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* At 17:50 I realized I lost my bottle that had ALL of my nutrition and electrolytes for the entire race!
* At 21:40 I had to remove my rear broken GoPro that was hanging on by one zip tie.
The number one goal of this race was to stay safe. This race was 2 weeks prior to a planned 7 day Colorado bike packing trip, so crashing and injuries were not an option. I had to play this safe and conservative. Which resulted in me basically doing a solo TT after the first 20 minutes.
This race was a bit a mess for me. After realizing I lost all my nutrition, but didn't know exactly when or where, I was scrambling on how to resolve this. First I thought maybe I'll just try to finish the race without any fuel, ugh. Then, I thought surely my competition would have extra and willing to share.... they did not. Finally, at some point I remembered something about Aid Stations that was briefed at the start when I wasn't paying attention. So the goal was to find some of those and rely on whatever they had.
I found the first aid station at 42:05 and their was a bit of confusion as all they said they had was Coke, water and pickles, but no gels or fuel. I heard one of the guys call out Gatorade and realized they at least had that, so filled my bottle and chugged some Coke. I stopped at 52:01 and topped off my bottle and again at 1:35:50. At 1:27:01 I nailed my my first ever drink hand-up from a volunteer handing out Gatorade. Even though my nutrition plan was gone and the aid station mix was upsetting my stomach, I stayed positive and kept steady. I was able to pick off quite a few riders later in the race which was encouraging and placed 19th overall, my best gravel race finish to date.
The Divide is a gravel road bike race held in Manton, MI. The Divide is a part of the Michigan Gravel Race Series and there are three distances to choose from; 19, 34, & 50 miles. All three routes are very hilly (4K+ elevation gain) and include a mixture of gravel, seasonal, and forest roads some of which have some very deep sandy spots, plenty that require forced hike-a-bike.
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