USA Cycling Gravel Nationals is 110 miles on the champagne gravel of Minnesota’s Driftless region, with about 7,000 feet of climbing that comes as frequent short, steep pitches — some over 7 percent — that accumulate all day rather than one long climb. Mid-September usually brings ideal, dry racing weather, with occasional loose sections from fresh gravel grading.
This is an eight-week plan for Gravel Nationals’ distance and punchy climbing, built around the hours you have — and it assumes you already have endurance to build on. Eight weeks extends your durability and repeatable climbing; it isn’t enough to build a 110-mile base from scratch.
110 MI · 7,000 FT CLIMBING · PREDOMINANTLY GRAVEL ROADS (~90%+) · 8 WEEKS · 7–11 HR/WK · FINISHER
WHAT'S INSIDE
- Structured workouts on your calendar, with real power and heart-rate graphs
- Strength work built in, with video walkthroughs
- Weekly notes from me, plus the Gravel Grit mental program
- A testing week, so the plan runs on your real numbers
- The full USA Cycling Gravel Nationals guide — terrain, gearing, fueling
Hey! I'm Matti - also known as the Gravel God himself!
If you're into gravel racing and want to be as fast as possible, you had better choose me!
Why?
Because I'm the fastest, least talented person to ever ride a bike. I've made every mistake in the book so you don't have to and I'm here to save you years of failure and struggle.
When I'm not helping my athletes get faster on a bike I write obvious, overlooked training content that makes cycling training easy to understand.