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Tough day for me. This race was at the end of my biggest 3 week volume that I've ever done. My legs felt very heavy and I had little upper end power in my legs. I could grind and be steady, but had no sustained anaerobic power. This became evident on the first set of hills just 9:00 minutes into the race. Even though I was holding nearly 500w and only needed to do so for another 30 seconds to get to the top, I just didn't have it. So I was dropped by the front group. With an early split in the group, this left me in no mans land by myself having to chase back to another dropped racer. We worked together for about 15 minutes until we were caught by Wave 2. I latched onto this group for a while until even that was too much.
I'm not sure what I was thinking signing up for the Elite category, as I should have been in my age group, particularly with all the fatigue I was bringing into this race. Not to mention there wasn't an Elite Masters division. Trying to hold onto the Elite front group blew me up and it took me a long while to start to feel good again. Early on in the single track a guy right in front of me crashed 43:00. Couple that with me riding this course blind, set the tone for the day to just be safe. Also, this was only my 3rd ride on my MTB this year and I definitely didn't have short power XC fitness or confident handling skills. Taking this race as a good Lumberjack 100 prep and on to the next one.
The Arcadia Grit & Gravel, Big Grit version is a 28-mile race consisting of gravel roads, backwoods 2-tracks and a bit of pavement. The race spans territory covering two counties and is a unique blend of gravel roads in northern Manistee County, some two-tracks and the single track of the Arcadia Dunes C.S. Mott Nature Preserve trail system in southern Benzie County, Michigan.
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