The Short Story: 29/84 in the Men’s open with a time of 2:52:32. It was hard.
The Long Story: The HellKaat 50 was race #4 in the Michigan Gravel Racing Series. Starting at 5 Lakes Brewing in Dorr, the 50 or 100-mile event was a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
The neutral roll out from the parking lot was short and things got real intense real quick once the pavement turned to gravel. There was a great deal of confusion at the first turn with 100-mile participants going straight and 50 milers turning right. There were a couple of crashes as people were turning around. I took advantage to weave through the traffic and hop on with the fast guys. The 50-mile group split and I was happy to sit in with 15-20 guys that were way faster than me.
That was mistake #1. I blame my ego.
It took a great deal of struggle tokens to hang on with this group and once the course turned up hill, I was spit out the back too quick.
I rolled solo for 10 minutes before the chase group rolled by. I tagged on with them to the halfway checkpoint. Race volunteers put a kitten sticker on your number plate and you continued on the course. I stopped to fill my water bottle and a volunteer offered me a cookie. Who says no to a cookie after 26 miles of gravel raging? My eyes lit up at the sight of the chocolate chip cookie and I forgot about my chase group who I was tagging along with for a free ride to the finish line. They were up the road.
I gave a solid B- effort to pull them back, chewing on the cookie, but at this point, the legs were fried. I spent the next 25 miles battling headwinds up long gravel climbs alone and smelling cow sh*t, thinking about how riding 50 miles of gravel is stupid and that cookie tasted like sh*t.
Until next time.
~Dan Frayer