Unbound 2026

The one that got away

I should probably give this 24 hours to marinate before writing a race review, but I think the raw emotion is probably the better version.

As I drive away from Emporia, it’s hard to put into words just how disappointed I am. This is the first time I’ve left this race without crossing the finish line, and that’s a tough reality to sit with after the amount of work that went into getting here.

What makes it even harder is knowing how well everything else went. My prep was dialed. My equipment was dialed. My feeding plan was dialed. Everything that was within my control was executed exactly how I wanted it. Unfortunately, my stomach had other ideas.

The biggest thing I’ll take away from today isn’t the DNF itself. It’s how I rode during those first three hours.

For the first time in a Life Time Grand Prix race, I actually got a good start. I was aggressive, assertive, and riding with confidence. Instead of spending the day chasing, I was where I needed to be, mixing it up near the front as we ripped across the Flint Hills. For once, I wasn’t digging myself out of a hole. I genuinely felt like I belonged there.

As the race settled in, I kept thinking that if I could hold that position through the first half of the day, my ability to finish strong would give me a chance to move up even further. It felt like things were finally coming together.

Then somewhere around the first feed zone, things started to change.

At first it was just a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. About 30 minutes later, there was no denying it. The thought of taking a sip from a bottle or eating a gel became completely repulsive. Knowing I needed calories, I forced a gel down anyway.

A few minutes later it was back on the ground.

From that point on, the race became less about racing and more about survival. Every time I managed to get something down, it would come right back up a few minutes later. The harder I tried to stay on top of my nutrition, the worse things seemed to get.

My best guess is that I picked up some sort of stomach bug from the conditions. We spent hours riding through sections covered in cow manure, and with the overnight rain it was getting sprayed absolutely everywhere. Faces, bottles, mouths, everywhere. Every drink came with a little bit of Kansas attached to it.

Maybe other riders handled it better. Maybe I just got unlucky. Either way, my stomach completely shut down. Over eight hours of racing, I managed to keep down one bottle and two gels. That’s not a nutrition problem. That’s a body that simply isn’t functioning.

Even then, I still wanted to finish.

At the third feed zone I stopped and tried to eat something solid, hoping it would turn things around. Instead, I threw it up before I even got back on the bike. That was the moment I knew my day was over.

Could I have eventually made it to the finish line? Probably. But I also knew what that would cost. I was already running on fumes, and dragging myself through another several hours would have buried me for weeks. With Nationals only two weeks away, I couldn’t justify destroying myself just to say I finished.

It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make on a bike.

There were definitely some tears involved while loading up the bike. Enough that I probably could have skipped the bike wash. In the moment, all I could think about was the opportunity that had slipped away and how good things had felt before everything unraveled.

But the more I sit with it, the more I realize there are positives to take from today.

The biggest one is that the fitness is real.

For three hours I rode exactly how I wanted to ride. I was where I needed to be, racing with confidence and making the front of the race instead of reacting to it. That’s something I’ve been working toward for a long time, and today confirmed that I’m capable of it.

That’s why this one hurts so much. Not because I wasn’t good enough, but because I never got the chance to find out what was possible.

The good news is that fitness doesn’t disappear overnight. Nationals are only two weeks away, and if anything, today has left me even hungrier to show what I’m capable of.