Gravel champion Isabel King completes 207-mile race while nursing newborn

Isabel King, a veteran gravel cyclist based in Los Angeles, tackled the 207-mile UNBOUND Gravel race across Kansas' Flint Hills while caring for her newborn daughter Hazel. Anticipating a pump break after 150 miles, she chose to ride nonstop when rising temperatures and a looming restart made a stop impractical, ultimately finishing in 12 hours and 17 minutes. Her race-day nutrition included eight 30-ounce water bottles with 75 g of carbs, three 1.5-liter water packs, 13 energy gels and a few snack items, totaling about 1,250 g of carbohydrates.

Post-race, she expressed surprise at producing only three ounces of milk, attributing the dip to dehydration and physical stress, and noted it took three days for her supply to normalize. Heart-rate-variability data from her Garmin watch indicated her body struggled to balance breastfeeding with recovery, but she remained optimistic about future races. King joked about the caffeine-laden milk as “Red Bull for babies” and mused that it could be a lucrative product.