First Getting to Sheridan
The Dead Swede is one of my favorite races of the year each season. It always takes place the first Saturday in June, on the same day as Unbound—the biggest and baddest gravel race in the world, a race that traverses the gravel roads, worlds away, in Emporia, Kansas. I’m not sure that the organizers of the Dead Swede have purposefully run their event on the same date as Unbound for a reason (but they’ve been doing so for as long as I can remember), or simply coincidence, but it makes for a rip-roaring ride and creates an extra gravel buzz for the already stellar event.
It’s always a divide and conquer weekend with Kamiah racing in Laramie, Wyoming, in the pool. After making her customary breakfast swim sandwich and getting her to her ride to Laramie, I cranked out a blog, got a shakeout ride in with a handful of 30 second openers, dropped by my bike shop for some last minute fueling and puncture accessories and then packed up the truck so we were ready to depart once Amanda got off work.
We were cutting the 9 pm packet pick-up close. If you miss it, according to the organizers, you’re SOL if you didn’t let them know by 4 pm on Friday—after fueling up Junyer (one of our two Toyota Tundra’s), we boogied down to Sheridan.
It’s hard to beat the drive along the Yellowstone River and through Crow Country in early June. We saw our first couple pronghorn fawns of the years (always twins) and rolled into Sheridan just in the nick of time.
Dinner was a bowl full of rice at Q-Doba, no beans, very little fiber, just lots of grilled chicken, rice, Verde and guac. After eating, we stopped by Albertons for some additional provisions and made our way to the Sheridan YMCA where we’d post up in the parking lot and sleep in the back of our truck for the night.
Pre-Race Sleep
I’ve never been a great sleeper and I’ve had some horrendous sleeps over the years before big events. I don’t think I got a good night sleep up in Penticton, B.C., for the BC Bike Race until the sixth or seventh stage, out of pure exhaustion. My sleep wasn’t great at the Breck Epic, but it got a little better after stage two. I’ve had some terrible sleeps before the Long Bridge Swim, but each year that seems to get better and the last two years I slept like a champ. My sleep before the Crusher in the Tushar—a hot night in the back of the truck with “the hardest 69.9 miles on the planet” on the brain, made for one of the worst night sleeps of all-time.
I wasn’t feeling overly nervous, although the excitement level was high, but I was pretty surprised by the lack of sleep I had the night before the 2024 rendition of the Dead Swede. I think it was just the juice of racing an event and course I’ve grown to love.
The Day of the Dead Swede
Early June in Sheridan, Wyoming, is always special. The weather can be splendid, full of sunshine and warm temps, or it can be pouring rain, wet and muddy. Last year we had a little of both, with a complete deluge the day before, forcing the race organizers to alter the course, but on race day itself, it was muggy and humid, but beautiful.
This year’s race was a straight up glory day. The weather couldn’t have been any better and the course couldn’t have been any faster. It was a gorgeous summer day in Wyoming—where our roots run deep.
The grasses were popping—succulent and green—and the Western meadowlarks were plentiful, singing their song of fecundity on fenceposts along the road that we raced. It was surely shaping up to be a special three and a half hours of racing the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.
We made it to the start-line an hour before tip-off and were able to land one of the best parking spots in the park, less than 100 feet from the starting shoot. I felt pretty prepared, got kitted up, did a nice dynamic warm-up and popped off some openers.
Last year I rocked a hydration pack with water and two water bottles with fuel. This year I decided to go light, no pack, just two bottles, one with water, one with 120 grams of carbs in the form of Flow Formulas (my go to). I knew it wouldn’t be a long day and felt like we had a good shot of going well under my PR from the year before.
Let the Race Begin
Out of the gate I felt good and strong and I was bound and determined to go out harder than I did in 2023 (2023 Dead Swede Race Recap). There’s no doubt that as the speed picks up in the group, I have to put in a little more work on the pavement, riding the Salsa Cutthroat (a drop bar mountain bike designed for bike-packing) as the aerodynamics simply aren’t there and the 50c/2.0 Maxxis Ramblers aren’t the quickest tires on the asphalt.
I knew the top racers would be stronger and faster than me, but one of my favorite memories racing gravel was the Gold Rush back in 2021, when I bridged a gap to the two leaders and spent most the day climbing with them, ultimately taking my one and only podium (in the shorter Gold Dust 50 milers). With this in mind, and a strong sense of curiosity about my fitness coming off a 60-hour training week in May, I decided to go out hard, bridging a gap to the leaders. I was a fifty yards back when we hit the pavement and had to put in an early effort to get with the lead group of 12-15 riders. Between some rough shifting and busting out the phone to video a herd of horses running beside our lead group, I got spit off the back early and made a second effort to get back in contact with the lead group.
When I found myself losing contact for a third time, I decided it was too early to go that hard, so I found myself riding solo for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, but still feeling strong. About forty-five minutes into the race, the chase group of 8-10 riders caught me, and I got in the pace line, which helped things get a lot easier.
I’m a mountain biker, not a road rider, so I’m not well-versed in pace line dynamics. I think my first real pace line was at the Crusher in the Tushar, where I worked way too hard to stay with the group I was in and paid the price as we entered the Sar Lac Pit and the Col de Crush. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake today, but I was feeling strong and steady, so I stayed with the group.
The strength and stamina felt like it was there and so I took every pull I was asked to take and on the climbs created some separation until we’d hit the flats or a slight climb and the group would get back to work. I was staying in the moment, truly basking in the glory of the day and so grateful to be racing my bike under the banner of the Bighorn Mountains on a bluebird day, racing for the first time since August of 2024.
Having navigated so many injuries over the years, and even last year, having raced the Swede with a hamstring strain, I was riding with a tremendous amount of gratitude, feeling overjoyed by my healthy body, my strong mind and my fitness, which really seemed to be there.
I was eyeing the other riders in the group, checking for cany chinks or fatigue and felt like I was one of the stronger riders in the 8–10-person group.
As we ripped through the ranchland, I begin thinking about my strategy for when I’d put in diggs and ultimately, when I’d make an attack, knowing that I’d be screwed if I hit the final five miles of pavement with a group of riders who were all on roadie gravel bikes with skinny tires.
Luck wasn’t there
I was very much looking forward to pushing it to the finish and then my luck ran out. On a steep descent, about 90 minutes into the ride, I was in the back of the pack after rotating through a pull and as we descended a steep and rocky section of road, I lost control of my rear wheel, almost resulting in a gnarly crash. I didn’t fully know what was going on until I could feel rim bumping down the rocks and dirt lining the road.
After pulling over without crashing, I saw that my rear tire was completely flat and not holding air. I found a big nailhead protruding from the tire. Removing a massive nail, there was no air left and my attempt at plugging, airing up and reseating the tire afield was fruitless. I stayed calm, knowing we had four or five minutes on the next group of riders and reached for my spare tube.
This is the first race I’ve ever participated in without my pump, which I ditched right before the start, thinking this course is so buttery and smooth it wouldn’t be necessary, carrying three C02 cartridges instead. After blowing through all three C02’s, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, the tube had a hole in it and that was that.
Despite getting help from my friend Jens (who had a super strong ride and was only five or six minutes back from our group riding solo) and a young rider from Cody, both of whom generously stopped to try and get me back up in running, it wasn’t coming together. After 37 minutes of wrestling with my mechanical, all-the-while watching the field go by, I had to start the walk and it was looking like a long walk to the nearest paved road and hopefully cell service, until a ranch truck rolled by and picked me up.
The rusty ranch nail that ended my race.
Results Matter, Kind Of
I’ve never been a rider that puts a big premium on results. I’ve had a few strong results over the years, a couple top tens, a top five, a top three, but results are relative and a matter of perspective and they are all about who shows up. When I’m at a big race like the BC Bike Race, the Breck Epic or the Crusher In the Tushar, I’m scratching and clawing to finish in the fiftieth percentile, but at some smaller, more local races, things might shape out differently. Last year I took right around 39th or 40th in the 60-mile rendition of the Dead Swede and this year I was pretty convinced that I’d lock in a top 25 unless I blew up.
With that said, I’ve never been results driven—I can’t be as a 45-year-old age grouper that simply is where I am. But that doesn’t stop me from caring, from competing, from racing to the best of my ability on a given day, while being cautious on the descents, not taking risks for a result, knowing I’m on blood thinners and ultimately want to live to ride another day and more importantly, want to be in the best shape possible for my wife and daughter.
I suppose the bummer is that I was going strong and everyone in the chase group finished between 16th and 23rd, in a fast field, so the day was shaping up well, but it is what it is. Would I have paid the price for my curiosity and early move to connect with the lead group? Perhaps. But I don’t think so. I felt strong. The fitness was there, I raced hard, I was lost in the fight for those 90 minutes, I had a lot of fun and I don’t think I was going anywhere.
I often say to athletes that my work as a mental endurance/mindset/mental performance coach is multilayered, but a big piece of what I do is trying to help athletes and performers loosen the grip on how much they allow their results to affect their sense of self and identity. When you work as hard as many of these athletes do, I’d never tell them that the results don’t matter, but when we can help an athlete be more process driven and less attached to the result, we’re not only going to have a happier and healthier athlete, we’re often going to see an athlete that is on a more sustainable path and finding more joy in their sport and pursuit.
Perspective and Process
For me, I love to compete, but I’m simply not at a place where I can get wrapped up in results at all and still find joy. With that said, sixty hours of training in May is a lot of damn training and I would have loved to have finished strong, but there’s not really any part of me that felt disappointed by my first DNF. It had to happen at some point and it’s better it happened here than at an event like Leadville or the Crusher, where just finishing would be a massive achievement. Again, it’s all perspective.
Despite our best efforts, we need a lot more than fitness at these races. We also need some luck—sometimes a lot of luck. It behooves me not to get attached to results and to recognize the ego part that would have loved to have finished in the top-twenty-five, dropping almost 30 minutes from the year prior, but again, everything had to come together for this to occur and a lot can happen on the trail and gravel when racing these longer events. Hopefully I got that mechanical and DNF out of the way before the big events of July and August.
Was flatting out and not being able to get back on track deflating? Yes, literally and figuratively. I would have loved to have seen how strongly I could have finished and have a sneaky suspicion that I would have finished in good form. With that said, I wanted to respond to the challenge and not react. Part of this is keeping it in perspective. As I walked out with my bike I thought of my friend Cole Tininenko from Allied Cycle Works who just had a tree crash through his house following a big tornado in Rogers, Arkansas, and this was after his wife and baby experienced complications during the birthing process.
I was healthy, happy and wanted to be undeterred. My ultimate goal was not to suppress the frustration, but to have a strong mindset and attitude, to the point that my wife would acknowledge how well I handled the situation, which she did on our drive home, so all in all, it was kind of a win.
And perhaps best of all, I got back to Amanda two hours earlier than I would have (and I’ve always struggled feeling a sense of guilt for being away from my wife and daughter during a long training ride or race), and not being beer drinkers or people who generally hang around after the ride, we took it on the chin, bounced out, got a Passion Tea and ate a fabulous gluten free donut at Glazed and Confused and had a nice drive home, all while following Kamiah’s meet success—she walked away from the two day swim meet with 1st overall and a trophy that had to be 5 feet tall.
We win or we grow, we win or we learn. On to the next, ya.
Head up, eyes forward, feet moving. We’ll see you next year, Dead Swede.
Now back to the training and the Crusher.
WNbL, mwl