12-Week Training Timeline • Race-Day Checklists • Packing List
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“The singletrack is not easy. It's not super techy, it's pretty smooth, fast, and flowy, but very climby. You find a lot of the singletrack on the course is the kind that you ride and you're done with the ride and your mouth hurts because you've been smiling the whole time.”
— On the singletrack sections
“This event will never be about making a living, it will always about making a cool event.”
— Event design philosophy
Race-Specific Training Focus:
Distance: 115 mi
Location: Bentonville, Arkansas
Signature Challenge: Choosing one setup—and preserving enough concentration—to be fast on pavement, durable on sharp gravel, and capable on steep singletrack.
Establish aerobic foundation. 70-85% volume in Z1-{{Z2}}. {{CTL}} rising steadily (+5-8/wk in loading weeks, netting about +10/month after recovery weeks). {{TSB}} slightly negative (-5 to -15). Week 4 = recovery week (60% volume). Feels boring but doable—you should finish most rides feeling like you could do more.
Layer intensity, develop race-specific fitness. 60-70% Z1-Z2, 30-40% Z3-Z6. Two to three quality sessions per week. The magic happens here: deliberately dig a fatigue hole ({{TSB}} goes to -25), recover just enough, then dig another hole. This is where fitness sharpens.
Shed fatigue, maintain sharpness. Volume drops 30-50%. Intensity stays high but duration decreases. Week 11: {{TSB}} rises to +5 to +10. Week 12: TSB targets +15 to +25 for race day. Fitness doesn't improve—the goal is to remove the fatigue layer so you can express the fitness you've built.
A technically serious three-surface race hiding inside Bentonville's friendliest strange bike party.
Rule of Three is a Bentonville mixed-surface event. Its identity is the equipment and pacing compromise created by pavement, sharp gravel, and meaningful singletrack in the same day. The organizer changes the route annually, keeps the community deliberately playful, and still gives the flagship field a technically serious problem.
The organizer describes technical B-roads, loose gravel descents, steep singletrack, sharp rock, and roughly 25 miles of trail in the established flagship format.
Andy Chasteen's one-day design deliberately links tarmac, remote gravel and B-roads, and Bentonville singletrack into an unusually varied challenge.
Andy Chasteen built the early Coler Mountain Bike Preserve editions around kindness, team participation, volunteers, gifts for strangers, aid-station culture, and a long finish-line gathering.
A hard but intentionally playful Bentonville fixture built around mixed surfaces, equipment choice, and community rather than a conventional gravel-racing template. (est. 2021)
Race it if choosing and handling one bike across three incompatible surfaces sounds interesting. Train for the organizer's stable 115-mile three-surface format, but let the final 2027 route, rider bible, aid map, cutoff, and start schedule override every course-specific assumption.
Expected Race-Day Conditions:
Climate: Variable Ozark spring weather
Key Challenges: Thunderstorm and heavy-rain potential, Mud and wet roots on singletrack, Humidity
60-90 minutes Z2 endurance. Keep legs moving, nothing hard. Optional: 3 × 1 min Z4 to keep neuromuscular system awake.
45-60 minutes Z2. Maybe 2 × 3 min G Spot if you're feeling restless. Don't go hard.
Rest day or 30-45 minutes very easy spin. The last hard workout was 4-5 days ago. Everything now is just maintenance.
45-60 minutes Z2. Include 3-5 × 30 seconds Z5-Z6 (openers to keep legs sharp). Last real ride before race.
Travel day (if traveling) or rest day. Optional 30-minute easy spin if legs feel heavy.
30-45 minutes Z2 with 3 × 1 min Z4 openers. Course preview if racing Sunday. No heroics.
20-30 minutes very easy spin or complete rest. Do what's worked for you previously.
Tire Setup (Relentless mixed-surface riding around Bentonville):
Top Picks for This Course:
Rolling resistance data via bicyclerollingresistance.com
Climate Gear (Variable Ozark spring weather):
Drivetrain: Chain clean and lubed. Shifting smooth across all gears. No chain slip under power.
Tires: Tubeless sealant fresh. Tire pressure set for race conditions. Check for cuts, sidewall damage.
Cockpit: Computer charged and mounted. Bottles/cages secure. Bento box organized.
Wheels: Thru-axles tight. No spoke issues. Hubs spin smoothly.
Don't: Install new chain race week. Change tire pressure drastically. Add new untested equipment.
Essentials: Spare tube (even if tubeless), tire plugs, CO2 cartridges (2-3) or mini pump, multi-tool with chain breaker, quick link, tire levers.
Nutrition: Gels, bars, chews—whatever you practiced with. Bottle with sports drink pre-mixed. Extra water bottle.
Other: Sunscreen, chamois cream, arm warmers/vest, rain jacket (if forecast), extra base layer.
Race essentials: Bib number and pins, race chip, ID and emergency contact info.
Rule of Three Start Time: Not yet published for 2027.
Wake up. Coffee if you normally drink it (not the time to change habits). Breakfast: 100-150g carbs, minimal fat, minimal fiber. Oatmeal with banana and honey, bagel with jam, or white rice with a pinch of salt.
Start sipping sports drink. Begin hydrating and topping off fuel. Apply chamois cream and sunscreen.
Arrive at start area. Check in, use porta-potty. Get your head right.
Light warmup ride: 10-15 minutes easy spinning. Wake up the legs.
Final gear check: bottles filled and secured, nutrition in pockets, tire pressure verified, drivetrain sounds good. Run through your performance statements mentally.
Openers near the start: 2-3 x 30 seconds at race effort with easy spinning between. Gets HR up, legs awake, reminds body what fast feels like.
Roll to start line. Find your position. Deep breath.
6-2-7 breathing if anxious. You're ready. Trust your training.
Your Fueling Math (115 miles): At ~11mph, expect ~10.5 hours on course. Lower intensity — fat oxidation increasing — target 50-70g carbs/hour (522-731g total, or 20-29 gels).
Carb targets scale with duration: shorter races burn more carbs per hour at race intensity, while ultra-distance events shift toward fat oxidation and GI tolerance becomes the limiter (Jeukendrup 2014, van Loon et al.).
Enter your details for a complete race fueling plan — carbs, hydration, sodium, and an hour-by-hour strategy.
Your numbers are the easy part.
Hitting them at race intensity is a trained skill — gut training over 4-6 weeks, bottle logistics, heat adjustments when the plan meets the weather. The custom training plan builds your fueling protocol into the actual training weeks, so race day is a rehearsal, not an experiment.
BUILD MY PLAN — FUELING INCLUDEDGet race-day tips in your inbox
What Riders Say About Conditions: Northwest Arkansas spring weather can bring humidity, thunderstorms, mud, and wet roots; the 2021 first edition followed a week of rain.
Plan your fueling around these conditions — heat and humidity increase fluid and sodium demands significantly.
Aid Stations: Supported aid stations are part of the event; final 2027 locations pending
2-3g carbs/kg bodyweight. Low fat, low fiber. Familiar foods only. 500ml water with meal.
One gel (24g carbs) with 200ml water. Tops off blood glucose.
Focus on pacing, positioning, settling in. Sip on drink. Heart rate is spiking, gut blood flow is reduced.
First gel or equivalent (24g carbs). Start your fueling clock. Hydrate consistently.
Consume carbs consistently by the clock. Target rate depends on race duration: 80-100g/hr for races under 4 hours, 60-80g/hr for 4-8 hour events, 50-70g/hr for 8-12 hours, and 40-60g/hr for ultra events (12+ hours). At lower intensities fat becomes your primary fuel and GI tolerance is the limiter. Set a timer. Your brain will be stupid. It will forget to eat.
Practice eating real food on easy rides. Start with 40-50g carbs per hour, mostly solid. Build tolerance gradually. SGLT1 transporters can double in 2 weeks of consistent gut training (GSSI).
Increase toward your race-day target rate. Mix of liquids and solids. Practice eating at tempo pace. Your gut adapts to what you train it for.
Hit your race-day target rate (see duration-scaled targets in your prep kit). Race nutrition only (gels, drink, bars you'll use on race day). Practice at race pace. For ultra events (12+ hours), include savory and mixed-macro foods alongside gels.
Stick with what worked in training. No new products. Trust your gut (literally).
Known Suffering Zones:
Budget Planning:
Cost of Trip: Moderate (3/5)
Final 2027 schedule pending
Historically at the Price Coffee Road venue; final 2027 instructions pending
Spin in Z1 after crossing the finish line. Let heart rate drop gradually. Stopping abruptly causes blood to pool in your legs.
20-30g protein, 60-100g carbs, 500-750ml fluid with electrolytes. Chocolate milk, protein shake with banana, or whatever the finish line has.
You lost 1-4 liters of fluid. Drink 500-1000ml within the first hour. Add electrolytes. If pee is dark yellow by evening, keep drinking.
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