Podcast: Selene Yeager – Gravel Athlete, Journalist, Author & Her New Book!

Our partner in podcasting, The Gravel Ride Podcast, spoke with experienced gravel athlete, journalist, podcaster and author, Selene Yeager who recently published the quintessential guide to gravel. It is appropriately named, Gravel! The book is a must-read for anyone trying to navigate the world of gravel equipment and events.

Selene Yeager’s Website – Selene Yeager’s Instagram – Selene’s Book on Amazon

You can also find The Gravel Ride on iTunes and Spotify.

Automatic Transcription (please excuse all errors)

Selene, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. I’m stoked to talk about your latest book, Gravel!.

I am very happy to talk about it too. These things are always I, I will confess that I always have a lot of anxiety before. One of the, one of my books goes out into the world. It’s just, it’s just kind of in my DNA. I’m that I’m that kind of personality, but you invest, you know, a lot. I invest a lot of myself into it anyway, so I’m always so happy when people receive it. The way I had hoped they would.

Yeah, I mean, it’s clear there’s a ton of research went into it and all your personal experience. It really is a soup to nuts guide that can benefit a rookie athlete as well as an expert athlete because there’s just so much in here and it’s, one of the things I always have really loved about gravel is there’s just a lot to unpack. There’s a lot to unpack about the bikes, the courses, and how they’re different in different parts of the country. Let’s set the stage a little bit for the listener and just talk about how you got into gravel riding. I know you’ve got a rich background in both mountain biking and road biking, but where did gravel start to come into play for you?

Well, it’s funny, it’s like a, I imagine it’s like a lot of people. I live in a fairly rural area, so, you know, we, we were riding a lot of, you know, we didn’t actually call them gravel roads necessarily. They’re just unpaved roads, you know, the dirt roads. So we would ride a lot of dirt and gravel just naturally on our rides. And then I really liked it. Like I thought it was just kind of adventurous and fun and those roads always went by pretty places, you know, cause I really off the beaten path. But it wasn’t, you know, the fun is always a bit limited by flat tires, you know, by your caliper or your brake calipers when with rim brakes sort of packing up. So didn’t do it as much as I probably wanted to, but then I got involved in on the East coast here, there’s a series a by crew, messy sport, but like hell of hundred in and it’s all based off the spring classics, right?

So they have us a certain amount of gravel sectors that you ride. And you know, we just did it on a road bikes. I had a Trek Medan with 23 is, you know, and I just would pump up to a hundred and pray to get through the day. But it was, but I really liked it. So when gravel per se came along, I was like, whatever. I mean honestly, I was just like, yes, sure. Whatever. A new segment. And it honestly is, I talk about in the intro to the book, it wasn’t until I did a Jodie cancer for the first time that I was like, Oh huh, gravel is a different thing. You know, like, this is my Medona would not make it 12 yards and on this gravel. So I really started to understand what it was all about when I did that. And then I did a ton of events and you know, I’ve always felt like the iron cross is too, but I did those across bikes.

It was a little different. So that was just sort of a natural evolution into it. And then as it grew, I, and the came along, this is one of the things where I think that the bikes actually knocked down the door. Like once they put a disc brakes on road bikes and the game just changed, you know? And I, and I feel like that’s a huge part of what we’re, what we’re seeing. And it’s so much more fun. I mean, I do all the same events here that I did a decade ago, but I’m having so much more fun doing them cause I’m not worried about my tires. I’m, I have tons of clearance. It’s just the bike is better. I’m not pinballing all over the road. Yeah. So that’s my experience with it.

Yeah, exactly. I think you’re right in that, you know, the bikes really just there was this step change with disc brakes and tubeless tires that enabled you to go out and not flat on your cross bike all the time.

Well, it’s just, I mean really it’s not that fun, right? Like it’s, it’s when you sit in there all day fixing flats, it’s just the, your fun is a little limited.

So when you went out to your first DK and then you returned home, did you find that your eyes were open to a different style or duration of riding in your home territory after seeing what they were doing in Kansas? What do you mean exactly by that? We started, were we riding further exploring further? It seems like in the Midwest and Kansas, there’s a lot of athletes that just have a Explorer mentality, which is, it’s a little bit of a shift when you’re maybe used to doing the same road or mountain loops.

Yeah, yeah. No, no, I totally get what you’re saying. And you know, I’ll qualify that by saying, you know, as a, as a woman riding alone, I would not do a lot of that myself for obvious reasons that are unfortunate but real. But I do have some friends who I ride with frequently who are, and I’ll have always been, even before quote unquote, again, gravel took off. They’ve always been like that. They will, they’re the kind of guys that would like be riding along and see a dirt road and be like, huh, I wonder where that goes. Where, honestly, my mentality was not always that. So I did glean, I embraced that a whole lot more and just the whole idea of just getting lost and exploring with them and you know, like, okay, this day might be four hours, it might be six hours, we’re not really sure. But yeah, I mean to answer that question, I, I did really get into that and, and, and enjoyed it much more than I probably did previously.

That sounds like you and I are similar. I mean, I used to sort of, I’d know the loop I was going to do was four or five hours, I’d go do it and come back and could do the same thing every weekend. Just enjoying the comradery of being out on the road. But with the gravel bike now I find myself throwing a bar bag on or something that can carry a little bit extra gear. So if I do take that detour, it’s not a big deal. Yep.

And I find myself, you know, what it’s really done too, is you know, even for lunch rides, my lunch rides have gotten more adventurous, which is really fun. So I can take my gravel bike and I can be like, okay, what do I feel like doing today? And I can do it on some tame. We don’t have a lot of teams single track, but I have enough that’s not crazy crazy that I can take my gravel bike on it. So it just opens up that too. Right. I can lay like, okay, I’m going to take this same bike and I’m going to do a little bit of myself mountain single track and then I’m going to go down to the Parkway, which is like cinder trails and then I’m going to take the road over to this other park and it you can do it all on the same bike and I have infinite possibilities and it’s, I really enjoy that.

Definitely. And I also think there’s a little bit of the, when you’re riding with friends and you ride a particularly technical section on a gravel bike, it’s similar to mountain biking where you just kind of want to stop and high five each other for surviving or having fun. Which I always thought it was missing from the road side of my cycling career.

Yeah, no, I could see that. And it is, it does feel much

More like play. Yeah. And I think that that is part of that, you know, gravel state of mind that you start talking about in the book. Yeah, totally. So what motivated you to write the book in the first place?

What motivated me honestly, was a couple of exchanges that I had with people on, on gravel, at Graebel events and, and on the road I one in particular, I was at an event called Keystone gravel, which is more of a grind, Duro kind of event. It’s in central Pennsylvania and it’s got like eight different segments. Some of them are ridiculous climbs and some of them are ridiculous, like single track to sense, you know, stuff that you would definitely be more at home on a mountain bike with you know, and I was that back at the end of the day and we were all hanging out and having a beer. And sky came up to me who I know quite well and he said, so is that gravel? You know, cause he had heard all about gravel and he had done unpaved, which is another event here, which is 100% different from that.

It’s all, some of the unpaved roads of that event are better than the tarmac. Right. So there was this real giant disconnect between his expectations and what he, what he got. And he just didn’t have fun. I mean he just, he wasn’t, he was over his head. That wasn’t, it just wasn’t his, it was his riding expectation or ability. And I was like, wow. And then I went out to Rebecca’s private Idaho to do a stage race. You know, I’ve done the her main event and then she has that stage race and she had 16 miles a single track on that first day. And a woman came up to me and she was like, that wasn’t so fun for me. Like she’s like, I don’t know how to ride that. And I just thought there’s like kind of a need here to just talk about like as we talked about gravel that it’s just not one thing.

You know, it’s, it’s a lot of things and it can look a lot of different ways and the bikes are very much reflecting that you have everything from, you know, a diverge like a, a more road bike to, you know, that specialized that specialized, the salsa cutthroat, which is a slacked out almost a drop our mountain bike. You know, like you can see that there’s, the category is broad and I just felt like there was probably a need and a and a want at this point to to make things a little more clear for people to, especially if they’re just getting into it.

Yeah, you’re definitely speaking my language. I think that’s of the motivations for this podcast was just that recognition about how different the sport can be for different people when they see the words gravel cycling. Right. Totally. Yeah, and I, you know, you on your podcast, the pace line, you’ve mentioned Neil Shirley’s grading system, which I think is interesting, although it’s almost difficult to say that one grade covers a lot of these courses beginning to end.

I would agree with that. I had a, I wrestled with that a lot and there’s still like, I look at that book still and that’s my one regret. There’s a couple, I’m like, ah, I don’t think that’s the right category. I don’t know how much I wrestled with that back and forth because I added categories because this was actually a little bit old and it was very West coast centric because he’s California. So you know, when I talked to him I’m like, I’d like to use this and I’d like to adapt it. He was like, go for it. So I added like East coast events and other events that have cropped up in the meantime, but it was, it was very difficult and you know, those events are also going to change. So it’s real important to read your course descriptions. Always cause it, it might be different from one year to the next. Even honestly,

I saw the team at SPT gravel added four miles of what they’re calling double track and single track.

Totally. And I’m like, well that blows my rating out of the, you know, it is what it is. Yeah.

It’s interesting when you talk to athletes like Jeremiah Bishop or paisan, you know, those guys who come from a super strong mountain bike background, they’ll often lament the kind of more dirt roadie type courses, which potentially could favor people with a road background more and never really exploit their weaknesses in the technical single track.

I think that’s okay though. And I talk about that in the book. I do believe that there is room for everybody, right? Like if you’re not comfortable on a mountain bike and single track and all that, I believe that there should be events for you and if the, if you are, I believe there should be events for you to, you know, and, and there are events as you mentioned, that cover all those ends of the spectrum, you know, like give a little bit of taste for everybody’s strength. But yeah, I mean it’s horses for courses. I think that that’s true in gravel too.

Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see as the quote unquote monuments of gravel start to emerge, these big iconic races that, you know, make or break a professional athletes calendar, I suppose. And imagine that they’re, they’re going to take all shapes and flavors, right? You’re going to have some that are just the sheer horsepower race and other ones that are going to require technical skills to be on the pointy end of the spear.

Well, and I think you know, you and I was just at that Bentonville event. And I think, and for people who don’t know, it’s, we’re talking about, it’s a big sugar, which was the, it’s lifetime’s new gravel event in Bentonville, Arkansas area and in to them they were all kind of gleeful that this event will not favor road tactics. And you can, I’m sure you agree that Vivette will not favor tactics that then is going to be very much a test of self. It’s punchy. It’s difficult. It’s not, there’s not a lot of drafting or any of that kind of stuff that can go on. So yeah, I, I, it’s going to be interesting to watch because they all, they all are different. And as, as people do bring the road to gravel, I think you’re going to see more gravel events just either cater to that or be like, mm, let’s change that up.

Yeah, it seems like, I mean to me it seems like you’ve got the longer distance events, which become sort of a battle of attrition and [inaudible] and nutrition, maybe a good point. And then you’ve got ones that are going to have technical elements to it that are gonna, you know, make or break your ride your day. Yeah, totally. I would agree with that. It’ll be interesting to see how it evolves and I think one of the, we’re just starting,

Don’t you think? Like we are. I think it’s, it’s going to be, we’re just starting to watch this evolution. This whiz wave is still [inaudible]

Christine. Yeah. And I think there’s, there’s very much an art to course design to kind of pull the various levers and obviously you’re going to be, you’re going to go with what you have access to. So in Kansas it’s going to be one thing, and Utah, it’s going to be another, in Bentonville, it’s going to be another. And, and that’s the beauty of it. I personally love putting something on the calendar for next year in an area that I’ve never been before, to just see what they can throw at me.

Well and everything is different. I mean, that’s what I, I, that’s why I love when people come out to unpaved, which is, you know, the event that my husband cope produces is that it’s 100% different from, you know, anything that even you would encounter in the mountain States or in the Midwest. So the dirt is different. Yeah, the trees are different like that. Like the, everything about it is different. So it’s really cool to, to go, like you’re saying, to go to places because it’s not just the, the course, but it’s literally the dirt that you’re riding on. You know, land run is 100% different from crusher and the Tuscher, which is different from any of the grasshoppers. So it’s just like, it’s cool. It’s a good way to experience a place.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s really cool. One of the things you touch on and you’re very much an expert in is nutrition. And I think for gravel events, what may not, what may sort of get lost in signing up for an event. So you sign up for a 50 mile event and your framework is around the room, you know, it’s, it’s going to be longer, it’s going to be harder on your body. So how should athletes be looking at nutrition differently for these types of events?

I think that that’s, I love that you put 50 miles out there cause that’s a, that’s a great it’s a great distance because people, especially if they’re coming from the road, not so much if they’re coming from the mountain, but if you’re from the road you’re like, okay, whatever. Right? Like 50 miles, I can do 50 miles. But 50 miles could take you five hours. Like it could take you a long time. Depending on the terrain, depending on gravel is so different because I think that was one of my really, really big eye opening things when I went out to Kansas is like, I don’t think I’ve ever coasted. And this whole 13 hours I’ve been out here and I did it was maybe for 15 seconds. You’re just working so much harder. And even, even in the best of conditions, you’re still working just a little bit harder because of the surface.

It’s there, there’s more rolling resistance. Your tires are bigger, it’s generally harder going and that adds up. You know that that really does that up to how much energy you’re expanding. You’re using more of your muscles, you’re using more upper body and it’s often harder to eat. It’s a so you can get into a hole really quickly without realizing that you’re getting in a hole. So I, I, I try to encourage people to make their food as accessible as possible. I’m a big fan of the little top two bento boxes because reaching into your pockets is harder than you think it’s going to be. I, I’ve, I have done this myself. I’m like, ah, I don’t, I did it for Steamboat gravel. I’m like, I don’t think I need that thing. And I was so, so many times I kicked myself all day long. I’m like, why didn’t you just put that on your bike?

It would’ve made your food so much easier to get. You know, but you also, it’s visual then too. You can think about it. You can look at your computer and be like, Oh, it’s, you know, a half hour in, it’s an hour in, I should eat something. And it’s right there. But you have to make it more of a conscious effort to stay on top of it because if you don’t, you can get in a hole much, much easier than you could on the road, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. It’s funny, I, I hesitate to admit this on air, but I learned those lessons doing iron man triathlons. Oh yeah, me too. I’ve been there. Yeah. All right. So we’re both secret former triathletes at this point. And yeah, you learn, you know, I remember talking to a coach and I was talking about my hydration strategy and how I’d go for a 70 mile ride and drink two water bottles and he was just like, that is not enough at all.

And in triathlon maybe it is for your training ride, but it’s going to kill you at your race. Yeah, right, exactly. And that’s, you have to practice that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Because you’ve got to, it’s not about in triathlon, it’s not about just finishing the bike. You’re going to exactly one as well. And I think there’s some parallels there with, with gravel in that you just need to keep yourself topped up. Cause if you get behind the eight ball, you ain’t coming back totally. And you really do really do need to practice it. I preach that so, so much. One of the things that I am really glad that I did before Kanza is I did a real dress rehearsal, shakedown ride, where I put everything on my bike the way I planned it. Because it’s so easy when you, if you’re going to do a super, super, super long training ride, a lot of people will just plan stores and stuff, right. But they’re not carrying it the same way that they’re going to be carrying it at the event. And it’s really important that you do that because, and find the train that matches it as best you can. So I like took my gravel bike on some really chunky, no Whitner maintenance Rocky road. And my bottle’s objected immediately and my bag was like going sideways. I was like, okay, all right, this is not going to work. You know? It’s just good to like not discover that

On race day. Yeah. Even I think Yuri Haswell had mentioned it when he was on the podcast. Even the idea of putting the same things in the same location. Yes. On your bags or body, wherever you’re going to store the stuff. So, you know, you don’t have to think about it at all. Yeah. Especially with something like Kanza that’s, that’s more important than you think. Cause you lose the ability to reason and think and remember. Yeah. It’s so true. I call it, for me, I call it getting stuck on stupid where I can’t, I just cannot, I cannot make a simple decision about my nutrition or hydration at that point in the day. Yup. Yup. Which brings me to another point, which I think was interesting that you dedicated a chapter to it, which was the notion of grit. Yup. I actually almost, I originally, the working title for the whole book was grit, but they they wanted it to be a little more clear. But yeah, I always call it the book itself. Grit. Yeah. Can you, can you dive into that chapter a little bit and talk about why people need to think about grit when it comes to gravel cycling?

I’m sure because it is, I think and again, a lot of this is drawn from my own personal experience as well as, you know, athletes I’ve worked with and people that I’ve, I know is that often that we have this mental picture, something like I did that coast to coast race across Michigan a couple of years ago and you know, my mental picture of it was like, Oh, I’m just going to ride my bike across Michigan on the sand roads and it’s going to be wonderful. And you know, I like, I don’t know that this is why I keep doing things because I have a memory of a goldfish, but you know, but then 165 miles into it, it was not sunshine and roses, right. I went into the tunnel, the dark place that you go into and I think it’s really important to train that part because when all things are equal and you’ve done your work and you’re prepared and you have your nutrition, you can do it.

It’s your brain that’s going to shut you down. It’s your little central governor in your head that is going to be like, no, not today. Or yes, you can get through this. And I, it’s important enough. I mean, you could write a whole book about it and people have, but I thought that especially gravel where it is hard, you know, I mean I think that’s one of the things that people get so caught up in like, Oh the fun because it’s fun, but a lot of times it’s type two fun, you know, where you’re out, you’re kind of suffering for a while and you know, almost all these events throw some sort of pretty challenging stuff at you. Like, well, you’re just in this interminable, false flat into a headwind for really long time and it ceases to be kind of real fun. Right. And then, then there’s has to be something else that’s going to get you through. And that’s great.

Yeah. I think, you know, even if I think back at what I would deem a relatively nontechnical course of SBT gravel, there were a couple of sand sand sections. And when you’re feeling a little bit fatigued and you keep coming off because you’re, you know, not handling the sand correctly, it feels like you’re making no forward progress or you’re never going to get to the end and you know, you still have 30 40 miles to go. You do go into that dark place and it’s a question of how do you come out of it? How do you remind yourself that it’s just temporary?

Yeah, and that’s why in the book I talk about it being a tunnel and not a cave because I’ve always thought like everyone talks about the pain cave and the cave implies that you’re going into a dark place where bears are asleep, right? Like it’s just not, it does. There’s no end to that. And if you think of it more like a tunnel, then there’s light on the other side. You just have to

Find it. That’s a great way of thinking about it. And I think gravel maybe more so than the road and maybe less so than mountain biking really lends itself to that. Because if you’re doing it right, you’re going to hit a section where you just have a shit eating grin on your face and you’re having the time of your life and that can come just moments after being stuck in that sand and feeling like the world is going to end

And vice versa. You know? I mean, I remember in Michigan I was like, literally, I’m like, woo, this is fun. And then not 30 minutes later I’m like, Oh, I’m dying. This is terrible. I mean, it can, it can happen like the flick of a switch, you know? And you have to just learn how to talk to yourself, learn how to take care of yourself and you can totally get it.

Yeah. There’s a lot of life lessons there as well, I think. Oh, I agree. Yeah. Transcends bicycling. I love that about gravel in that, you know, you’d go out with friends or in a race and everybody’s going to have those moments and you can kind of just share and revel in pushing through them.

Yup. Yeah, I mean that’s, those are all the stories that you gather as you’re out there.

The, the book concludes with some really great information about cross training and ultimately actually a training plan for, for DK 200. Let’s talk a little bit as we’re approaching the end of the year, what should we be encouraging the listeners to do with their bodies other than cycling

Strength train? I can say it enough. I mean if you look at the Kate Courtney’s and the Peter Saigon’s and you know, Taylor Finney before he retired, like pretty much everybody right now. Cyclists now know even at the highest level, that strength training is a really important compliment for our sport. It it builds, it not only like gives you more Watts because it builds efficiency and power and strength. And if you lift heavy, it’s not for hypertrophy. It’s for strength and power, you know, so you’re not going to look like a bodybuilder. But it just also takes, it makes you more injury proof, which is important, you know, and it lets you push that bigger gear that you need to push on gravel cause you need to push bigger gears on gravel to make progress. It helps support your whole core. You know, core is overused, but you use a lot of your core muscles to support yourself on choppy terrain. You know, your traps won’t get, sorry, your shoulders won’t get sorry. Your triceps won’t get sore. It’s, I, I cannot, I’ve been preaching strength training for a long, long time and I’m so happy that cyclists are finally catching onto it. But definitely this time of year is the perfect time to give yourself a break off the bike. You need to give yourself a break off the bike so you can

Like come back to it fresh and you know, with these muscles that you’ve been taking care of and other ways and you’re more balanced. Yeah. I’ve, when you mentioned Kate Courtney’s name, it reminded me of like her Instagram feed right now is filled with her strength training as much as it as it is riding a bike. Did you see her Jo like single, her single hopping up that flight of steps? Was that her? I think it was, I just, I, I,

I follow a few people and I hope, I hope I’m not talking about someone else’s amazing feat, but somebody like was doing a lot of these great plyometrics and one of it was like single hopping up this long

By the stairs. I’m like, that is amazing. Yeah. And I think it’s, you know, it’s important for the listeners, and maybe even, I’m preaching to myself when I say this, that we’re not professional cyclists. We’re all normal human beings in the aging process. And getting into the gym is just something we all need to do for our own health. Not only cycling performance.

Oh, 100% true. I mean you’re, you, I mean all of, all of the, all of the metabolic things that happen over time, you know, you tend to naturally lose some muscle, naturally become more predisposed to put on fat, you know, body composition changes, bone density, all of that stuff. Strength training is, is the solution to stemming it for sure.

And in, in the book, I noticed a lot of exercises around strength that look like they can be done in the home. Was that intentional or are you sort of an advocate of getting, getting actually underneath some heavy weights? I’m a huge advocate of getting underneath some heavy ways. Absolutely.

So I’m a realist and I also believe that you can do an awful lot at home. So, you know, you can, I’m, I don’t go to the gym really more than twice a week, maybe three times. But I do lots of maintenance work at, in the house and it’s amazing what some pushups, air squats, you know, that kind of stuff can do. It’s, it’s, it works very well and it leaves you with very little excuse because you know, you can do them pretty much anywhere.

And on those gym days at home, are you, are you riding as well on those days or those sure. Dedicated athletics for the day.

I usually ride too. I, you know, I ride not just for riding but for, because I love riding for mental health and for being outside, you know, which, which the gym doesn’t necessarily do. So it is, it can be a little bit of a juggling act. You know, if I’m doing a heavy strength training day, sometimes I like to compliment it right after and just spin it out on my bike. You know, like that’s, that’s a nice way. I like to remind my, it sounds kind of strange to talk about this, but I like to remind my muscles why I’m doing what I’m doing and sometimes I feel like that’s a great way to do it. I ride to the gym and I do my thing and I go for a short spin afterwards. And I’m still doing some interval work for sure over the winter time just to stay, just to keep that little bit of top end.

And the, the book concludes with this DK 200 training plan and I was excited to see that as someone who often on contemplates going to Cannes and myself to do that event. I listened to your cohost from the pace line, Patrick, talk about his journey to cancer this past year, which I don’t know if it put me more in wanting to do it or less than willing to do it. Reasonable. When you, when you were putting together that a training plan, is that an off the couch training plan or is it assuming someone has a decent amount of fitness underneath them to begin with?

It’s and recreational rider, which I kind of define as somebody who rides regularly and has for a few years. And by regularly, I mean, you know, two to three, maybe four days a week, you know, the long ride on the weekend, you should definitely be able to put in a couple hours on your bike easily, comfortably. So not straight off the couch per se, but also not, you don’t need to have a, a pro card or a license, you know, you don’t need to wind up for any other events. And I very, very purposely made it manageable and I purposely also made it harder than some other plans that I’ve seen because the do not finish rate is so high there. And I think it’s because people don’t take themselves quite as far as sometimes as they really need to. You know, being on your bike for five or six hours is one thing.

Once you push over eight hours, it’s a whole different animal. And if you’ve never been there, you just, you, you don’t know how you’re going to, your stomach’s going to respond to food. You don’t know all that stuff that happens, how, you know, if you’re going to get hot spots on your feet, like a lot of that stuff doesn’t materialize until you cross that really long endurance time. So I, I, you know, if I felt it really important that you don’t need to do a ton of those rides, but I felt like it was super important to take people into that territory.

How many of those did you have in the program where you were going? Pretty deep and long. [inaudible] Not

More than maybe two, three. I mean, not really. I tried to keep it reasonable. So you still have a life, you know, I don’t believe that this needs to be your whole life, but I do believe like, I’m like training for a marathon. Right? Like you people recreationally, training for marathon, don’t do a ton of 20 plus mile rides or runs. Some don’t do any. And I don’t believe that either. I, when I trained for marathons, I’m like, you have to go into that 20. You have to just psychologically because if you’ve never, that’s a quarter of your race. If you’ve never been there, it’s scary. That’s the worst part. You know, so I, I really didn’t feel like the same. I treated like a lot like marathon training in that way.

Yeah. And I remember, I remember getting coached and having a particularly difficult long, long workout and my coach just reminding me like, you got through it. That’s in the bank. No one has to take that away from you. And when you’re having a hard time at the event, just remember that you’ve banked everything. You’ve been on this program, you can do this.

It makes a huge difference. I interviewed Chrissie Wellington one time and pro world-class triathlete for people who don’t know. And she wants said some workouts are stars and some workouts are stone, but they’re both rock and you build with them. And that has, that has been in my head for a long time.

That’s awesome. And that’s, those are probably good words to conclude with. You’ve created a really great guide to gravel cycling soup to nuts. As I said, I think for anybody this is a good read, an interesting read it for, for those who’ve been around the sport for a while it explores things like drop reposts suspension, different types of things you, you may be considering as you’ve been around the sport longer. And if you’re a beginning athlete, it just sort of brings you right from what you should expect across the board list some amazing events across the country that you might look to put on your 2020 calendar. So Celine, thanks so much for the time and I encourage everybody to go out and order this book.

Thanks, Craig. It’s been great.