn’t get there in 10 minutes. Needless to say that around the 300km mark on a big climb the lead women, now down to 3 went sailing past us!
Holly and Stevie were on hand again at feed station 2 for another formula one style pit stop which was unreal. I felt good. 9 hours into the race that had already thrown all sorts at me and I had energy in my legs, a solid mind and was happy. Life is good!
I knew the next part of the course would be zingy as it served up an 8km climb. Gravel races as is obvious from the title are ridden predominantly on gravel which has zero standard. One minute you can be on a hard and flat road with a tail wind doing 45kmph for very little effort and then you turn a corner into a climb where rains have washed away the path, ruts and pot holes rule and the loose scree cares little for your traction. These elements are of course very demanding physically, but the main kicker is the mental focus these races take. Look down at your bike computer for a split second when you are in a pack and your front wheel is in a pot hole or the guy in front of you has braked or swerved across your line. The cognitive fatigue due to the amount that is going on and the time that you are on the bike is absolutely next level. Climbing is of course slow and sometimes the reward to it is an equally lumpy descent where you are only able to make up time and speed if you are willing to take big risks. Sometimes they pay off, other times you break ribs and damage lungs, this is bike racing, it is hard and dangerous.
11 hours after the start I was alone for the first time in this race. It was unreal. It was the first time I could create some space in my mind, to think about things other than not crashing or responding to an attack. It was cool, I smiled, I was in the right place.
50km to go, pan flat, I look around and some guy is aero tucked hammering it towards me. It felt like a lifeline to the finish line but one I was almost going to have to die to take advantage of. He flew past me and as he did I remember thinking to myself “work hard and it’s a free ride.” No logic at all but a few minutes later I was on his wheel and my heart rate starting to recover. As it did he flicked his elbow for me to do a turn. “Are you kidding me?” I thought to myself but in the next moment thought, “hell yeah, I’m fresh, let’s do this.” How the mind works in this sport of endurance we will never know. The fact that the legs responded was just the icing on the cake, probably a product of the work I have been doing for the last several months with my good friend and coach (I guess I should call him that) Jani. He knows how to make a cyclists legs a bit stronger that is for sure.
316km and I see Holly and Stevie for the last time and the fastest time as I ditch my hydration vest, take full bottles and a handful of gels and tell them I will see them soon. Thankfully my friend Graham who was with me a few weeks before on the Sri Lankan tour had taken me for a ride through the final 20km the day before so I knew what was coming and couldn’t be happier about it. A final climb, steep as f.
13 hours and 38 minutes after we set off (with a moving time of 13 hours 32 minutes, yeah that means I had only been stationary for 6 minutes all day) I crossed the finish line with 356km recorded on my bike computer. Short changed 4km by the race. Haaa!
What a day out, what a great feeling. Because of the way I had trained and fuelled I felt good and had something in the legs right until the last minute, that feeling was worth everything. One of the guys that I had rode a lot with came over at the end and as we exchanged some parting words said “see you next year then?” I looked at him and paused before saying “I need some time to think about that.” He smiled and rode away.
As I implied at the opening of this piece maybe I am writing it too early but I do not think so. Sometimes things are deep, there are moments of enlightenment and you are changed as a human forever. This race was different. This race came and this race went. I rode it. I was present. I smiled. I had Holly and Stevie there to support me. I had Dad and others following the dot on the tracker. I had what I needed and I was content. I am still content. I did a good race, I did good preparation that I enjoyed and right now in my life bike racing is giving me massive fulfilment and I am excited about the training and the races.
Life is seasonal, we try to control the seasons but ultimately they are not ours to control, what we have to control is how we behave during them. My season at the moment has bike races and I must prepare well for them. This is not a new journey, I have been on bikes since I was a kid. In 2018 my life nearly ended on a bike too. It’s taken a while to get here so I sit in it, I enjoy it, I am grateful for it and when the season changes I will be smiling and ready.
Thank you The Traka, thank you Holly, thank you Stevie, thank you Dad, thank you everyone.
Tomorrow we ride easy.
No Weakness.
Marcus
My race in numbers:
356km
13 hours 38 minutes
Average HR: 125
Normalised power: 254 watts
Elevation gain: 3,719 meters
Nutrition: (carbs intake in grams)
Carb mix 720g
15 gels 450g
8 chews 240g
3 shortbreads 90g
Total: 1,500g
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