The training didn’t happen, and Lone Wolf Gravel — remote wilderness gravel in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — is still on the calendar.
The race starts at a gravel pit outside Iron Mountain in late September: fast, hard-packed gravel, steep and chunky climbs, courses so lightly marked you navigate by GPS, and minimal aid. The weather is variable — a cold start, a mild afternoon, or steady rain. This is a six-week plan for the weeks you have left. Six weeks can’t rebuild endurance from scratch, and this plan doesn’t claim to. It spends the time on what still moves: riding sized to your fitness now, long rides that make four self-supported hours ordinary, and the pacing, fueling, and layering decisions a remote course rewards.
62 MI · 4,000 FT CLIMBING · REMOTE WILDERNESS GRAVEL · 6 WEEKS · 5–9 HR/WK · SAVE MY RACE
WHAT'S INSIDE
- Triage — the highest-value work for the weeks left, on real graphs
- Strength kept to what helps, with video walkthroughs
- Weekly notes + the Gravel Grit program
- A testing week so the work fits your fitness now
- The full Lone Wolf Gravel guide — self-sufficiency, navigation, pacing
WHAT YOU'LL GET
The best salvaged version of your race — finishing a remote gravel course with something left.
For the rider with weeks left. · 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