By Chris Stevens
The DAMn. The Day Across Minnesota. 241 miles officially traveling almost exclusively gravel roads between Gary, SD and Hager City, WI. This is one of my annual favorites and my 3rd and officially “final” attempt. I promised myself after my 2nd that I’d go for the 3-peat and retire from racing the DAMn. Key word there is “racing.” I intend to keep that promise. So I tell myself…..
This week immediately after the race I will surpass 16,000 miles ridden for 2020. Crazy right? Is that sort of training necessary or is anything close necessary for the DAMn? I don’t think so. But that sort of training load allows my body to be ready for about any effort at any time and be able to recover in unbelievably short manner. I seem to be gravitating toward these longer races more and more. I might have a couple up my sleeve yet for the fall of 2020 that are even longer than the DAMn. Maybe considerably longer! We’ll see. Until then I’ll keep riding my bikes!
Let’s get one thing out of the way right away here. I’d talked to this year’s winner quite a bit leading up to the race. Chase is 20 years younger than me. I like the direction Chase has taken his Volgas team and he’s a great guy to connect with. I’m not sure it was possible to exceed his execution Saturday. His equipment choices, pacing and checkpoint times. All of it executed to perfection. He made one mistake. That was following me to a 7 minute wrong turn at checkpoint 1. I couldn’t be happier to pass the torch to a great “kid.” It’s unbelievable to me that someone 23 years old can execute a race of this distance so well with not much “long course” experience. So much can go wrong. He knocked it out of the park. There was nothing I could have done physically to beat Chase at the DAMn. I gave it my all.
I felt like I had about the best prep possible. Huge volume and a nearly full and perfect taper. Nutrition strategy dialed from years of practice. I felt like I’d show up with the fastest equipment for the course. I ride a 2020 Trek Domane SLR that takes big tires so I errored to comfort with fast rolling Gravel King 38’s on the HED V6 Vanquish rims. Those tires are about the fastest gravel tire made. Over a 13 hour day comfort generally trumps all out speed. I went for the route of comfort hoping I could “spot” a few watts of speed if necessary. I wore the brand new Borah Turbo kit. It’s essentially an aero skin suit. The only speed item missing was aero bars. Neither Chase or I ran aero bars. I have mixed feelings about aero bars in gravel. It’s a personal thing that is subject to change. Everything was dialed for the ultimate gravel speed. The key there is gravel. Chase ran very fast road tires. GP5000’s. That’s a risk. They are more narrow, but extremely fast. He obviously made the correct decision for 2020 based on his research. In 2018 they wouldn’t have worked well in the very loose conditions. It was another perfectly executed decision on his part and I’m not sure I could have hung with him running the same tires this time around.
The race has become a reasonably well oiled machine for me. I’ve been lucky to have great support for all 3 attempts. I certainly don’t take that for granted and still am thankful for the experience Brian provided with my first DAMn. Last year we had family support. This year I had team support from Thomas and Jacob. I’d argue supporting is harder than riding. Seriously. Think about that sort of time commitment. Your support role starts by driving the athlete to the start. The racer gets to chill before and after the race. The support staff is on duty well before and well after!
Course conditions were different for 2020. 2018 conditions were very dry which caused issues with very loose gravel with the lack of cohesion on the road surface. Last year was better, but we had some fresh grade. Still not what I’d consider fast gravel for this neck of the woods. This year I assumed it would be better due to consistent rain and a little course research. That said fresh grade and mud are always considerations and if you hit mud with skinny tires it can become a mile of hike a bike and time you can never make back. Therefore, I errored to very fast rolling but wide tires. We ended up having 100% skinny tire miles this year and I paid the ultimate price with minimal regret. I did what I felt was best for me.
Nutrition / fueling. Long efforts I start early with a ~1000 calorie breakfast generally Greek yogurt, granola, oats, raisins, maple syrup, olive oil, Bell Lap CBD oil. Always add to that 2 cups of Bell Lap Coffee and in this case the new Super Draft CBD. That is my first shot of carbs and caffeine for a big day. During the race I shoot for 400 calories per hour. Liquids vary depending on heat. I consumed about 3 bottles during the DAMn this year. I had 3 concentrate bottles with a full serving each PerformX, and 2 servings Sustain with amino acids. Solid nutrition I budget 1 Clif Bar per hour. In this case I didn’t quite get through them all due to a lack of fluid take limiting my ability to clear the gut of solids. I also carry and did consume 1 peanut butter and walnut sandwich. Always about 1 Pure Fuel packet per hour. Between 6 of us BRF’s Saturday we took in a full gallon of Pure Fuel. A gallon. About 30 minutes before the race I applied lots of AMP Human’s PR Lotion. Immediately after the ride I quick guzzle a Bipro water to get that clean shot of protein. We all know after an effort like that eating becomes unclean real fast!
We started at the glorious stroke of midnight. I did a nice little 2-mile warm-up out to the middle of the night sky and turn 1. It was glorious. Tailwind, but cool. I mean real cool. I decided on a base layer and wore it to the finish! So quiet. So peaceful. I was ready. I pedaled back and before I knew it the fireworks marked the official start! Tanner and I near the front in a safe spot and first turn I put the hammer down in an immediate effort to thin that front pack. I recall it being difficult last year. I believe this year one mile from that initial effort it was down to 8 in the group. A couple of miles later Chase pulled through and he and I were gone. Long gone. We worked hard together for several miles until I saw a single light well behind. I knew if it was a single light it had to be Tanner. Within a few miles, we had my goal 3 riders together. Chase, Tanner, and myself and we lessened the effort to reasonable with lots of riding ahead.
Official checkpoints were non-existent this year for obvious reasons which fortunately and unfortunately provided an opportunity for tactics. Chase and I were fully prepared to roll through the usual “official checkpoint 1.” Tanner needed water. We briefly stopped all together, but there were a ton of vehicles there and in that mass of vehicles we took a 7 minute wrong turn. When we regained the course we were caught so had to work a bit to drop the other 3 guys to get back clear in short order. Once again the 3 of us worked. I was still comfortable, but as the temps dropped and our effort dropped so did my core temp. Maybe even prior to 3AM I could feel the onset of issues and was cramping every pedal stroke. I’d estimate I took about 50,000 cramped pedal strokes during the race mostly due to low core temp. I was miserable. I was able to hold reasonable power, but borderline reasonable. By the time we got to the usual “official checkpoint 2” and our planned big stop I was borderline out of it. I was having trouble remembering direction on the cue cards. I couldn’t feel shifters, brakes, food, bottles. Wattage was dropping, but not enough to negatively impact the overall group pace. I was a miserable mess and only mostly realized it at the time!
As the crystal clear and cold sunrise began to glow it felt like an eternity before we saw the sun. I could sense fatigue in Tanner. I expected Chase to crack at any instant. I could hardly function. But surprisingly I was able to manage reasonable power in the 180 watt range. The tactical checkpoint 2 bit us hard. Chase had a vehicle waiting solo on the roadside. He stopped for 15 seconds to restock. He was back on us before we reached our support. Tanner was tired. You can see that in the video. We stood stationary for over 2 minutes while Chase rode away. That was real hard, but I was barely able to function and the worst part of the day was upon us. It had rained quite well in that area the night before. The first 100 was mostly dry. Now we had maybe ¼” of muck on a rock hard base. My wide tires were pushing the mud. Tanner and Chase had much more narrow tires cutting through to the hard base. Tanner and I rode together. I executed another wrong turn to the tune of minutes. We were together, but we weren’t. Barely communicating. Never drafting. Desperately trying to find a hard line to ride. Both miserable. That lasted….hours. Tanner sent me away about mile 140.
It seemed to barely start warming about the time we hit the dryer gravel again and it was there I finally realized my handicap. The first time interval to Chase I received after leaving Tanner and returning to dryer gravel was an unthinkable 15 minutes. Impossible I thought! I was ready to shut it down and simply relax the best I could to the finish. I was so cold I was dropping food and having to go back and get it. A few more brief wrong turns. Dizzy. But…the wattage wasn’t terrible now as the temps ever so slowly began to rise I was able to manage more like 190 average. Still cramping every pedal stroke.
I believe the last spot I recall really faltering physically was mile 154 before one of the longer climbs on course. I dropped my maple syrup flask and went back to get it again just before the climb. It may have been that slow climb that got my core temp back to more reasonable. I certainly recall arriving at “official check 3” for my last food grab from the guys feeling terrible. But I also recall at that point telling them I was now able to hold 200 (with a holding steady 30 minute gap to Chase!). Do I give up? Do I ride back to Tanner and domestique him to assure a podium. Thomas answered that all real fast while those thoughts rolled through my mind. As I slowly ascended to the Vanvan parked at the crest of hill at mile 185 I yelled to the guys. “Flask, bottle, sunglasses.” I stood stationary there in a daze for maybe 15 seconds complaining there was nothing more I could do. I recall Thomas then telling me Chase was running GP5000 tires and that I wasn’t there for 2nd. I knew what I had to do. Ouch.
From there I continued to warm and my power kept climbing. I was now able to hold more than 4w/kg up every climb. Sometimes 5w/kg. Flats easily holding over 200 now and feeling good, but still dealing with cramps. So….sooooo many hours of suffering. I continued on while following that single tire track ahead. The endless rollers came and went. I kept eating, kept drinking. I felt I controlled everything I could control and executed everything I could execute. I never gave up. At mile 237 or so Thomas and Jake were waiting for me on the e-bikes. They cheered and I almost cried as I told Thomas I never quit. I pedaled hard right to the finish. I don’t think I have ever suffered so badly across such a broad spectrum. Sure my power wasn’t what I wanted. My speed wasn’t what I wanted, but I never gave up. It’s hard to wrap around the sheer volume of suffering that wasn’t even as a result of pedaling my bike. The unbearable feeling of cold. The feeling of that wet / greasy gravel as my tires plowed through it. It was like 8 hours of pure torture. And I fought through it and never gave up. I never gave up.
Trenton has a traditional “sprint finish” setup about mile 239 where he calls the official winners in an attempt to eliminate any racing through Red Wing. Therefore we get a nice ~4 mile cool down after that finish. I stopped there almost crying. So proud of my effort. So defeated by hearing I’d lost by 30 minutes. I told Trenton then I was retiring from the DAMn. He didn’t seem to believe it at the time until I explained it. We hung out a bit and I chatted with folks the best my brain could muster. Physically my body felt ready to keep pedaling. But that’s about all I could do well was pedal. Not much else worked. I slowly made my way to the actual finish and added a mile after just to breach the 9000 calories burned mark and hit 245 miles. I told you I wasn’t physically done pedaling!
The DAMn is the definition of an epic gravel race. A midnight start with fireworks. 240+ miles. Point to point across the state of Minnesota. The giant Hanisch donuts at the podium that taste even better than they look!! Most important I feel is Trenton and his gang’s ability to bring such a sense of family to an epic event. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a range of emotions during a race. Being half way and thinking my body and core temp would never recover. Watching the gap grow while I was doing all I could to sustain a reasonable effort. I still felt my preparation and bike setup were about as good as they could get. A great taper for the race. A rocketship fast and aerodynamic bike, wheels, kit, helmet and even very fast gravel tires. Just not fast enough on this day! What will 2021 bring in terms of myself and the DAMn? We’ll see my friends. We’ll see 🙂 I’d also like to personally congratulate Tanner in regards to battling to hard fought 4th. I don’t think Tanner’s level of suffering was much different than mine. Rod, Jon, Gregg, Brian. To see them work together to the finish and get to be part of that was incredible. And to Tina who pedaled hard right to that finish line beer. I’m so happy for all of you and your first time being DAMn Champions. Congrats to everyone. So much goodness. Such a great time to be a Big Ring Flyer.