Dead Swede Gravel is 100 miles with about 7,700 feet of climbing on ranch-country gravel roads beneath the Bighorn Mountains. Expect open terrain and high-plains conditions, where wind is a variable to plan around.
This is a twelve-week plan built for about 5–7¾ hours in each non-race week, when work and family leave no more room than that. Most of the work goes toward the repeated climbing and the sustained distance, with the limited hours arranged to build steadily rather than pile on volume.
100 MI · 7,671 FT CLIMBING · GRAVEL ROADS THROUGH RANCH COUNTRY WITH BIGHORN MOUNTAINS · 12 WEEKS · 5–7¾ HR/TRAINING WK · TIME-CRUNCHED
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 and a mid-plan retest, so the plan runs on your real numbers
- The full Dead Swede Gravel guide — terrain, gearing, fueling
Hey, I'm Matti. I spent 11 years at TrainingPeaks, where they trusted me to teach coaches how to coach at TrainingPeaks University. I raced Amateur Elite with Rio Grande Cycling Team and podiumed my age group at Unbound 200 in 2026. I have a degree in biology and exercise physiology from St. Olaf. I'm also a middle-aged dad of three, so I know training doesn't happen in a vacuum. I help gravel riders get stupidly fast without becoming the person who brings a food scale to a party