Charlotte cyclist endures ‘mental fog’ to win grueling, world-famous race in 21 hours
Charlotte cyclist William Harrison said he endured an hours-long “mental fog” to win the men’s division of a world-famous gravel bike race on Kansas prairie back roads June 3-4.
That will happen, he said, when you’re competing in the grueling 350-mile Unbound Gravel XL in Emporia, Kansas, which he finished in just over 20 hours.
Harrison is a 34-year-old Asheville native and UNC-Chapel Hill grad who lives in Charlotte’s Dilworth neighborhood with his wife, Sarah Schweppe. He is a managing director on the private credit team at Barings, the global investment management firm, in uptown Charlotte.
He finished the race about 5 minutes ahead of second-place Marius Karteusch of Germany, race officials told the Observer .
Harrison stayed ahead of the pack despite the brain fog and utter physical exhaustion that set in after so many hours of virtually nonstop riding, including through the early-morning dark.
“The mental fog was a real downer,” Harrison said in a phone interview with The Charlotte Observer on Friday. “I had trouble focusing my eyes to get a good look at the road to avoid rocks that could give me a flat tire. With a couple of hours to go, I just couldn’t focus my vision. That was pretty serious.”
“I was really running low on energy in the last hour,” he said. “I was out of food and water. So I was really riding on whatever little energy was still left in my body.”
Red Bull, energy bars and chocolate milk
During the race, Harrison consumed packets of a high-calorie, high-carb powder that he mixed with water. He ate the two energy bars he took to the race, plus a couple of chocolate milks and Red Bull energy drinks he got at gas stations along the route that the cyclists were allowed to visit.
He had about 35 minutes of total stop time during the race, he said.
Harrison said he decided to forego the last two of six gas stations along the route to stay ahead of the field. He figured he was only three to five minutes ahead at the time.
“The last stop we had was with 120 miles to go,” he said.
He barely mustered the strength to lift his bike above his head for a victory photo after crossing the finish line. He was so spent that he needed someone to drive him the couple of miles back to his hotel, he said.
A nap lasted three hours. He woke up and devoured the entire large pepperoni pie he ordered from a pizzeria beside the hotel, and still craved more. “The hunger stayed with me for 10 days,” he said.
Training, physiological makeup were key, champ says
Harrison is 5-feet-10-inches tall and weighs 160 pounds.
He credits years of training for his win and an understanding of racing tactics. He also cited his “inherent” physiological makeup that he said allows him to keep pushing his body to the extreme during such events.
Harrison competes as an amateur. Training included riding his Trek Checkpoint gravel bike 10 to 25 hours a week all around Charlotte and sometimes out of town.
“I also got a lot of support from Bicycle Sport,” the bicycle shop on Selwyn Avenue whose owner, Ben Cooley, also rides with him and others.
Harrison was 16 when he bought his first road bike. “I had been saving for a car and bought a bike instead,” he said.
“Just a curiosity,” he explained about why he started racing bikes as a teen. A couple of his friends raced, he said.
Competed in Ironman World Championships
In college, he also entered Ironman triathlons. He won his age group at the Ironman in Lake Placid, New York, in summer 2008, and three months later competed in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
“Not very well,” he said of his performance in the Aloha State. “But I finished.”
After college, he moved to Charlotte to work in investment banking, then spent three years working in private equity in Boston.
‘Completely blacked out’
Harrison picked up road racing again only after returning to Charlotte in 2014 to work for Babson Capital Management, now Barings.
He started racing on cyclocross courses, then got into mountain biking and gravel racing.
All of which led to his decision to enter the lottery for a spot in the prestigious Unbound Gravel XL.
Sometimes you get what you ask for, as the old saying goes.
“I was completely blacked out,” he said of his mental state upon returning to the hotel after his win.
He needs time, he said, before deciding to enter another race that will stretch his brain and body to their extremes.
“Honestly, the legs and body felt OK, but my brain was still drained,” he said of how he felt on the Monday after the race, when he returned to his uptown office. “It took a solid week” for his brain to get back to normal. “There was some serious mental fatigue.”
But don’t let that scare you, he said.
“It was an incredible experience, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in giving it a try,” Harrison said.
This story was originally published June 18, 2022 at 2:10 PM.