My Unbound Gravel Game Plan: Race Strategy, Pacing, and Mud
It’s race week! UNBOUND Gravel is my “A” event, and it’s the biggest gravel race in the world. So, of course, I’ve put a lot of time and effort into getting ready. This also means the anxiety is building as the big day gets closer. For me, the best antidote to anxiety is a solid plan.
This is going to be my fifth UNBOUND 200. At this point, I have a pretty good understanding of how to make it to the finish. I’ve also learned what it takes to accomplish big goals like beating the sun or finishing under 12 hours. I’m going to lay out a few strategies for pacing the 200-mile race this year. Maybe it will help you accomplish your gravel goals, whether that’s finishing UNBOUND or any other big race.
The 200 Mile Course
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the UNBOUND Gravel course is new for 2026. At 207 miles, it’s the longest one yet! Traditionally, the course has flipped between a North and South version every two years, and these courses have remained fairly consistent since 2019. This year's course, however, combines a bit of the South course with a bit of the North course, and connects them with some roads to the West.
3 Checkpoints
The big headline for 2026 is the change to the checkpoints. For several years, riders were only able to meet up with support crews to receive aid at two checkpoints. This year, a third checkpoint has been added, giving riders more options:
- Checkpoint 1: Mile 42 - Downtown Madison
- Checkpoint 2: Mile 100.3 - Matfield Green Old Homestead
- Checkpoint 3: Mile 160 - Council Grove High School
For riders competing to finish, an extra checkpoint will provide welcome relief. For me, it provides an interesting new puzzle. At Mile 42, Checkpoint 1 comes a bit sooner than I’d like. Riders competing for high placings or fast finish times likely won’t stop at mile 42. I want to stick to a fast-moving group for as long as possible to gain time early in the race, so I’m planning not to stop until Checkpoint 2 at mile 100.3.
This means I need to carry nutrition and hydration to make it 100 miles. But I will still have a drop bag at Checkpoint 1 (I’m using 3 Feet Cycling’s crew-for-hire) just in case something goes wrong. If I lose a bottle, need more gels, or need to fix my bike, I’ll stop. I do plan to stop at Checkpoint 3, but if I’m feeling good, working with a motivated group, and have enough supplies on me, I’m prepared to go all the way to the finish. The events of the day will determine what I decide to do.
UNBOUND 200 Pacing Strategies
Riding 200 miles in one day is about pacing as much as it is about fitness and grit. The easiest way to have a terrible day is to go out too hard. Tons of riders fall into this trap. Sometimes they overestimate themselves, or they just get caught up in the excitement and chaos of the start. It’s happened to me countless times, at plenty of big races.
To help you avoid this, I’m going to quickly cover a few different pacing strategies that might be effective for UNBOUND, or any ultra-long endurance event:
Go Out Too Easy
My wife is taking on the 200-mile race for the first time this year, and her goal is to beat the time cutoffs and make it to the finish. The key to finishing strong is to ride at an even pace for the entire day. But that’s a really hard thing to judge in a super long event like UNBOUND, especially if you’ve never ridden 200 miles before.
If this is your situation, then your pace at the start of the day should feel almost “too easy.” This probably means you’ll be moving pretty slowly, which might feel absurd, or even embarrassing. But 200 miles is a very, very long way to go. While it will feel “too easy” in the beginning, that same effort is going to feel much harder at the end. But because you saved more energy by not blowing yourself up early, you should be able to maintain it all day.
This is essentially the strategy I used in my first UNBOUND in 2022. I treated the start like I was going out for a recovery ride. I kept things nice and easy while riders were blowing by me. Then, 8-10 hours in, I started catching and passing many of these same riders. My power output hadn’t changed. They’d just faded after going out too hard. I eventually achieved my goal of “beating the sun” (finishing before sunset). For a lot of people, slow and steady is the way to succeed.
Sagging All the Climbs
Texaco Hill comes at mile 64, and it is the biggest hill on the course. For pros and any amateur racing for the win, this will be a place to launch an attack and create separation. For everyone else, the goal here will either be to hang on to a good group or survive the climb without expending too much energy.
Relative to a lot of my competition, I’m not the best climber, so I plan to “sag” Texaco Hill, and really any hill on the course. This means trying to position myself at the front of my group before a big climb to hit the bottom with speed. I then hold my power steady, slowly dropping back as stronger riders pass me. If all goes to plan, I’ll catch the tail end of the group as it crests the hill, and I’ll save a lot of energy by riding within myself while everyone else hammers.
Set a Power Window
In 2024, finishing under 12 hours was my major goal. To achieve this, I had to ride a bit harder than I did in 2022 and collaborate more with fast groups of riders. This meant I wouldn’t have the luxury of going easy all day. Still, I didn’t want to go too hard at any point and blow up. To keep myself in check, I set a “power window.”
My plan was essentially to keep my power between 150-250 W, which covers my entire endurance zone (zone 2) and extends into the middle of my tempo zone (zone 3). Your window will depend on your fitness and your event distance, but for me, this was a good range to maintain steady power all day. I wasn’t overly strict about it, but I’d keep an eye on my power and consciously try to stay in the window as much as possible.
I did allow myself a bit of leeway. I didn’t stress about coasting when I needed a break. If I needed a quick punch above my window to get up a hill or latch onto someone’s wheel, I’d do it, as long as it was short enough for me to recover quickly. I would work with other riders and hop in pacelines as much as possible, but if I needed to go above my tempo power to sit in the draft, I’d swallow my pride and let the group go.
Just like the “Going Out Too Easy” pacing plan, the goal is to ride at an even pace from start to finish. With a 150-250 W power window, I wanted to ride consistently enough to achieve a normalized power of around 200 watts. In 2024, I finished with a normalized power of 201 W and got my first-ever sub-12 finish!
Ride the Edge
My plan this year is a lot more aggressive: I’m going to try to ride the edge of blowing up. In essence, I’m still using the “Power Window” pacing plan, but it's a bit more aggressive. The big difference is that I’m going to make a bigger effort to stick with fast groups of riders. This means I’m going to leave my power window a lot more, and I’ll need to try to make smart judgments about how often I do it.
It’s really unlikely that I’ll ever be able to ride faster than my current PR by myself. I need to stick with faster people to increase my average speed. This means I'm going to need to do some repeated hard efforts, likely at or above my threshold, just to stay attached. My power window this year is in the 170-270 W range, but I’ll punch up to 350-400 W in short bursts to stay attached to a fast-moving group instead of letting them go. I’ll do this as long as possible to take advantage of drafting.
Obviously, this is a much riskier pacing strategy, and racing experience is really useful. I’ve been racing a lot more in recent years, and I did two big races this spring before UNBOUND, as well as plenty of fast group rides, to try to get a better understanding of how hard I can go and how often, before I’m unable to recover and blow up.
After testing myself and finding the limit a few times, the hope is that I can ride the edge without going over, and still recover enough after hard efforts to continue riding in my power window for the majority of the race. For me, it’s kind of a gamble, but if I want a bigger result, I have to be willing to lose big too!
What To Do About Mud
If you’re headed to Emporia this year, then you’re probably checking the forecast obsessively. When there’s rain, there’s a chance for mud. The mud at UNBOUND is heinous. With the high clay content and minimum maintenance roads (MMRs), you encounter what a lot of people describe as “peanut butter” mud. It’s sticky, and it packs up on your bike, clogging things up, slowing you down, or potentially causing a race-ending mechanical.
2023 was a notorious mud year. A muddy MMR early on the course caused mass chaos, and riders had to hike 4-5 miles to escape. I DNF’d that year because the mud ripped the rear derailleur off my bike. I have a lot of unresolved trauma surrounding that DNF! So, I have a pretty simple plan to deal with mud if it gets bad this year: the moment I notice mud packing up on my tires, I’m getting off and walking through the grass on the side of the road.
The big mistake I made in 2023 was trying to ride through a lot of the worst mud sections. I used to race cyclocross, and I rode through all the mud sections in 2022, so I was super confident and felt like I could gain a huge advantage on everyone. I also had a bike with huge clearance and slick tires, which I believed would prevent clogging. What I learned is that peanut butter mud doesn’t care how good you are or how much clearance you have. It will mess up your bike.
If the mud is not super deep or sticky, ride through it. But otherwise, my advice is to just play it safe. Everyone’s going to lose time if there’s bad mud. There’s no point in stressing if you have to hike. Just get off and walk, breathe deep, keep your bike intact, and remember to keep fueling while you’re walking!
Dealing with Race Day Nerves
Do you feel nervous before races? I’ve been racing for over 10 years, and I am still filled with anxiety every single time I line up. But if you don’t feel nervous, it’s not something worth doing, right? So how do you deal with these nerves? For me, one thing helps a lot: box breathing.
It’s simple: Deep 4-second inhale through the nose, a 4-second pause, a full 4-second exhale through the mouth, a 4-second pause, repeat. It works for Navy SEALs heading into life-threatening missions. It works for spies surviving interrogation through torture (or so I’ve heard). And it works for calming down before scary bike races, too!
I box breathe a lot during race week. I do it while visualizing the race and mentally rehearsing scenarios where something has gone wrong, and I have to problem solve (e.g., flat tires, crashes, getting lost). I do it while I have my morning coffee on race day. I do it after I find my spot in the start chute. It only takes a few minutes, then I’m relaxed, present, and focused. Once I start moving, all the nerves melt away.