Things You Cannot Fix Three Days Before the Dakota Five-O
It is Wednesday. The Dakota Five-O is on Sunday, and somewhere in Spearfish a mountain biker is standing in their kitchen doing a bizarre twisting lunge they saw on Instagram, hoping it will magically resolve six months of ignored lower back stiffness.
Welcome to the panic window.
Every year, race week has a funny way of making people question everything. Is my bike fit wrong? Should I stretch more? Should I start doing core exercises? Was that little ache in my back always there?
As a Spearfish chiropractor, this is also the time of year we see riders hoping for a quick fix to something that has been building for months. The reality is less exciting: you cannot build three months of fitness, strength, or tissue resilience in three days.
Fortunately, you do not need to.
At this point, the best thing you can do is stop trying to become a different athlete before Sunday and focus on arriving at the starting line feeling as good as possible.
Three Days Out, Your Job Is Not to Get Fitter
By race week, the work is mostly done. One more hard ride is not going to suddenly unlock another level of fitness, and an aggressive new mobility routine probably is not going to transform the way your body moves before Sunday.
In fact, this is a pretty bad week to start experimenting.
That means avoiding the brand-new core workout, the 45-minute stretching routine, the dramatic saddle adjustment, or the nutrition strategy you have never actually tested on a long ride.
If you have ridden hundreds of miles with your saddle in the same position, Thursday night is probably not the time to move it 12 millimeters because someone on YouTube told you it would "unlock your glutes."
Small changes can feel very large after several hours on the bike.
Race week should be boring. Keep doing the things your body already knows.
If Your Back Gets Sore, Don't Immediately Assume Something Is Broken
The Dakota Five-O is hard. At some point during 50 miles of riding, there is a decent chance something is going to hurt.
Maybe your back starts aching on a long climb. Your neck gets stiff. Your knees start complaining. Your hands get tired.
When that happens, it is easy for your brain to immediately jump to, "Something is wrong."
But pain is influenced by more than what is happening in a single muscle or joint. Fatigue, stress, previous experiences, and how you interpret a sensation can all influence how strongly you feel it.
For many cases of non-specific low back pain, research supports staying active, understanding the condition, and gradually building movement tolerance rather than relying on prolonged rest. A large review of exercise therapy for chronic low back pain supports exercise as an important part of managing persistent low back pain.
That does not mean you should ignore significant pain. It simply means an achy back at mile 30 does not automatically mean your spine is falling apart.
Sometimes your body is just tired.
And during the Five-O, it is probably going to get tired.
Before the Race: Keep It Simple
Since you are not building new fitness this week, your goal is simply to keep your body moving without creating unnecessary fatigue.
Easy riding, walking, and whatever normal mobility work you already use are all reasonable options. The key word is normal. If you have never spent 45 minutes aggressively stretching your hips before a ride, race week is not the time to discover whether that was the missing piece.
A short warm-up before the race can also help prepare your hips and legs for the work ahead. Simple movements such as glute bridges, bodyweight squats, or other familiar exercises are plenty.
You are trying to wake things up, not set a personal record in the parking lot.
The same principle applies to your bike, nutrition, shoes, hydration pack, and everything else you plan to use Sunday: race with what you know.
During the Five-O: Ride the Body You Brought
Once the race starts, the little decisions you make over the next several hours begin to matter.
One of the biggest is how you handle the climbs. As fatigue builds, riders often start grinding a harder gear at a slower cadence. If your back, hips, or knees are getting irritated, shifting into an easier gear and finding a comfortable cadence may reduce how much force you have to produce with each pedal stroke.
You do not get bonus points for making the climb harder than it already is.
It can also help to give your body opportunities to change position throughout the race. Stand periodically, move your hands, shift your posture, and let your hips and back move instead of trying to hold one "perfect" riding position for five hours.
Your body generally likes having options.
On rougher terrain, your trunk also plays an important role in transferring force and helping you control the bike. That does not mean you need to consciously flex your abs for the entire race. Think less about being rigid and more about being stable enough to handle roots, rocks, braking forces, and technical sections while still allowing your body to move with the bike.
After the Race: Stiff Does Not Automatically Mean Injured
Eventually, you will roll back into Spearfish City Park, cross the finish line, get off your bike, and potentially begin walking like you are 97 years old.
That part is fairly normal.
After a long mountain bike race, your muscles have been working for hours and your joints have gone through thousands of repetitions. Some temporary soreness and stiffness should not be surprising.
Start recovery with the boring stuff that works: eat, hydrate, walk around, sleep, and gradually return to normal movement over the next few days.
Then pay attention to the direction things are moving.
General soreness that gradually improves is very different from sharp or worsening pain, significant weakness, numbness, major swelling, or symptoms that are not improving as you recover.
Where Chiropractic Fits In
Chiropractic care before or after a race is not about magically making you fitter three days before the starting gun, and it is not about "putting bones back into place."
At Mountain Movement Chiropractic, we look at how your joints and muscles are moving together and whether pain, stiffness, or mobility restrictions are interfering with the things you want to do.
Depending on what we find, that might include chiropractic adjustments, exercise, soft-tissue work, or simply helping you understand what is going on and how to keep moving.
And three days before the Dakota Five-O, sometimes the best advice is much simpler:
Do not do anything stupid.
Trust the Training
If you are reading this a few days before the Five-O, you have already done the hard part. You put in the miles, climbed the hills, and prepared your body for Sunday.
Now trust it.
Sleep well. Hydrate. Eat the foods you normally eat. Check your bike. Keep your body moving. Then stop trying to reinvent yourself before race day.
Once the dust settles, pay attention to what actually limited you. If your back consistently bothered you on climbs, your neck became miserable after three hours, or an old issue started creeping back in, that is useful information.
Addressing those things in September gives you a lot more options than trying to fix them three days before next year's Dakota Five-O.
If something has been limiting your riding, hiking, or training around the Black Hills, book an appointment with Mountain Movement Chiropractic and let's build a plan to keep you moving.