 140 miles in is when the fireworks really started though. For 22 grueling minutes Ted King and Jeremiah Bishop traded turns attacking the group and every time they did it was pure agony trying to hold their wheel. The pace would slow down and then they'd hit us again. At times I saw the wheel in front of me start to drift away but then mercifully right as this would happen we'd slow down again. This happened 9 times. Welcome back to another video my name is Dylan and I'm a cycling coach at CTS in an ultra endurance gravel and mountain bike racer. Last month was my first race of the season the sugar cane 200 which is a 200 mile gravel race in south Florida. This would be my first time doing a race of this distance since I did dirty canza back in 2018 and a lot of you guys watched my recent video on that and saw how that went for me. I felt nauseous and light headed and just really wanted the race to be over. I was barely covering any ground and I still had 30 miles to go. I'm not going to lie at this point in the race I really wanted to quit. Now although the race is the same distance as canza the terrain is much flatter. In fact for the entire race I only had 138 feet of elevation gain. So presumably time should be a little bit faster and the race should be a little bit easier than canza although with two time canza winner Ted King on the starting line I knew the race was going to be far from easy. This race started early I believe we rolled off the starting line at around 5.15 am. The first two hours of the race were done in the dark and there was also a light misty rain. I think because of this no one really wanted to push hard and it was actually one of the most chill starts to a race that I've ever experienced with a normalized power of just 173 watts for the first hour and 45 minutes. Just like at canza the course wasn't marked so we were relying on GPS to navigate. This proved to be a little bit tricky in the dark as there were times where we had to slow down to make the right decision on a turn. The gravel in this part of Florida is extremely sandy and at times your tires would sink into the sand and the fact that it was wet wasn't helping. I was pretty happy with my tire choice for the day though. I ran the Specialized Pathfinder Pro in the 38 width which is basically a slick road tire in the middle with tread on the side for cornering. I've been riding this tire on the road the week before and I honestly couldn't tell a difference in speed between it and a regular road tire when I pumped it up to 55 psi. I've been experimenting with gravel tires and this one is definitely on my short list because of how fast it is although for more sloppy or technical gravel it may not be the best option. Once the sun came up people were ready to go and strong pulls and attacks started going. We came through the first aid station about 30 riders strong and then got onto a levee with a paved bike path at which point the pace increased substantially by almost 100 watts in fact. This whittled the group down to 15 to 20 riders which was still enough that I could sit on the back or when I did pull through I only had to stay up there for 15 seconds at the most. I was doing everything in my power to do as little work as possible because with such strong riders like Ted King and Jeremiah Bishop I knew I needed to conserve energy. What astounds me is how few people take this approach. This is pretty universal across the board but the vast majority of people go way too hard at the start of these ultra endurance races. Carefully monitoring heart rate and power is the key to making sure you're where you need to be at the start of these long races. In fact I'll often look more at heart rate. For example I know my max heart rate is around 190 beats per minute and if I go over 180 beats per minute I know I can't hold that for very long and if I go over 185 beats per minute a blow-up is imminent. Many riders in the front group were pulling hard and my only thought was there's no way that this is sustainable for 200 miles. Sure enough for most it wasn't and the group slowly got smaller and smaller. One critical point that shattered the group came just over 50 miles into the race on one of the bumpiest sections of the course. This section had grass running down the middle with two thin strips of pothole ridden sandy gravel on either side. You had to stay directly behind the rider in front of you but this meant hitting a lot of holes. On such a flat course this was a great section to create separation. In this section Ted King put the herd on the group and after three hours of racing for this section that took 11 minutes I had a normalized power of 351 and an average power of 330. The pace dipped a little after that but we were still pushing hard for the next hour at 285 NP. This whole time I was trying to do as little work as possible taking short easy pulls. The more energy that I could save now the fresher my legs would be for the end of the race. This is what you have to keep telling yourself during races like this because it's hard not to get excited when your legs feel good. The group continued to get smaller and smaller until there were just five riders left. Me, Ted King, Jeremiah Bishop, Tim Mitchell and Colton Hartrich. At this point we were 83 miles in and we settled down quite a bit. This section of the race was a mixture between deep sandy gravel and washboards so we weren't moving too fast but it seemed like the group was okay with that after the hard efforts earlier in the day. I took this opportunity to catch up on my nutrition and make sure that I was well fueled. My nutrition strategy for the race was pretty straightforward. I had two large one liter bottles with three scoops of flow formulas drink mix in them that I switched out at aid stations every 50 miles and then a small bottle of just water in my back pocket as backup. I also had a gel every hour or so. I got a comment in my last video. How do you like the flow formulas drink mix? I get it's a sponsor so write nothing if you're not a fan. Dangerous comment there as I could have missed it and people would get the wrong idea. In all seriousness though when it comes to something as important to performance as on the bike nutrition I wouldn't accept sponsorship if I didn't personally like the product. What I like about flow formulas is this. They did their homework and looked at the research and used the optimal ratio of multidextrin to fructose that has been shown to have the greatest absorption rate in the literature. This way I don't have to think about it. I just throw it in my bottle. Between the two bottles and the gels I was consuming about 75 grams of carbs per hour or 300 calories. This worked really well for me but you may need more or less depending on a long list of factors. Nutrition is something that needs to be experimented with to get right. I myself have been experimenting with different amounts in training during the off season and I pretty much got it spot on for this race. I wasn't even close to bonking and I didn't have any GI issues which are the two main concerns with on-the-bike nutrition both of which plagued me during dirty cancer. We rolled into the second aid station at mile 100 and it's here that we learned that the race was being cut short to 150 miles because some of the sugarcane farmers were complaining about us riding on their land. Do you think they're going to cut the race shorter? No. Why? So they're going to cut the race shorter just so you know. Yeah. 145 maybe 150. That's cool. This doesn't mean the race for the win would be any easier though. Slightly fresher legs would mean more powerful and painful attacks at the end of the race but I'll get into that in just a bit. The race was an out and back and we set off back down the course to the finish still in our group of five leaders. I decided that since the race was shorter now this would be a good opportunity to get away because I knew that as we got closer to the finish no one would willingly lose my wheel. At mile 105 I put in a hard dig over 400 watts for about a minute to create a gap before backing it down to just over 300 watts for about 25 minutes. At points I had a decent gap of probably 45 seconds or so but I was dealing with a pretty substantial headwind and considering the strength of the group behind it wasn't long before I was caught and regained the group. However, when I slid back into rotation I realized that our group of five was now a group of four as Colton had dropped off. After that hard solo effort I went into conserve mode to try to recover. The group was small enough that we all had to pull through but I never pulled hard and I generally tried to keep my power under 250 watts. For the next hour we rode at a relatively easy pace. I think all of us knew that with four riders left the last couple miles of this race were going to be very painful. At mile 131 I tried to make a move but it didn't stick. Just as I had suspected trying to make a move closer to the finish meant that everyone was glued to my wheel. 140 miles in is when the fireworks really started though. For 22 grueling minutes Ted King and Jeremiah Bishop traded turns attacking the group and every time they did it was pure agony trying to hold their wheel. The pace would slow down and then they'd hit us again. At times I saw the wheel in front of me start to drift away but then mercifully right as this would happen we'd slow down again. This happened nine times. Seven hours and 140 miles into the race I had a normalized power of 312 for this 22 minute section. We're now at mile 148 and the group still contains all four of us. With just two miles to go it became clear that no one was going to get away and this race was going to be settled in a sprint. For the remaining two miles we traded easy pulls. With the finish line in sight I found myself at the front of the group. This is normally not the position you want to be in. Second wheel would have been preferable. Ted King has the most road racing experience so it's no surprise that that's where he positioned himself. I soft pedaled into the last 400 meters in the drops bracing myself for one final max effort. One good thing about being the first wheel is that I had a perfect view of the finish and I knew exactly where I wanted to start my sprint. I'm not much of a sprinter but I generally do better in longer sprints because my snap isn't great. With this in mind I was the first one to open up the sprint and to my surprise no one came around me. In that final effort I hit a max power of 1100 watts and a 10 second average power of 973 watts. Ted came in right behind me to get second with Tim in third and Jeremiah in fourth. My finishing time for this race was 7 hours 46 minutes and 26 seconds and that put me at an average speed of 19.8 miles per hour which is a little slower than the race organizer predicted for such a flat course but the surface was extremely wet and sandy which had a huge impact on our speed. My normalized power for the whole race was 254 and the average power was 217. If you take out the first two hours which were relatively casual the normalized power was 268 and the average power was 243 for just under six hours. Getting the win was unexpected for me so I really couldn't have asked for a better start to the season and it was great to race with some of the top gravel contenders out there. Jeremiah Bishop and I have raced a lot together in long mountain bike races and he usually smokes me but the only time I've raced Ted King was at Dirty Kanza and the experience of him throttling me 110 miles in is kind of burned into my mind. I also got to meet Amanda Panda who's a fellow Niner rider and two-time Dirty Kanza winner. Not surprisingly she took the win as well making it a great weekend for Niner. I plan to hit more gravel races this year than I ever have with events like Kanza, Belgian Waffle Ride, Big Sugar, Gravel Worlds and Steamboat Gravel on the calendar. I've been wrestling demons since I did Dirty Kanza and even though this race wasn't the full 200 I do feel like I have a better grasp on what it takes to cover that distance from a nutrition, training and pacing perspective. Although that could all change when I actually get out there and relearn just how hard that race is. If you want to stay up to date on my racing the best way to do that is to follow me on Instagram. However I do plan to make more of these race analysis videos because you guys really seem to enjoy that. Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you don't miss any uploads. And if you like this video be sure to give it a like and share it with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.