This past Sunday was the third year of SBT GRVL and my second time. Last year I finished 5th in the women’s overall for the premier, 145-mile course. This year I was able to finish 2nd. For those who haven’t experienced SBT GRVL before, it’s held in Steamboat Springs, a high-mountain ski resort Colorado town. The gravel is mostly pretty benign and often treated, making it nearly pavement-like.
According to my Wahoo Bolt, the average elevation for the SBT GRVL course is 7240 feet, peaking at 8440 feet. Most of the climbs are a few minutes at most, with one key climb in the last half that covers about 22 miles of consistent gain. The mixed gender start means that it’s fast and chaotic until the field breaks apart.
2022 SBT GRVL
I typically travel to these events with my husband Zack Allison, who also races the same calendar under our brand, Bike Sports (should be pronounced with two exclamation points at the end: “Bike Sports!!”). We arrived Thursday at Michelle Moore’s house in Oak Creek to have a couple days to scope a few sections of the SBT GRVL course again, and be able to do a few community rides and activities.
Michelle Moore works on Zwift’s event-side with a special focus on WOMEN. Hell yeah. Anyways, unlike most events, we opted to get all our “social activities” done Friday so we could actually have an entire day to prepare and get a little work done. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the events and time-travel to the evening, and then have to panic prep. It’s as if my body sensed the day ahead and it was ready to shut down by 8pm. I let it.
The alarm went off at 5am. I hit go on the drip coffee machine and turned on the camper’s propane to reheat breakfast burritos I had prepped ahead of the trip. We were out the door by 5:30 and rolled over to the start line for a chilly start. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed near the front and had to start back by the “I like to go kind of fast” group, which is a lot more dangerous when you have to scoot through 300 riders to get back up to the “pro” section at the front during a neutral start. Nevertheless, a bit of energy burned, only a few sketchy passes, and I was able to generally be where I wanted to be for the first dirt section.
Two men rolled off the front which made a MUCH chiller start to the race with less undulations. We entered the farmer’s field with almost no crashes and headed to the first climb. I was happy to find myself at the front of the women’s field with Flavia Oliveira and Lauren De Crescenzo and a medium-sized group of guys. We rolled through the singletrack together and when we emerged on the pavement, several men who had suffered early mechanicals, including Griffin Easter, drove the pace hard. The three of us women also took turns, wanting to put space between us and the women behind. We were hoping to link up with another group ahead.
SBT GRVL blows up
Things were pretty fast but uneventful until Flavia flatted fully on a downhill around mile 75. Lauren and a guy in a red kit kept pushing the pace up the climbs but the group was motivated to keep the gas on and they kept coming back. I went into my road-background mindset and tried to think through things as a GC rider in a stage race. The women are mingled in with the men at SBT GRVL, and they have their own agendas. How can I use that situation most intelligently?
For me, it was to utilize the group’s desire to move forward as fast as possible and to not worry about these pushes on the climbs so much. However, around mile 85 or so, Lauren and The-Man-in-Red pushed on a climb and the group disintegrated. By the time I could see this was the end result, it was too late and I was solo, pushing forward to both Lauren and the only aid I took that day, at mile 95.
Usually as you motor forward, the people you run into are long-gone, shells of the humans they were before. Not that I waas in much better of a place, but it’s a moment of solidarity, seeing each other as you have that brief interaction. I ran out of my hydration (2 1-liter bottles, 1 small bottle) about 5 miles out from the SBT GRVL 95-mile aid station (4:30 hours in). I knew I was a bit behind so I chugged half a coke, a small bottle of electrolyte drink, and small bottle of water. My stomach couldn’t handle any food for some reason, so I trudged on for a very lonely climb subsisting on liquid calories.
Luckily I had pre-ridden a lot of the climb on Thursday so I had a fresh memory of its finish. I had no idea how far ahead Lauren could be. With every rider I saw — which wasn’t many — I would have a brief glimpse of hope. Heading up the last few climbs from Oak Creek to the finish, I was able to connect with some friendly faces from the men’s fields who had suffered immensely but were stoked to see the second place woman on the road. Exchanging a few words and pulls with each other was a nice way to avoid “the dark place” that comes about this time of the race. I was able to roll into the finish 6:59:24 of rolling time, 20.2 mph average, and 226 NP for 141 miles for second place fin the women’s SBT GRVL category.
The stress cup
A lot of people asked if I was happy and if I had fun at SBT GRVL this year. I totally accept that but in my head I find it a little irksome. This spring was really difficult for me mentally and physically. Getting sick with a really bad cold after Sea Otter, leaving me hurting for BWR California, canceled Co2uT, lack of a women’s field at Pony Xpress, and giardia after Unbound Gravel left me feeling like I mostly missed out on a spring season (I did sneak in a 4th podium again at Unbound).
My midseason gets donated to hosting FoCo Fondo (we broke 1000 riders and executed a beautiful, beautiful vision. Yay!). This has left me with some anxiety around Season Part 2 with questions like, “will I be good enough?” “Am I even fast or was that a fluke last year?” and all sorts of other bull**** that I hear in my head and try to resist.
I have this nerdy philosophy that we have a glass cup of stress we can handle – be that from life stress, training stress, work stress – and that is it. We have to manage that trio to keep the cup from spilling over. Otherwise we get sick or burnt out. When we honor and respect that stress cup, we get to soar as humans and probably accomplish more in the long run.
I am learning, painfully, to honor my training back from my FoCo Fondo “midseason break.” That includes a lot of emails, a TON of sleeping, a delicate rebuild of intervals, and just a couple “big rides” going into SBT GRVL and Season, Part 2. My Source Endurance coach always says, “you can only train as much as you can recover from,” and I think that is really important to keep at the front of mind always as we try to balance our contradictory goals. We are only human after all.
Needless to say, I’m happy to be here. I’m proud to be here. And once this load of laundry is done, I’m stoked to head to Gravel Worlds this weekend.