Mountain Mayhem is a treat for me as we get the whole Saddle Skedaddle experience! They cater for their teams and wash our bikes after every lap and fix them when they break and everything. It's also a great opportunity to catch up with all things Skedaddle.
This year Mayhem was an absolute mudfest. The weather was actually very reasonable for the most part, however it did pour down in the night, but that was actually a good thing because it watered down the very sticky mud into something a bit more manageable.
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| The start of the 24 hours! Lucy was our runner and she was the 1st girl to get back!! |
There were two halves to the course, the classic kenda climb up to a very muddy wooded section, then back down through the campsite and up the other side for a very hard slog of a climb up wet muddy grass all the way to the monument at the top. Then there was the off camber muddy section that seems to feature each year, and a muddy but firm descent back to the campsite. It would have been lovely to descend to the finish but it looped around the bottom of the campsite and then a gradual very muddy grassy motorway to the finishing loop. The eagle eyed of you may notice that mud featured in every section of the course. it was an absolute nightmare!
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| Mud |
I wore my wellies to walk over for my 1st lap as the ground everywhere was covered in a wet gloopy mud mess. I was 2nd up and Lucy came around the finish loop looking strong but rather dirty. She passed me the baton and I ran through the crowd in the changeover area and jumped on my bike. I had skinny mud tyres on (finally got to use them, I've had them years!) but the gradual slope down the motorway of gloop right out of the start threw me slightly as I was slip sliding all over the place through the channels of mud! I made the corner and waded through some pretty deep wet cement like puddles to the bridge, then it was along the muddy grass to the kenda climb, which was pretty tough as the ground was sticky, but I made it over and into the trees (well not literally into the trees..).
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| That track started off as grass! |
Now this part was ridiculous! I think a hub geared hardtail would of been ideal because my Anthem gathered mud like crazy and the wheels stopped turning altogether. I jumped off and found a handy short stick to try and poke it all out. Managed to free the wheels and decided to try running with it instead of struggling to ride. It was very effective, I passed about 15 people in the rest of that section, all struggling to pedal and falling around all over the place. I had to stop at least 6 times on the lap to use my stick (which I kept in a handy pocket on my rucksack strap). The mud was just like glue. The chain started sucking and the gears were jumping so I had to clear out the derailleur too on one of my stick poking stops.
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| Skedaddle corner |
The second half was just as bad, lots of climbing on grass covered in glue mud. I found myself walking up the steeper bit along with everyone else. I was very glad when I finally came down into the camp for the final grass motorway slog.
It took me 1 hour 43 mins to do the 10 miles! I think 5 mins of that must have been stick time and about 35% was running!
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| The start of my race! |
My 2nd lap was much better. It was the sunset lap, I set off in the light and I was still in the first half of the course when it got dark. I tried not to use my lights for as long as possible because I didn't know if I had enough juice for 2 long night laps. But it got to the point where I was almost crashing into trees all the time so I had to put them on.
So it got dark and it also started to rain like crazy. It was good because I was warm from all the effort and the rain made the mud less sticky. I didn't stop to use the stick once and I rode everything apart from the steepest bit of muddy hill and some of the off camber mud section. I did use the stick on the tyre edges whilst I was climbing, my bike halved in weight each time so it was essential really :-)
I was enjoying the lap now I could cycle, I even liked slipping around on the roots because it was actually fun! The darkness made it interesting but it was misty up the 2nd side so vision was a little sketchy. I was on the rocky descent near the end when my light came loose and swivelled 180 degrees to point back in my face and blind me! I screeched to a halt and tried to fix it. The triangle bit that attaches to the mount was loose so I tightened it as much as I could without an Allen key and luckily it didn't happen again. Panic over and I finished the lap in one piece. I was absolutely freezing when I got back, wearing shorts and t-shirt, completely soaked through to the skin in the dark and mud.
My 3rd lap was the dawn lap! At 4am I set off in the pitch black and finished in bright daylight! It would have been lovely as it even stopped raining. But there was so much soupy mud over the whole course that it was such hard work to pedal. On this lap I didn't make the top of the kenda climb because the ground was like glue and I didn't have the strength to power up there. I've never failed that climb before!
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| This pretty much sums it up |
So those were my laps! All very hard work. We did 3 laps each then there was enough time for two more if we sent our secret weapon out for the 13th lap. That is Iwona, she is a machine! She did the lap in 1 hour 43 and we had 3 mins spare to start another.
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| Iwona - our secret weapon |
Throughout it all Skedaddle washed off our bikes and made us food. The jet wash wouldn't work on the mud so they had to scrape it all off first! We even had a gas fire in the tent to warm up near :-)
The team was Lucy Harris, Iwona Szmyd, Emila Zielinska and me. We ended up 3rd in the Open Women's team category. We were very pleased that all our efforts were rewarded and very pleased that skedaddle got on the podium after all their hard work for us!
Did I mention the mud?!
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| Podium! |
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| Our team - Emila, Me, Lucy, Iwona |
