Dirty 30’s Savage Century is 100 miles of rolling Michigan gravel with about 3,500 feet of climbing — no big climbs, just constant rollers, so your legs never get a real rest. It runs out of Saranac in late March, and early spring in Michigan means cold starts, wind, and mud if it has rained.
This is a twelve-week plan for the same hundred miles, with more recovery built in for riders over fifty. It reaches the same fitness on a weekly rhythm that assumes you recover slower than you used to — because arriving fit and uninjured is the harder half after fifty.
100 MI · 3,500 FT CLIMBING · ROLLING MICHIGAN GRAVEL, SPRING MUD RISK · 12 WEEKS · 7–11 HR/WK · MASTERS 50+
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 Dirty 30 guide — pacing the rollers, cold-start layering, tire choice, and fueling
WHAT YOU'LL GET
The same race fitness, reached on a weekly load your recovery can absorb.
For the rider over fifty with a hundred miles to train for. · plans@gravelgodcoaching.com
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