The training didn’t happen. Niseko Gravel — 62 miles through the Hokkaido mountains — is still coming.
Niseko Gravel is 62 miles with about 5,600 feet of climbing in the mountains of Hokkaido, Japan — forest-road gravel connected by paved sections, with the climbing spread across the whole day and the last of it arriving near the finish. September there is usually mild, but the weather in these mountains is genuinely variable, and rain changes how the whole course rides. Life got in the way — work, an injury, a season that slipped — and now there are weeks left, not months. This is a six-week plan for the weeks you have left. Six weeks isn’t enough to build mountain endurance from scratch, but it is enough to get your climbing as ready as the time allows, keep one honest long ride in the schedule, and settle a pacing plan that spends the early climbs carefully so the late ones stay rideable. Smart riding covers a lot on a course like this, and it’s teachable.
62 MI · 5,580 FT CLIMBING · 40% GRAVEL, FOREST ROADS · 6 WEEKS · 5–9 HR/WK · SAVE MY RACE
WHAT'S INSIDE
- Triage — the highest-value work for the time left, on real graphs, not PDFs
- Strength kept to what helps, not what fills time, with video demos
- Notes on pacing a mountain day within yourself + the Gravel Grit program
- A testing week so the work fits the fitness you have now
- The full Niseko Gravel guide — pacing, gearing, fueling, so smart riding covers what training couldn’t
WHAT YOU'LL GET
The best salvaged version of your race — finishing with something left, not unraveling when the course climbs again late.
For the rider who’s out of runway but not out of the race. · 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