The Mid South - Mettle Race Report
“The greatest mistake I ever made was Racing The Mid South...”
Somewhere around mile 58 (before the trench crossing at mile 60) and just a short bit after the halfway point in Perkins. Photo by @241photography
Those were the words that basically composed my only real thoughts on the 7.5 hour “race” that was The Mid South Gravel event. It’s not the real memory that I have of racing The Mid South, but during a slog like that, it’s hard to remove yourself from the situation and feel super great about paying for this kind of struggle. It was one of the hardest days I’ve ever had on the bike.
Richard Poole (@bicyclecrumbs) invited me to tag along with the Speedvagen crew this year (joined by Brent Wick @fartstorm). Having missed the opportunity to race this event the last few years, I jumped at the chance. I went to college and grew up going to Oklahoma State games in Stillwater and several years ago, my mother and step-father had moved to Perkins, OK, the half-way point of the race. It would be a great chance to bring my passion back to the place where I spent most of my time drinking Bud Light and smoking weed in many of the pastures we probably passed during the race.
30 hours of non-stop driving, plenty of cold brew, and one near-death experience across some random black ice in Wyoming and we made it to Stillwater. A little funky, but ready to rock.
Because the race itself was such an individual and personal experience, this really does read like a Race Report…you’ve been warned.
PREPARATION AND APPROACH
Over the last 18 months, as more adventure and organized “off-road” events have made their way onto my calendar, I’ve wrestled with the best tool for the job. Gear heads are especially prevalent in the gravel scene and semantic arguments that sometimes have very little value overall saturate most conversations. Never mind which tires, which width are you running? 650b is cool but is it fast? Can you push a 46t like Colin? Will this narrower AXS chain clear this kind of mud?!?!
As this “segment” grows, there’s still so many interesting and tiny evolutions in gear and preparation as each season builds on the previous one. Exciting, strategic thoughts on what set ups will net the biggest efficiencies, going all the way down to how to carry your nutrition and just how prepared you need to be when you’re however many miles from the nearest cell signal.
So let’s start at the beginning…
THE BIKE
2019 Specialized Crux: Easton EC90sl Crankset w/ Cinch Power, 44t, 11-36 cassette, Enve SES AR 4.5 laced to Chris King R45 hubs, Wahoo Roam, and Maxxis Rambler 40c TLR, Force CX1. Road Pedals are pictured for the original plan…
2019 Specialized Crux | Easton EC90sl Crankset w/ Cinch Power | 44t, 11-36 cassette | Enve SES AR 4.5 laced to Chris King R45 hubs | Wahoo Roam | Maxxis Rambler 40c TLR | Force CX1 | Mettle Cycling Tool Roll - Road Pedals are pictured for the original plan…
I love the Crux. I love it so much. Billed as a CX specific machine, it really has more capability than Specialized advertises, with the exception of tire clearance (A: which we will visit later on and B: it is only intended to clear 33c CX tyres). My other personal option was to run my Diverge but that bike’s still in pieces at the moment. But also, between almost no additional tire clearance and a bottom bracket so low it feels like a mistake, my biggest problem was the slack, no-snap feel of the diverge when accelerating. A bit of snap and confidence from a CX bike was largely a mental need going into the race… if it feels faster, it is faster.
I had hoped the typically unpredictable Oklahoma weather would hold long enough for Saturday and that the course would remain dry; I planned mostly for that expectation. Had it stayed dry, I would have likely kept the road pedals on but packed the CX shoes and pedals knowing there would be no way I’d set a foot down and ever clip back with road pedals once things got even a little moist.
NUTRITION
Snickers from my pit support AKA “Mother.” A car wash in Perkins was key to shedding a good 8 lbs of mud and a quick tune from Sram neutral support lasted a good 10 miles before it was back to “normal” (gunked up again). Photo by @241photography
Historically, I’ve been great at keeping the fuel tank above the 1/4 mark if only from force feeding myself. One of my biggest worries was eating on the bike during the first 2 hours of the race. While the pros made it as difficult as possible, I was hoping to stay in the lead group. Dark skies, torrential rain, high speeds, and anything but stable surface conditions meant reaching back for whatever my fat gloved fingers could pull out of my stuffed pockets would have to wait for a lull in the pace - which never happened. I don’t typically race with bar bags or hydration packs, although I had contemplated taking a frame bag. Looking back, that would have caused a ton of additional problems from blocking access to bottles (or preventing a larger 28oz bottle from fitting) to interfering with shouldering the bike later in the race.
Here’s what I ate:
First 50 miles:
8 “cubes” of Heavenly Hunks - unwrapped, I knew I could grab one at a time (960 cal)
2 RX Bars (410 cal)
2 MySpring Oatmeal Fruit Energy packs (600 cal)
2 MySpring Long Haul packs (220 Cal)
2 Bottles of Nuun
Half-way point in Perkins
Espresso prepared by Rapha’s legendary Tim Coughlin
12oz Coca-Cola (140cal 39g of sugar)
Snickers (250 Cal)
Second 50 miles including stop at Mile 80:
Snickers (250 Cal)
1 MySpring Oatmeal Fruit Energy pack (300 cal)
2 RX Bars (410 Cal)
2 Bottles of Nuun
1 Banana
1 Mini Waffle
6 Oreos (318 Cal)
1 Bottle Skratch
1 package Skratch Gummies (160 Cal)
“Approximately 4000* calories consumed and 7355kcal burned.”
*Caloric info on Red Dirt is unavailable
THE CONDITIONS
The first half of the race was soaking wet, which actually made progress pretty steady. When I arrived at the half-way point, I remember thinking, “that was the hardest 50 miles I’ve ever done.” I could have stopped riding right then and known it was a big day. It would be the stoppage of the rain that made things more difficult as the wet clay began to dry out.
Nothing could have prepared me for these conditions except maybe having done this race 2 years prior when the same thing happened. Even growing up in Oklahoma, I was aware of how sticky the clay can be but riding through it on a bike without proper clearance was something else entirely. As the day wore on and the rain stopped after 11am or so, the roads began to dry into a perfect storm of progress stopping muck. It only took 2 revolutions of your wheels to build up enough clay to stop you dead in your tracks. Paint stirrers handed out at the start were helpful in clearing mud (and clear coat) from the frame but ultimately, the few riders that brought CX sized tires were the true winners. My total stoppage time for clearing the bike was close to 20 minutes.
BRAVING THE ELEMENTS
It’s a cliché but it’s true (mostly): “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear.” I came fairly well prepared for the worst weather but had to make a few modifications, especially with the restrictions of traveling in a van with 7 bikes, 3 dudes, and some expo furniture. Over packing is just not very pro and I had also planned to stay with the fam for a couple of extra days.
Disclosure: I am and have been an Rapha Ambassador for the last several years - that doesn’t make their gear any less than the best possible option for days like this. One piece of gear that has been a staple of every one of my recent trips to ride or race is the Explore Hooded Gore-Tex Pullover. For both on and off the bike, meets all the requirements for bad-weather riding or spectating and allowed me to bring only one jacket for the trip instead of multiple specialized garments.
It also gives you the perfect balance of serious/not-serious vibes at the start line:
Driving out to the venue (in the dark) was a classic worst-case scenario. Because the weather was so fucking shitty in the morning (the race start was delayed due to lightning in the area), I employed a few hacks to keep me warm while waiting on the grid and making it through the first hour without shivering myself into a ditch.
Photo by @241photography
Here, you’ll see a look I like to call, “Skywalker on Hoth” - A cut up T-shirt I stuffed into my cap to keep my ears from freezing. Once warmed up, taking this off took at least 5 miles while navigating a few off-the-bike obstacles. Just like eating in the first few hours, making any adjustments at full-gas gravel racing was sketchy at best.
My favorite hack, however, was cling-wrap and aluminum foil on my feet (inside my shoes). Shoe covers were not going to fare well on the day so keeping my feet warm and relatively comfortable was going to keep the long day at least somewhat doable. It 100% worked.
THE MINDSET
Death behind those eyes. Photo by @241photography
Except for the first 90 minutes, The Mid South was the loneliest day on the bike I’ve ever had. Not in the sad, “I’m single” sense but in the most literal. My strategy was “Hang on to the lead group as long as possible and then settle in for the long-haul.”
If I could carefully ride the wave of bleeding eyeballs and get as much ground covered while the gettin’ was good, I’d be fine with losing contact on the first few steep pitches - for fucking sure, I’m not keeping guys like Peter Stetina within range any time in this life. After trailing off the back right before the steepest bit of the course, it was a bit of a Team Sky approach: Marginal gains and smart riding would at least allow me to finish, maybe chase down some other riders ahead over the remaining 6 hours of the race.
It was the moments in between brief encounters with other riders trying to find their way down the road that was a huge mental challenge.
I can always tell when I’m mentally fatigued; phrases (just weird words) or parts of songs will repeat in my head for hours on end and I feel like a shell just moving around the bike. Today, for whatever reason, I had a clear and undistracted mind. Every second of the ride was spent looking for a faster line through this fucked up surface, applying consistent pressure to the pedals through a sustainable output of power (and all while seated, which…holy shit). Frustrations were limited knowing that it’s a simple choice: quit or finish. If you want to quit, it’s going to be a lot of waiting and still a few hours of riding. If you want to finish, just do the goddamn thing.
Just like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.
THE NUMBERS
For the annoying nerds like me, here’s some stats on my ride. I don’t have an impressive FTP as far as w/kg is concerned, but my training this early season has netted some new benchmarks for me. As a 39 year old rider, new Max HR stats have really been surprising and new sustained power over 5+ hours have started to grow as well.
Prior to the reality of how this race would unfold under wet conditions, My hope was to finish in under (or around) 6 hours with a Normalized Power of 290. Lofty but…fuck it. I had only previously sustained 300w (avg power) for 3 hours and 250w (avg power) for 5 hours.
7:27:00
103 miles (165 km)
7329 feet (2233 m)
159 bpm
270w
275w
13.8 mph (22.1 kph)
500
Ride Time:
Distance:
Elevation Gain
Average Heart Rate:
Average Power:
Normalized Power:
Average Speed:
TSS:
Maybe less interesting to some, my average cadence was 76 rpm. The speed and surface conditions combined with a somewhat limited ratio in my easiest gear (44/36 = 1.22 ratio) made this quite the muscular slog. Perhaps a holdover from early season resistance training.
Results for the 100 mile event:
Entries: 1000 | Starters: 700 | Finishers: <450 | My result: 27th (7:57:13)
THE AFTERMATH
Photo by @bicyclecrumbs
Here goes any hope of ever reselling this bike… Racing CX in the PNW is not without those weekends where you cause a significant amount of damage to your bike so it’s less surprising to just leave a few bits out on course. But 100 miles of racing in these conditions caused more damage in such a short amount of time, I wasn’t really even mad; I was impressed. There were times when my chain just completely popped off the narrow/wide chain ring because of the amount of clay/mud stuck inside of the chain.
That being said, I’m still consistently in awe of the engineers at Sram. There were issues that these parts should ever be expected to survive but over the last 5 years of running CX1, I am yet to encounter conditions that keep this drive train from shifting on command.
Every one of these parts were like new going into the race, including the brake pads (which were actually new). You’ll hear this on other accounts of the event, but braking was almost non-existent. All you had to do was stop pedaling. So when I saw that my pads were worn 100%, I don’t know if I was surprised or not. Anything was possible after coming across the finish line, including shit like this. I would estimate I was braking for less than 5 minutes of the race which should tell you all you need to know about how much clay was inserting itself into the bike.
All told, I’ll have to replace my pedals (fully pitted internal races), pulley wheels, BB bearings, chainring, rear cassette, brake pads, and chain.
While the bike took a beating, so did my body. The next week of riding was rough as I assumed I could begin my next training block. The muscle soreness was beyond any one-day event (or even a 40 hour week) I had ever experienced. It was a little over 10 days after the event that I could even think about focused training with any intensity over threshold. This is another aspect that separates super-human pros from amateurs: the ability to recover quickly.
THE EARLY DEBATE OVER CORONA VIRUS
Those that attended The Mid South did so in the midst of a hugely dynamic and global unfolding of the Corona Virus pandemic. Participants went back home as pseudo pariahs in their communities (assuming those were communities that were already taking the pandemic seriously). An important point that cannot be overstated is the timeline of events did not and should not allow for a retrospective application of knowledge to the event. The week after, it became popular to criticize the event using knowledge that was available 3-4 days after it occurred.
The Friday night before the race went off, there were still no guidelines about sheltering in place and hardly a mention of social distancing. Added to that, there had been no reported cases of the virus in the state of Oklahoma (flawed due to testing delays? yes.) Both high profile and amateur riders made decisions to not attend and were perhaps ahead of the curve. Given the status of the pandemic, available knowledge, and risk, I do not personally believe it was a mistake to allow The Mid South to run it’s course.
By Sunday night, however, I had rescheduled an earlier flight back to Portland. Talk of halting intra-state travel was circulating and it was better to get ahead of that that behind it.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Mid South just got in under the wire as one of the last events we’ll see in the near future, maybe in 2020. It’s a very strange way to pause the season. Coupled with the inability to even guess what will come in the next few months leaves athletes like us treading water while navigating this “new normal.” It’s great to have been able to pin a number on at least once this season but as we dive further into the unknown of this pandemic, priorities will shift.
The Mid South itself is exactly what it claims to be: a celebration of the biggest overlap of bike riders in a format that welcomes all and celebrates the freedom of bikes. Anyone can line up next to a pro and ride the same course. That’s something you can’t really do in most other sports. Our stadium is the outdoors and our challenge can be as simple as moving forward.
For now, at least temporarily, our stadium is our homes and our greatest challenge is continuing to move forward.