Race 15: XC - 10 Under The Ben

A 10 hour XC endurance event at Ben Nevis in the cold, wind and pouring rain. I was racing in a female pair with Lisa B. We did 5 laps each of the 10 mile course (1200 ft climbing per lap). It was raining when we arrived and it was still raining when we left.

There were an awful lot of fire road climbs which went on forever, interspersed with some nice single track trail centre like sections and a couple of really muddy woody bits. I soon realised that jumping off my bike and running through the mud and sliding down the muddy cliff edge was by far the fastest way to do it. As the day went on the mud got deeper and the trail centre bits turned into streams and then rivers! Single track I was flying down in my hardest gear on lap 1 was a hard slog on the small ring by lap 5. It was pretty grim. On the bright side, the sticky mud on lap 1 (where I chuckled as a man lost his shoe) turned into watery muddy shin deep gloop by lap 3 and it was actually easier to run in.

Getting in from a lap and I felt quite warm, but 5 mins later and I was shivering each time. There was just an hour between each lap to change and to try and eat something. Then it was back out into the rain to wait for Lisa to return. I was rubbish at eating, I mostly ate fondants fancies! And a gel on each lap, I just couldn't stomach anything more. Probably due to getting zero hours sleep that night (we camped at the event).

I pushed myself on every lap, but the combination of getting more tired and worsening conditions made the times slower each lap. I started off at 56 mins 33 (garmin time), when I was fresh and the course was pretty fast. The 2nd lap was 59 mins 27, I lost 3 mins in the 1st half with most of the climbing in. The 3rd lap was 1 hour exactly, I was faster in the first half this time but my glasses were so steamed up and covered in rain and mud I literally couldn't see a thing in the woody sections. Wiping them just made it worse so I just had to use the force...

Lap 4 and I was really feeling it in my legs. No vision, caked in mud then swilled down with icy streams, 1 hr 3 mins. They'd cut out the worst muddy section now and so this lap was different, we did a load of trail centre singletrack instead.

I checked the results board after lap 4 as everyone was giving up and I wondered if it was worth putting my poor body through another lap when I was pretty much broken. But I saw we were coming 3rd!!! So I bounded back to the tent and tried to eat anything I could.

The answer was a pot noodle, a bag of monster munches and the last fondant fancy! Richard H made me a Horlicks too. I was all fired up and off I went. Lap 5 was a struggle, mile 40 to mile 50! I ate a gel and some Percy Pig and Friends sweets and forced myself to climb. There was literally nobody around, most teams had either given up or finished, we were in the hour of extra time, where if you'd already started a lap you had up to an hour extra to finish it.

I was very tired, had to run, OK walk / stumble up the steepest climb that I'd made on every lap before (the boys around me cheered every time!) Both really muddy sections were diverted this time so I had some new bits again. 1 hour 4 mins later and I'd made it.

And we did come 3rd! We very happily scrambled up onto podium and collected our medal! So it was all worth it in the end!

On the podium, it was all worth that extra lap of pain!

It was rainy and windy and Lisa almost got stabbed by the gazeebo in her sleep!

Race 14: Etape du Dales Sportive

This could have been a lovely ride out, where we could have raced to try for a good time. But it ended up being a windy, wet 109 mile endurance ride that tested our will power from about mile 10! It was spitting rain when we set off from Grassington at 7:30 am. The forecast was windy but no rain so I was just waiting for it to pass and the sun to come out. It never did! All the way to Tan Hill it was the same, the first descent I got frozen into position as I only had shorts, top, gilet, arms and fingerless gloves on.

At the first food stop I made myself some rather fetching gloves out of the plastic that the bananas came in. The lady tied it in knots for me and it made all the difference for the rest of the ride. In fact my hands were sweating in there, when I got back my fingers looked like I'd spent a day in the bath! My feet were also numb until Tan Hill, so I got the plastic that the paper cups came in, and used them as socks - they were perfect for the job. My feet warmed up straight away and weren't numb anymore but also not hot.

I got quite a few 'nice gloves' comments on the way, but I think those people wished they had made some too! The drag up to the Tan Hill Inn was pretty grim. Rain and wind in our faces. After Tan Hill it started pouring down and that's the way it stayed until the end. On one rather exposed part (can't remember where because I couldn't even see anything anyway) it was hailing and it really hurt my face.

Miles 60 - 75 we allowed ourselves some whinging time, as we were really very fed up. But mile 75 was sufficiently near the end that we perked up and became happy(ish). We finished the last 10 miles really rather quickly due to a handy tail wind and because we knew it was nearly over. My legs felt good all day, way better than the Pocklington Challenge last month, maybe  I could feel no pain because they were numb with cold!

In the end we did 109 miles and 10,000 ft climbing, mostly into a very strong headwind (never quite sure how that works when it's a circular route!) with rain in our faces. It took us just over 9 hours, that's how bad it was!!!

Lisa and I looking strangely happy

Race 13: MTBO Sprint National Championship, 08/05/2011

I was doing really well in the sprint prologue, so much so that I thought I'd try and plan ahead a few so I could finally step it up a notch. Rubbish idea! When I looked back up I took the next left like I was supposed to but... It seems I might have gone further than I thought whilst planning as I ended up lost! I was pretty annoyed because it was going just fine before I got overly confident! I wasted 11 mins in a half hour race and so rushed around the remainder of the course. The rest went well, I even took short cuts (it was allowed today) Strangely I wasn't last at all but unsurprisingly I got in the B final!

The final was probably a harder route, it went into a complicated bunker area and also I took a shortcut through some undergrowth where the paths didn't quite meet. It was good. I got a little confused at the spectator control. I drew a blank when I looked down at the map again, had to work out where I'd just been, where was next, it happened 3 more times, I was getting really frustrated! I needed my 3M tabs to stick on but didn't bring any. Finally got past it and rushed the last couple of controls to finish 2nd.

John H, the BMBO chairman, has given me some most excellent advice on how to get good at the map reading part, which is my weakness. I'm on it already :-)

Sprint Prologue

Sprint Final

Race 12: MTBO Middle National Championships, 07/05/2011

This race was in Hanchurch woods, it was raining like crazy when we arrived, a surprise after all the nice weather we've been having. We were sat in the car for ages and didn't want to get out! Amazingly, it stopped and when I set off the sun even came out. It made it really steamy.

I went on lots of single track, lovely trails, jumps and a downhill course, really nice riding. My navigation is getting better too I think. I made only one mistake which cost me probably 2 mins, where I got the wrong turning and went to number 8 instead of number 4. I found I couldn't pedal fast enough either - that's new for MTBO!

I was out for 1 hr 7 mins, I came 3rd in my class behind Emily Benham and Helen Clayton, so happy with that :-)