4F at GravelNats25
Words by Vanessa, Deb & Adam
I think 4F might have won the prize for having the highest average travel distance for members making the pilgrimage to the Gravel National Championships in South Australia. Anne travelled from Toowoomba, Deb from Sunshine Coast, and Adam and Vanessa from Perth.
For me, there are multiple motivators for making the trip, and I’m sure these are true at least in part for everyone who makes the journey: the hunt for green and gold, the opportunity to compete on the same course at the same time as elite and professional riders (unique to gravel), the chance to ride in new places, and catching up with friends from around the country who love our beautiful sport.
Deb and Adam have kindly provided race reports from the event, so find somewhere comfortable to settle in for some great insights into the event.
From Deb Latouf:
Even though gravel is my favourite discipline, it is actually the first time I have lined up at Gravel Nats. They only started in 2022. I know I was injured that year. 2023 and 2024 they were held in Derby Tassie in June. And not even the lure of contending for a national title could make me want to race in Tassie in June.
The race this year was in the Adelaide hills, north east up near Williamstown in the Crawford Forest. It was partly on the Kidman trails. It was 100% off road. On paper the parcours did not appear to offer a lot. The loop was 50km with just over 500m of elevation. But that was an undersell. It was actually quite technical, and thus required much concentration. So you need to add the physiological load to the mental load in order to get an idea of how challenging the course was. I don’t mind a technical course and ride this stuff pretty well – courtesy of a mountain biking background. There were rocks, lots of them. Sandy sections a plenty, with deep sand. Dry creek crossings, and lots of turns. Many many turns.
Anne Elliott and I went and rode a reccie the day before. Anne had got there a day earlier than me so had done most of the course the day before. At least she thought she was on the course, turns out for a fair bit of the first 10km she was on an adjacent trail. It was pretty tricky to navigate. There was a clear pinch point at the 13km mark, appropriately called Tombstone. It was a short sharp climb, with a hard left half way up. We could not ride the line in training as the gate was closed. All we could do was eye it up and know the line needed on the day. The rest of the loop had one 2km grind climb, followed by a fast but technical descent. The final 15km zig zagged through the pine forest, just as it looks on the course profile – we looped back on ourselves several times.
The masters women from category 6 up all raced together. There were 12 of us in total, and we started as the last wave at 10am. Therefore our race was absolutely not affected by men; for a change. This is unlike the elite women’s race, who got caught by the masters men and had their race hijacked. Should not happen at a National Champs, but I digress. So we had our own race, which was fantastic. I don’t feel we started particularly hard, but we were down to 7 riders by less than 5km in. This included 4 super competitive racers in WM6, two in WM7 category (me and one other) and one WM8 who was the reigning national champ (WM7), but had just gone up a category.
Just before the Tombstone pinch point we caught one of the junior women’s bunches, and went past them. I knew that positioning going into Tombstone was crucial. I knew it was technical and very steep and some would likely need to clip out. I did not want to be stuck behind them so made sure I was right up the front. I had second wheel behind Bizzy Butterworth who I know well and figured if we could get away together that it might set up the race. We have done this before as we are often in the same race, but never in the same category as we are exactly 5 years difference in age. We both went up an age group this year – Bizzy into 6 and myself into 7.
It panned out just as I thought. Bizzy drilled it up the climb, and I was right behind her. The gate was open (thank goodness), so we could take the wider, less steep line. It was still technical though. I heard someone behind me click out and knew that some in the group would be disrupted by this [I can vouch for this - VJ]. As we crested the climb Bizzy called out ‘Deb are you there?’. Between my grunting I responded ‘yep, go go go’. We buried ourselves for the next few hundred metres to establish the break. During this we caught and went past the next group of junior women. It was just Bizzy and I then, and we recovered a bit for a few kms.
Then we heard someone behind us which was kind of a surprise. Turns out it was one of the junior men who had punctured earlier. He had thrown in his race and was riding one of his team-mates, a junior woman back onto us. Yes really. Technically within the rules, but of course morally questionnable. But there you go. Not my place to say anything as it did not affect my race. For the record – I would not have done that. And I would not encourage athletes I coach to do it.
The last 15kms was zig zagging through the pine forests looping back on ourselves. I did see Anne go through once in the opposite direction. She was flying solo at that stage and I had no idea where she was in her category. I just kept on pushing, as you have no idea what the time split is. Plus it was a course that was hard on bikes, and you could score a mechanical at any time.
I crossed the line pretty glad to finish, with Bizzy and the junior in sight. I’d been managing adductor cramps for about 10km, so was relieved that I did not have to push it.
If you look at my Strava you will see no power data. I did not deliberately hide it. My power meter failed after about 1 minute. Which is a shame, as the numbers would have been interesting. I reckon I probably did it at around 0.90 Intensity Factor. But as I said, you need to add on the mental load of concentrating.
Fueling – I had 80 grams of beta fuel in a bidon, second bidon was water, and beta fuel gels which are 40 grams each. Plan was to take in the bidon, plus two gels. That would have been 160 grams total; or 80 per hour. I had an extra gel as emergency. This fueling did not include the Beta fuel nootropics I took just before the start. This was 40 grams CHO with 200mg of caffeine. The gels I had during were regular beta fuel (no caffeine). The emergency gel was a nootropics, so was going to be risky to take with my arrhythmia. But with 30 mins to go I felt I needed it, so took it; and was glad I did. Therefore the total was 40 grams CHO and 200mg of caffeine 15 mins before the start; and 200 grams CHO and 200mg of caffeine during. Total 240 grams of CHO and 400mg of caffeine, on my little 50kg frame, for just under 2 hours of racing. Tolerated well and I reckon it was spot on.
I was chuffed to come away with my first National Champs jersey for gravel. To be honest, I had a pretty ordinary preparation for this event. This is not to make an excuse, but to give context. I have had a completely disrupted preparation over the past 5 weekends. A combination of personal commitments, work and illness. I was away for a wedding in Melbourne the first weekend, then I was race directing Sunshine Women’s Tour the following weekend. I missed the whole weekend of training, and then got run down from it, and sick. This meant I missed pretty much the week leading into Tour de Brisbane, and ended up not racing (which by the way, was the right decision). Then I was away for Easter with friends up at Atherton. This was a long standing plan to mark the beginning of my 60th birthday celebrations. It was an awesome weekend, but not really productive training, so to speak. For the first time in ages my CTL was below 100 for a few days. I know this may still sound high to some of you – however i normally sit around 120, so it is pretty low for me. And I am a ‘load based’ responder to training.
As I said, I am not telling you this to make an excuse. But to let you know that if you choose to line up at a race, you do so knowing the training you have done and make a race plan according to this. I knew my natural physiology is good for 1 minute power, and that if I could get over the pinch with Bizzy it might set up my race. And so it panned out. I sure as heck am glad that it was only one lap though – I would have been found out seriously on a longer parcours.
From Adam Ralph:
I hadn’t targeted or prepped for this race, but form and feels have been good, so it was a “why not?” type of decision. Last minute registration and flights, accom booked on the flight over and with a late arrival, only had time for 30 mins of course recci on the night prior to the race (before it got too dark). Thankfully, Vanessa had kindly provided some great intel, the 30 mins was super valuable and I could go into the race with just enough confidence.
It was a flat and super fast course, plenty of sharp rocks to end one’s race, just needed to stay out of trouble and keep moving. Wasn’t good enough to hold the lead group past the opening 10 or so km’s, a solid chase group of 12 formed and worked well together (about half were my Age Group, the others were dropped from younger categories). We kept shedding riders; some mechanicals, mostly just attrition.
Rode with (towed by) Bottas for 20-odd km’s before his third puncture, by which time it was just him, me and one direct AG competitor left from the chase group.
Caught a solo Matilda Raynolds about 8 km’s from the line. She was awesome, encouraged us to keep going and “not spoil her finish line photo” - i.e. buggar off in a very nice way. She hadn’t benefited from any of the men at any stage, rode her own race all day and wasn’t going to sit in for the last few km’s. Very impressive and much respect to her!
Super grateful for the love & support of Arletta, the coaching & advice of Toby Brown, plus catching up with mates and chatting through how it all played out. Nationals and Worlds take the competition and experience to a whole new level - happy to place as 5th best in my Age Group and really glad to have made the trip. The celebratory beer in Hahndorf was exceptional!
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Bottas & Crowmwell race highlights & post race chat with Adam here
Matilda Raynolds full post on insta here
Karri Cup report coming next….
