54 hours to Trieste
528 km gravel. Three days. Ljubljana to Trieste. The limiter wasn't cardio.
Second year on this course. Last year, stronger engine, 62nd. This year, 44th in 54:35. Less fitness, fewer mistakes. The difference was not aerobic.
Day 1
I felt good Sunday morning. 4:50 alarm. Coffee, shower, light breakfast. Arrived at the start on point, clipped in, and started rolling.
The first hours felt almost too easy, which meant the pacing was right. If the start feels comfortable, you're doing it correctly. If it doesn't, you'll pay for it later.
My plan said Sviščaki by 23:00. I reached it at 20:11, almost three hours early. The hut was closed. I knew already, had called ahead. Plan B was a shelter just after the Croatian border around km 208. Couldn't find it.
The gravel in Croatia is rougher, rockier, a different surface entirely compared to the smooth stuff in Slovenia. Two riders appeared ahead and I latched on. More lights on sketchy terrain at night is worth the effort. I kept pushing to stay with them through the rough descents, then continued south alone until Dražice at km 243. It was 00:11 when I stopped in front of a closed bar with an outdoor seating area. Found a power outlet on the wall. Wouldn't normally look for that, but at midnight with lights and a phone that needed a charge for the next night, it felt like winning the lottery.
I rolled out my sleeping bag on an air mat and shivered for four hours. The emergency bivy was in my bag the entire time. I didn't think of it until 4 AM when I was already getting up. Whoop registered zero hours of sleep. Recovery next morning: 1%.
Day 2
What surprised me most about the morning was how okay I felt. Cold night, no sleep, body stiff. But once I started pedaling, something clicked. The legs loosened up within ten minutes. Functional.
The race crosses two ferry connections between Croatian islands. I caught the early first ferry at 13:30 instead of the planned 16:45. Three hours ahead of schedule.
After the first ferry I lost time on Cres. Faffing — packing, sorting clothes and food, buying a single water. My back was in real pain and I couldn't move properly, which didn't help. If you don't have a clear picture of what needs to happen at your next stop before you arrive, and your body is fighting you, minutes disappear. The FIT file shows nearly an hour between landing and getting back to race pace.
I missed the 18:00 ferry by two minutes and had to wait for the next at 19:30. That lost time on Cres staring right back at me. If I'd made that ferry, I'd have had more sleep at the hotel.
I'd already booked a hotel in Mošćenička Draga during the ferry to Cres. Convinced the evening staff to put together a plate of bread, cold cuts, olives, and cheese. Grabbed a Sprite for that evening, a Fanta for morning, and a small Cola to mix into my hydration bladder for day three.
Whoop says 4:28 of actual sleep. That's what saved day three.
What I didn't do: treat the nail bed infection on my thumb that I'd noticed before falling asleep. The disinfectant was downstairs on the bike. I was too tired to go get it. Small problems ignored become big problems later. Always the case in life.
Day 3
My back had become the dominant thought. Not discomfort. Active pain that shaped every decision. I filled the hydration pack to only 1.3 liters and stuffed it into the Tailfin instead of wearing it on my back. Maybe 800 grams of difference, but it helped.
On the climb I had one rule: if the effort goes anywhere near threshold, get off and push. No negotiating. Save the matches for the last 50 km. Pushing wasn't great either. I had blisters on both feet from the hike-a-bike sections. A blister below my right ankle from the shoe that I could have taped at km 200. By km 450 it was a real problem.
The last 20 kilometers were the hardest. My neck had given out. Not sharp pain, just the inability to hold my head up for more than a few seconds before I needed to drop it again. Look up, look down, look up. The route follows an old railway bed from the early 1900s, the Parenzana, so at least it was straight and flat with nothing to navigate. Just pedal and let the head hang.
Then Trieste.
What broke
My limiter this year was not cardiovascular. It was whether my body could hold the position long enough for the engine to do its work. Last year I did weight training and had no back pain. This year I skipped it.
My power output was rock steady for 54 hours. Negative split on day three. Heart rate barely drifted. NP fade of -0.7%. Cardiac drift 3.9% over 2.5 days.
What failed: lower back from day two. Bilateral, slightly worse on the left. The quadratus lumborum overloading from thousands of micro-adjustments on rough gravel, hour after hour. Then neck from km 500. Ring and little fingers on both hands numb, outer palm too. Still numb days later. Ulnar nerve compression from the bars.
The engine was never the problem. The body holding it was.
Time budget
The clean split is simple: 54:35 total, 32:35 riding, 22:00 not moving. That is the number that matters for an ultra: how much of the day was forward motion, and how much wasn't.
Some of the not-moving time was the plan: sleep, ferries, hotel reset. Some of it was just standing around. The useful split is paid time versus leaked time.
I built a time budget breakdown to see exactly where time leaked:
What's next
Neck, hands, back. Three symptoms, one cause. I need to revisit the bike fit before Badlands. Bars up, reach shorter, maybe different grips. The aero cost at 15 km/h on gravel is zero. The cost of being wrong for 50 hours is your entire musculoskeletal system.
Strength training. Romanian deadlifts, split squats, core, neck work. 14 weeks until Badlands. The engine is ready. The chassis needs to be built to hold it. Should have started months ago. Starting now.
528 km in 54 hours. The watts were never the problem.