Gravel Grovel Slop Fest 2018

After last years record time and the fact that for most of the year I was riding stronger than I can ever remember, I had some high hopes for putting in a really good ride this year. But, I did a good job of making sure that didn't happen. The last 3 months leading up to the race it seemed like I had a lot of conflicts and issues that kept me from getting a lot of rides in. My monthly mileage for September was an all time low. I did a little better in October, but still way lower than normal. November was also busy, but I did my best to try and get my legs to snap out of it and let me finish the year strong.

The last couple rides leading up to the race didn't really make me feel any better. I was still riding the climbs, but I didn't have any pop. I had a bigger gear on the Spot than last year with the thoughts of going faster. With my weaker state of riding I made a last minute decision to change the gearing back to what I had ran the last couple years. This was a very good decision for my legs. I figured if I am going to have a bad year, why cause myself any more unneeded pain.

I got there early enough on Friday to get checked in to my cabin and all settled in. After Bushong got there we went for a little ride to loosen the legs up. We just did the small loop from the start area. This also let us see how some of the roads were looking. The legs were not feeling too bad, but still not where I had hoped they would be.