Grit Goes Gravel - Can a Triathlete Survive One of the World’s Toughest Gravel Races?
Written by Eduardo Losi , Grit Endurance athlete since 2023!
Part 1 - Why gravel?
It is widely known in the world of endurance sports that triathletes like to train, a lot… After all, you must find the time to train 3 sports + cram strength sessions, get proper sleep to recover and keep nutrition and hydration to acceptable standards. Triathlon is an incredible outlet to get extremely fit, and ready to take on different physical and mental challenges. I call it the Swiss Army Knife of fitness.
I am relatively new to endurance sports, having run my first 10K in 2022. After my first race, I was hooked and went all in the endurance-world, sinking my teeth into the Grit community to learn and hang out with truly amazing teammates. I have always approached endurance sports as a way of experimenting and learning about my own body. This approach led me to want to conquer different race types -- the half marathon and multiple 70.3 Ironman distance triathlons. After gravitating towards the “middle distance” for a few years, I felt like the pace of progress was slowing down and wanted to push the limits and dabble with longer distances and different race formats.
It started with Chicago Triathlon’s Triple Challenge race, that requires you to race multiple times over the same weekend. A truly unique race format that throws you into the unknown, where you must make assumptions on how your body will react and be considerate of your race plan pacing, nutrition, hydration, recovery. Right after the Chicago Triathlon, I shifted the training load towards the Chicago Marathon and focused primarily on running for a few months, which was also new to me and accelerated my development. After a long offseason, I decided to pick up a heavy training block over the winter and tackled Ironman Texas, which was my first full distance Ironman and my first wetsuit illegal race. Training over the winter months and mostly riding the trainer made it a completely different experience.
During the past few months, experiencing new race formats, going longer, trying different nutrition/hydration mixes and throwing myself into the unknown has made training really fun! Ultimately, it made me a better athlete. Not only fitness-wise but more knowledgeable about my body, training schedules, what works and what doesn’t, what to eat and not to eat etc. Mastering a specific race format is a beautiful thing, training every day to conquer a distance and improve on your time, becoming a master of your craft is a noble pursuit, but that is not what I am looking for. I don’t want to be a specialist looking for a PR, I want to experience the unknown as much as I can. In my view, there is more fun and more growth that way.
This is what led me to gravel, the unknown. Gravel is a relatively new and still a niche type of cycling that has seen exponential growth in the past 5 years. Because Gravel hasn’t existed for so long, it has a diverse crowd composed of road cyclists, mountain bikers, triathletes, the occasionally injured runner, among others. I have been gravel-curious for a while and wanted to see what the hype was about and take 3 things way from the experience:
Become a stronger cyclist: fully capable of racing in the peloton on dirt, improve bike handling skills and survive the challenge
Learn more about bikes and become a self-sufficient mechanic: tubeless tires, sealant, plugging the tires, booting a tire, breaking a chain/adding an extra link, waxing the chain, fixing wheel spokes, truing your disc brake rotor – being completely self-sufficient and getting through whatever the race throws at you
Get closer to nature and enjoy the ride: after countless rides on the trainer for Ironman Texas (no fan + heater on at 73-74), I wanted to get out there and ride closer to the trees, the squirrels, see some rabbits, deers, the occasional coyote/snake and get more connected to the great outdoors. Not having to worry about cars coming closely behind you and the kamikaze lakefront pedestrians testing how alert you are were a plus too!
With the above in mind, I humbly signed up for the Unbound 200 mile lottery, which is the most prestigious and challenging gravel race (the Kona of Gravel!!), and was selected, which means I had to do it – it was meant to be!!