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Not particularly fun, details below....
Melting Mann was the first race in the Michigan Gravel Race Series (MGRS) located in Jones, MI on March 25, 2023. The MGRS is a points series composed of 17 different gravel centric events. Riders may choose the Mini, Short, Long or Ultra course series. I chose to do the Long Series (100k typically) this year. This was my second ever gravel race and first time racing a 60mi version.
The weather was predicted to be sub freezing and raining all morning. Unfortunately, the prediction was spot on and it was miserable! Common sense almost got the better of me as I was going to skip this race as it was not a high priority "C" race, was 2 and half hours away and conditions were to be brutal. Having nothing better to do that weekend I decided to use this race as a learning experience for the gravel series. All I learned was to never do this again in these conditions!
The start of the race went out super hard. I think everyone had the idea of getting out ahead of the carnage of being in a big group in these conditions. After a few minutes of chaos a front group established of about 15 racers and although I tried to stay attached, the pace was too fierce. I fell into the chase group that eventually became 3-4 of us (0:21:00) including my teammate, who caught back on after earlier taking a wrong turn at (0:09:35). At this time the lead pack was still in view, but not attainable to bridge across. Around the hour mark I started feeling intense sensations in both hamstrings that felt like the onset of muscle cramps. I tried nursing my hamstrings for the following 30 minutes but eventually had nothing left to give as my hamstrings were brutally painful and stopped functioning. I tried to suck wheels and draft my way to the finish to no avail and I got dropped doing endurance pace.
At around 1 and a half hours in I was unable to pedal and was reduced to z1 power. Unable to produce power also meant unable to produce heat and I started getting really cold. Seeing I was not even half way done with the race, I called it quits as it would have been a freezing death march to the finish. Unfortunately I couldn't even quit right as I was at the furthest point from the start when I came to that conclusion. It took me almost an hour just to get back. This race was just a little too much, too soon with where I'm at with my fitness. Couple that with the conditions and it made for a disastrous day. Not sure why my hamstrings blew up the way they did but hopefully this is not an ongoing issue. File that race away and move on to many more races this season!
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