So where were we? Oh yes, we’d safely arrived at Luchon and as we had some time to kill before dinner we went for a leisurely amble around the town. At dinner we met our riding buddies for the week the lovely Tom and Sonya and Ian also went through with us what to expect for the days ahead – basically longer and more technical as the week progressed. I admit I was slightly concerned with the length of time discussing ticks and their potential removal but then I guess I don’t taste very nice as in all the time I’ve spent in woody areas so far I’ve not had to worry about extracting the little critters.

The first day’s riding turned out to be a bit of a culture shock as I’ve hardly been able to set a wheel off the tarmac at home since Kirroughtree with all the rain we’ve had and I quickly realised that out here you need to be paying a lot more attention to what you’re doing than I’ve been used to of late!

I didn’t opt for leg and arm body armour as I’ve never worn it before but it was available if you wanted it and I guess that wearing it might give you a bit more confidence and also cut down on potential scrapes and bruises. Even though I never thought I would ever be in the position to be contemplating it I’m thinking that it might actually be a good idea to try it out for trail riding so I’m putting this on my list of new things to try for the winter.

Ian and Kate kept a watchful eye on what we were all doing to make sure that everyone had the option to ride great trails that would challenge rather than terrify although I do confess to shutting my eyes and hoping for the best on a couple of occasions. There was some initial switchback practice (after all this area is supposed to be switchback heaven!) and the next day it was pretty obvious why we needed it! That leads me nicely on to the Benque Ridge day.








I was actually quite oblivious to the sheer terror that lay ahead as I was too busy enjoying the awesome climbing but when we topped out and paused at a flattish meadow area I quickly realised that there was rather a long drop down to where we were headed back to. Gulp! Well what can I say; it was all a bit of a blur of seemingly endless narrow tight loose switchbacks (and cowpats) but in fact despite my severe attack of vertigo I realised afterwards that it wouldn’t actually hurt that much if you toppled off so in hindsight it was simply having the conviction to go for it and I’m sure that on a second go it wouldn’t be quite so daunting.







Absolute highlight of the week for me though was the Super Bagneres day as we were blessed with some fabulous weather, which you really do need to totally do this ride justice.

I absolutely loved the long big climb to the top and I was actually quite sad when it was over but the awesome 360-degree views were worth pausing to take in and I found that I was actually in desperate need of calories by then with one of Russ’ famous baguettes quite nicely doing the trick. The journey down was equally awesome and quite challenging for me but I actually managed to ride so much more than I would have done even at the start of the week so the benefits of getting on this terrain every day were easy to see.

The next day was a do-your-own-thing day so we decided to firstly peruse the market in Luchon (definitely recommended if you love cheese and cake) and then swap tyres and bag the road climb up to the Peyresourde. It was roasting hot with the last switchbacks looking well steep from below (but actually weren’t that bad) - I’m now seriously starting to worry about how much I actually love doing these big road climbs given that I don’t even have a road bike!!!!!

Our final day had some mixed weather so we weren’t quite able to make it to the lonely tree but Kate still managed to find plenty of fun trails to make up for it and it was yet another day where I was dreaming of Russ’ cake all afternoon. Sadly in the end we had to leave a day early, as when we contacted the Channel Tunnel they couldn’t guarantee that we would actually get back to the UK on the day we had booked. It wasn’t too bad in the end with just a four-hour wait as I suppose it could have been a lot worse. I didn’t really mind in the end as my legs were starting to feel the terrain and we had plenty of good memories to take away with us.

So how would I summarise our first trip to the Pyrenees? On the basis that if you wanted to you could ride till you dropped then I think this little photo might do nicely!!!!!!!

As a self-confessed Swiss Alp junkie it was a rather unexpected change this year to be zooming off to the French Pyrenees for a couple of weeks but then as I was pretty sure they have big mountains and also cheese and beer it was going to be exciting going somewhere new whilst knowing that we would at least have our basic holiday essentials covered.

We got to the channel tunnel and approached that big sturdy metal girder that says “vehicles under 1.85m” with a slight sweat on as our van is apparently 1.83m tall and well, as we’d not taken the van under one until now we were wondering if the guy was having a bad day when he measured it or whether we’d put too much air in the tyres. Thankfully no scraping noises ensued and the next little bit of excitement was that we were pulled over to be dusted etc (a pretty good thing of course) but unfortunately the delay meant we missed our scheduled train. Of course this little delay was nothing compared to what was to happen on the way back……..


We stayed firstly at a small village near the start of the climb up to the Col du Tourmalet and after spending the first day doing a bit of running and then riding up the valley to Gavarnie we decided that it would be rude not to do the Tourmalet the next day if the weather held.
After our morning run the heavens opened but it still looked possible - it was wet but still warm - so off we went in pursuit of bagging that rather famous Col.

The ascent was quite eventful in the end starting out boiling hot then having to shelter in an empty garage from a torrential downpour whilst contemplating the forked lightning up ahead, then progressing back to bright sunshine and some quite fabulous clear views









(coupled with several emergency stops for jelly beans) before we disappeared again back into the clouds and finally arrived at the top to hardly be able to see anything at all! We quickly layered up and hurtled down at speeds that I probably wouldn’t even drive at but the aim at this point was to make it down as fast as possible to get that crucial 10 degrees warmer.

We were lucky to have the added bonus of making it back before the thunder and lightning returned with a vengeance and needless to say there was much of the monk’s finest consumed as due reward for the days efforts.

This was pretty much the pattern for the rest of our time there and before long we had exhausted what we could reach by foot and bike and we were soon packing up for the short journey over to Luchon.

We were warned that the Pope was visiting Lourdes the day we were travelling (along with about a million other folks) so we took the scenic route to Luchon over the Tourmalet instead although the weather today was less kind when we rode up there – drizzling with rain and only 1 degree at the top - I really felt sorry for all the cold soggy cyclists we saw!

As it turned out Luchon was a bigger place than I was expecting but we managed to find where we were supposed to be with no problem and we installed ourselves in the quaint Le Lutin hotel just in time to sample the cake and coffee which was perfect timing as we soon learnt that the afternoon snackathon was a meal not to be missed! More coming on the food (and of course the trails) very soon!

What happened to August? – Part Two

“I CAN SEE A RAINBOW”

So the week went something along the lines of Mr M popping out a not too shabby 800m in the Vet’s Track & Field league on the Thursday night followed the next day by a three hour drive up to Llanberis to join his three team-mates for a 22-mile mountain marathon with 8,000ft of ascent over seven of Snowdonia’s rather wet and windy peaks. Talk about from one extreme to the other!

As it was a work related event I wasn’t allowed to participate but I have to say that the stress of waiting on tender-hooks at the finish watching Thomas Bach (star of the Mountain Railway I presume) chuff-chuff back and forth for hours on end was emotionally gruelling!!!














Apart from the gorgeous rainbows, the weather was going to be wet and windy and at this altitude pretty cold too so gear choice was a rather protracted affair and concluded in going for the Snow Skins long sleeve as base layer with a Gore Pac-Lite outer, which I gather pretty much did the business.

Breathe-ability and waterproof-ness in one fabric just seems to fly in the face of the general laws of physics but being able to vent on the ups and zip up on the downs over the top of the Snow Skins he stayed warm and as dry as possible for the duration so he was still smiling when they successfully rolled over the finish :-D

“RIDIN’ RIDIN’ RIDIN’”

This has been a good month for having the time to explore from the back door so I’ve been zooming around the countryside putting together new loops in readiness for the gloomy winter months when it will undoubtedly be so grey that I won’t be able to see where I’m going anyway.

Well one trailblazing week turned out to be a bit strange as first off I was riding along minding my own business when a many-legged iddy biddy from hell stung me right through my shorts. I'm generally rather allergic to stings and bites and this one is way up there in the most allergic-ness I've had in some while. Ice and anti-histamine did battle for ages and I currently have a permanent scar as a memento.

Then mid-week I got a commute weather report from Mr M who said it was "a bit breezy with some moisture in the air". Well that turned out to be a bit of an understatement as it absolutely pished it down for the entire two and a half hour ride. I don't think I've been that drenched since my first bike trip to Spain (needless to say I haven't been back - yet) but at least I didn't have to contend with those caterpillars that have acid for blood :-O

And finally one day when I did a bit of "I wonder what's down there" exploring I ended up having to wade thigh high through a muddy ford with my bike on my back pondering everything Mr M had told me about nasty diseases you can catch from doing just that - proximity to farmland is apparently not quite the same as a fresh flowing mountain stream. Hey Ho at least I didn't have my white Sidi shoes on :-/

“DIVERSIONS”

You may have noticed that I've been a bit tardy until now on the weblog front and it's because most of my free time not spent out and about with my butt on my bike was spent with my butt on the sofa glued to the Beijing Olympic coverage, which was fab!!

Of course I've been following all things bike, but I freely admit to being a higher/faster/stronger fan when it comes to Olympic sports so Track & Field always ranks way up there amongst my favourites.

In all honesty it made me rather wistful about my running days of old but anyhow, with the Olympian diversion over for now I'll be back with some more bike related shenanigans soon :-)

Bye for now……

For one reason or another this month was a bit quiet bike event-wise but that doesn’t mean to say that there wasn’t plenty of outdoorsy stuff going on so here goes with the first part of a few highlights………

“IN THE PINK”

Despite the weather being more or less a total wash out for your typical August, I did manage to spend an inordinate amount of bike time swathed in my pink Nalini.

Last year’s Lavarone is still my all time favourite jersey so far and this Peonia is certainly shaping up to be a contender.

Sensible things like great fabric, perfect girl-shaped fit and having three different sized pockets for all those sundry things that you just MIGHT need merged with the almost wet-look pinkiness of it all makes me sooooo wish that it also came in that Nalini blue of last year so that then I could have had two!

“THE (LONGER THAN IT SHOULD BE) TALE OF THE NEW CHAIN FOR TRIXIE”

This month Mr M tackled the rebuild of my trusty training bike which having been raided for parts for my sexy Soda, had been enjoying a bit of a breather whilst the race season was in full swing. Everything was superbly built back up in a lovely retro V-brake stylee and Trixie was back in action!
Recently it was time for a new chain and as you know this is normally a simple five-minute job. Well, job done and as it was shifting perfectly in the work-stand off I zoomed for a ride only to discover that once in action my chain and rings were just sooooo not vibing and after five stops for fettling (which achieved zilch) I resorted to limping home in a rather embarrassingly loud crunching fashion :-o On arrival I was fully expecting to be told by Mr M that it was user error but off he went up the road and to my relief he had exactly the same problem - well at least it wasn't a blond/senior/whatever moment then.

So the rest of the afternoon went something along the lines of:

Swapped out rear derailleur. Nope. Swapped out rear cassette. Nope. Swapped out XTR crank for spare XTR crank. Nope. Swapped out rear mech hanger. Nope. Swapped out chain. Nope. Aaaaaaaargh!!!!! Whilst it was a welcome educational experience seeing almost every Park tool in the box in action we were temporarily stumped until as a last resort we tried a spare set of RaceFace turbine cranks that used to live on my Pisgah (good job I'm really crap at ever parting with anything) and after seeing yet more tools in action, would you believe it, everything was meshing perfect again and Trixie was back in the groove :-D

So there you have it, what turned out to be a five minute chain fit gave me lots of unexpected practice with assorted drive train reconstruction which I suppose can only bode well for my forthcoming support monkey role for another imminent frame build..........

“HOPPITY RIDES AGAIN”

I expect you’ve noticed how the MTB crowd just love to post up pictures of their latest gory injuries so here - as a flashback - is my (OK, in hindsight rather pathetic) one from Kirroughtree that it seems is still managing to cause me a few problems.

Mr M remains (probably quite rightfully) bored to saturation point with hearing me go on about it but although it doesn’t really trouble me on the bike I still can’t actually kneel down on it. I also suspect it’s the culprit in my current saga of ongoing Achilles pain that’s holding up my running so it’s back to the physio for me soon just to check that everything is lined up where it should be. I certainly don’t want it to be misbehaving with a couple of (hopefully awesome) weeks in the Pyrenees coming up real soon!!!!

Stay tuned for part two coming shortly including Mr M’s 22-mile team marathon (foot not bike) in Snowdonia on probably the wettest weekend in August and also how I managed to fit in sooooo much TV Olympic viewing……

This little Scottish road trip turned out to be so good in so many ways that I hardly know where to start writing to do it justice.

We were both a bit down in the dumps after Mayhem and as we had successfully secured a spot at our all time ever favourite B&B we were simply looking forward to enjoying a mini holiday in the Southern Uplands with the added bonus of a race at a location that we had never been to before but everyone we knew that had spoke about it in wistful tones whilst using words like “totally rocks”, “awesome” and “single-track heaven”. Needless to say our hopes were set rather high and we were definitely not disappointed!!!!!

The before
The drive up this time wasn’t too bad especially as we broke the journey in Kendal to check out one of the many fell running shops where Mr M successfully managed to wangle another pair of trail running shoes into his life – a bit like the male equivalent of Carrie Bradshaw’s Manolo fetish. We arrived at the B&B in what can only be described as heavy Scotch mist and every stream and river that we passed was busting to the brim - there had certainly been a fair amount of recent rainfall!! After a good night’s sleep we awoke to only moderate Scotch mist so after packing away a five course breakfast we set off for a couple of hour jaunt on foot up the Glen before heading off to Kirroughtree for a pre-ride and to register.

As we drove over though Galloway Forest (Scotch mist was still moderate at this point) I lost count of all the trails shooting off here there and everywhere, it was like being in a sweet shop and not knowing what to choose first.

We arrived at the trail head and I have to admit that a little bit of panic had now crept in as I’m no trail goddess (not even in my dreams) and I knew this would be technically challenging for this (relatively) southern softie. I managed to swallow my panic though when out came my trusty Soda that had done me soooo proud at Fort William and off we duly headed around the ten-mile course to check out what to expect. Well, what can I say?

It was indeed really challenging with slippery roots, rocks of all descriptions, switchback climbs and eye-watering fast descents but honestly, to be allowed this much fun in the space of ten miles surely isn’t allowed? I had now officially joined the ranks of the “totally rocks”, “awesome” and “single-track heaven” brigade and I just couldn’t wait for the race to start so I could go round again and again!!



Race day
I awoke feeling a little bit sorry for myself as I forgot to mention that I had executed an over the bars Kermit the frog dismount knees down onto the rocks during practice on Friday but as I promised Mr M that I wouldn’t go on about it any more, lets just leave it at that shall we.

Mr M himself packed away another monster breakfast marathon whereas I ate like a bird (squiffy race-day tummy) and we duly arrived at the start with plenty of time to set up our home for the day.

The event was on a slightly smaller scale to Ten under the Ben but with the same cool party atmosphere that No Fuss Events seem to have captured so well. In hindsight this was in fact a good thing as with a huge proportion of single-track (70% of the course), a bigger number of riders would have maybe been a bit of a problem.


The race itself went like a dream!! Mr M went off first for the slightly shorter first lap melee and then we just took it in turns until ten laps and ten hours later it was all over. There was no Scotch mist to speak of and even the midges seemed to be on holiday somewhere else for most of the time!!
The banter with the Scotties on the course was hilarious. One guy I kept seeing was ribbing me “where’s your full bouncer lassie?” to which I finally silenced him by saying that I’d actually left it at home because I preferred riding my Soda. Then Mr M was asked if he was wearing the infamous Avon midge-repellent Skin-so-Soft as apparently he smelt like a girl and finally the funniest one of all was the usual “where have you come up from?” (It’s clearly that obvious I was riding like a southern softie) and when I told him he said, “what do you need a mountain bike down there for?” I can’t really blame him though, if I lived up there I don’t think I would bother venturing too far south all that often!!!



And it’s all over

Here’s a funny over the line moment being accosted by Spook for my timing chip whilst being tugged in the other direction towards the Benromach whisky. Did I mention that you get actual whisky for finishing? Dream event sponsor huh!

So that’s it then, the second of our awesome Scottish race experiences done and in our opinion they have each been well worth the travelling distance to get to.

Next biking adventure is, well, I haven’t actually decided yet but as soon as I know then I’ll be posting it up here! In the meanwhile I’m thinking maybe the local Strawberries & Cream Five Miler (feet not wheels) in a couple of weeks so I’d better be getting some practice in (that’ll be running practice, not eating Strawberries & Cream of course!).

Bye for now and Happy Outdoorsiness!

Links: www.nofussevents.co.uk

It’s always quite hard to write a nice up beat positive report when you didn’t finish what you set out to do but when I actually reflect on the whole experience it did actually have some areas I can be happy about. So hopefully without boring the pants off you, here goes with my own particular experience of (albeit only part of!) this year’s Giant Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor Deer Park.

It’s always quite hard to write a nice up beat positive report when you didn’t finish what you set out to do but when I actually reflect on the whole experience it did actually have some areas I can be happy about. So hopefully without boring the pants off you, here goes with my own particular experience of (albeit only part of!) this year’s Giant Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor Deer Park.














The day before
We set up camp the day before in the solo area and as is quite usual for the day before this event, the weather was warm sunshine and the ground was baked hard. It’s at this point you’re potentially tempted to think that things are going to be OK and you won’t need your mud tyres and all that wet weather gear but as it pretty much ALWAYS rains on this weekend at this venue then those in the know bring everything anyway.

24solo virgin Lee set up next to us having brought a tent that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the “what it should look like when it’s up” instructions. This was a mini-endurance event all of its own and as I was trying to keep my stress levels to a minimum (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) I had to go and hide in Jo’s shop until he and Mr M had figured it out.

We did originally plan to walk the course but by the time we had piffled around, time was marching on and we needed to get back and pack up the van ready for an early start in the morning.







Race day
Jubilee drive was thick drizzly fog as we drove over the top of the Malvern’s to the race but we managed to unpack everything in between deluges and get more or less organised in what was to be our home for the next 24hrs. We set up behind the main solo tent and you could hear the usual “no, I haven’t been doing much really, no training as such, just doing some riding” - I do so love the pre-race psyche-out banter!

The hours before the start really drag. I just want to get going so I’m happy when it’s time to get dressed and abandon my lovely Soda to the mercies of the start funnel melee. It crosses my mind at this point to do some sort of start ritual like Valentino Rossi, maybe hug my SPD for luck or something, but I decide to do the usual and just stand there looking panicky instead.

We were soon off and this time I was supposed to be taking the run REALLY steady. So steady in fact, that it seemed like I was walking and by the time I’d cleared the campsite it was obvious that in hindsight this was a mistake as I ended up walking for most of the first single-track climb behind the inexplicably huge queues of stationary riders. The next lap was a joy though as there was much less traffic but there were definitely certain sections of the course where folks were struggling to ride already and this was even before it got dark, or (inevitably) wet….












Apart from one lap where I had a bit of sickness, I was feeling perky in the leg department, eating and drinking well and looking forward to getting stuck into the night shift and then hopefully would be in good shape for the final morning section. At the end of lap six I rolled into the pits to be greeted by the lovely Jo in full Gore paclite mode swishing her hair like a Charlie’s Angel for the baying paparazzi (aka Mr M) and after a quick hug and a feed I was off again into the darkness.

During the next lap I got caught in the rain deluge so had an extended pit stop to get out of my wet gear and into my beloved Gavia tights whilst downing some hot food! I couldn’t help wondering about the potential state of certain bits of the single-track after the deluge and once back out there again my worst fears were confirmed….

Lap eight was truly the lap from hell - worse than any I endured last year - I spent so much time trying to push/drag/carry my bike that when I finally made it back to the pit my back was shot and I didn’t even bother going through the timing tent to get a lap score. I guess maybe it’s because I don’t actually practice carrying my mud-caked bike for miles over off camber muddy single-track whilst trying to avoid getting run over by out-of-control riders but anyhow it meant game over for me as I didn’t want to risk further injury when I still have lots of other things I’d like to do this year.

In all my Mayhems so far I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many broken bikes and injured riders nor come to think of it so many folks sneaking under the course tape in the dark!

The aftermath

So there you have it, an 11hr or so training ride, followed by a couple of hours of weight training interspersed with impromptu bouts of bike tug of war! Not exactly what I was expecting but then at least my bike finished in one piece as poor Mr M was out the same time as me and whilst on a perfectly straight trail was brought to an abrupt stop by his rear mech burying itself in his back wheel, taking out a few spokes and mangling the chain. Game over for him then too :-o

I’m disappointed of course as I could only really do this 24 solo in 2008 with logistics and stuff, but I’m philosophical about it as (fingers crossed) I have plenty of years left to carry on enjoying new biking adventures. Lots more lessons learned so it’s all good experience and of course many thanks to Neill, Jo and all those that gave me encouragement but most of all, the long suffering Mr M who has to put up with me the whole year!

I’m now looking forward to our next outing as a pair for the ten-hour up at Kirroughtree in Galloway Forest Park. Once we get all the bits mended on Mr M’s beloved Soda and I can find somewhere to get hold of some of those anti-midge hat things we will be back up north of the border to hopefully enjoy some more of Scotland’s finest all weather trails!!

Happy riding :-D

photo credit - Mr Miles

Excitement is steadily building in Casa del Miles for the annual MTB pilgrimage that is Mountain Mayhem. There is the checking over of bikes to do, the getting the substantial amount of ancillary “stuff” in one place and of course the constant not looking at the weather forecast…

Looking back at the photos we have of the three 24hr races that I tackled last year I was trying to choose a few that summed up for me the overriding memories and the three little words that sprung to mind are MUD, FOOD and PAIN. Well four really as above all there was also the YEEHAH factor!

Here’s the first one of; yes you’ve guessed it, mud. Of course you have to expect mud now and again as we do live in the UK right? But it did seem like we had just as much mud over the summer as we did over the winter last year! This particular mud is of the Malvern variety but there was of course a lot more to come of the Cotswold variety and even a little tiny touch of the slimy Catton Park variety.

It was a battle of mind over matter just to keep going in the conditions that prevailed at the 10th Anniversary Mayhem and those of us that persevered to the finish certainly earned our medals! Here’s hoping that maybe the weather gods will have a little more sympathy for us in 2008.









This next one could be one of any number of food items that epitomise one of the most difficult aspects I find of 24hr solo races, which is stoking the engine. Everyone has their own particular recommendations on what to eat and what not to and even when you stumble on what works great for you, this is further complicated by the fact that what works at one race doesn’t seem to be a magic formula that will then work at all races! Maybe it’s because I actually need to enjoy my food and drink that makes it a bit harder for me to just shove down anything that contains the right stuff like it’s going out of fashion but be that as it may, no food definitely equals no pedalling.



The final one is the physical state of my hands (and come to think of it a few other body parts) by the time I’d got to Sleepless in the Saddle. In desperation, as you can see, there was a rather unconventional cockpit set up to the Anthem but it was the only way I was going to be able to hold the bars so I wasn’t going to worry too much about being pulled over by the fashion police.

An adventure at Benromach’s Ten under the Ben.

Even though I am currently sat here covered in midge bites and therefore a rather unattractive shade of well, just spotty, I simply can’t rave enough about what a fantastic event this was.

The party atmosphere was fabulous and the ten-mile course was just awesome - definitely worth putting this one on your list of things to do!

Getting to Fort William from the Southern Mudlands in one go is of course a bit of a mare of a drive but we finally arrived at our B&B, changed into our bike kit and cycled up the glen to search for some food. We sat outside on the decking overlooking Loch Lochy where I went for the most glorious sunset meal of haddock and chips and a pint of Guinness with Mr M choosing the much healthier option of steak and ale pie and chips and two pints of Guinness……



Friday dawned with yet another cloudless blue sky and we headed out to Nevis Range to check out the event venue. It was strangely quiet as most folks were to be arriving later in the evening so as they had apparently more or less just finished marking out the final touches, we decided that we would amble round the course on foot. The first half of the ten-mile course contained most of the climbing (lots of it and mostly straight into the sun) and also included some lovely single-track like in this shot.

The second half was a real reward for all that climbing and contained most of the technical stuff comprising lots of rocks, roots and boardwalk sections. This meant you were potentially pretty pooped when you came to the bits that demanded the most concentration and leg power but it looked as if it was going to be a fantastic blast to ride and apart from one rock drop that I wasn’t too sure about I was really looking forward to getting stuck in.

Registration that evening was up at the Snow Goose restaurant with a complementary Gondola ride there and back which was amazing as with the weather being so good, the views of the downhill course and the surrounding mountains were spectacular. Whilst I was doing the paperwork Mr M set about sampling Benromach’s uniquely organic single malt, which he promptly declared, was superb and is now top of his birthday list!!

Race day finally dawned and again it looked like it was going to be a hot one. The venue was now packed full with very friendly folks; bikes and ancillary paraphernalia with the general atmosphere so laid back that it just felt like you’d turned up to a massive outdoor party.

The race briefing was an excellent example of everything being perfectly organised but still feeling spontaneous and before we knew it Mr M was kitted up and jostling in the start bunch for the extended first lap. For long events not having too much of a plan is usually quite a good thing as you then get very used to just making it up as you go along as stuff inevitably happens that you don’t expect so we just took it in turns with the rough notion that it would be great if we could get in ten laps of ten miles over ten hours.

Here’s the usual “just finished” shot of a soggy me with my awesome Soda (who was actually much better at knowing what lines to take over the rocky stuff than I was) before I dove into the relative safety of the van.

The post event shindig was a pretty cool affair too with live band and much general jollification even in the face of the all out midge offensive!! There was a huge prize mountain to give out and, rather excellently in my opinion, it was distributed to loads of random riders via a spot draw based on your race number with category podiums having some lovely little memento trophies.

The drive back home was an absolute mare too but I’ve managed to blot out the travelling aspect and I just keep daydreaming about what was for me the best MTB road trip for some while. The event organisation was great; the actual course was great and all the folks we met – especially our neighbours in the car park - were great. I now realise that I don’t actually even know their names but if you happen to be out there then I am sure you know who you are.

Next big bridge to cross for me is 24hrs all on my lonesome at Mountain Mayhem, which will most probably be a very different kettle of fish indeed. I’m really looking forward to catching up with folks that I know will be there and it has the added bonus of being less than an hour from home! Jo will be there with the girlsruntoo goodies and she has promised to make sugar bombs so that should keep both Mr M and myself buzzing the whole night through. Stay tuned for more random stuff about 24hr solo shenanigans in my next update……………

I’ve done this event solo for the last couple of years so as part of my ongoing plan to do things a bit different this year, it was an exciting change to be stepping out with Mr M in the rather hotly contested mixed pairs category.

I’ve done this event solo for the last couple of years so as part of my ongoing plan to do things a bit different this year, it was an exciting change to be stepping out with Mr M in the rather hotly contested mixed pairs category.

I’m not quite sure exactly how many weather websites there actually are but I am sure that I looked at damn near all of them in the week leading up to this event weekend and they all said the same thing for Sunday - HEAVY RAIN!!!

What I clearly missed in the small print was that an entire day’s worth of rain would actually fall all in one go barely an hour after the finish – how much of a great escape was that huh?!

The forecast meant that we packed everything remotely waterproof as the parc ferme rules mean that unless you are on course you are stuck in your pit for the full six hours come rain or shine and clearly the former is not a terribly fun option without being properly prepared! In the end the only thing I wanted for was suncream, which of course I haven’t even bothered to even buy yet this year…..




Mr M (sort of) volunteered to do the run and first double lap and then unless the heavens opened the plan was for me to double lap next after which time we would single lap to the end and job done.




Here are the usual “bikes waiting for riders” and “riders waiting for bikes” shots before the off……










You might think that racing an event, as a pair is easier than racing it alone but it isn’t really - it’s just different. You have the higher pace and hanging around issues to deal with together with the paranoid clock watching so that you’ll never be the dork who’s not ready when your team-mate comes flying in!!!
The Provelo organisation was as smooth as usual and the course this year flowed pretty well (apart from the couple of horrid plasticine sections) with the descent through the wood awash with the now trademark Enduro6 bluebells. Even in these days of a packed out race calendar this event remains many peoples favourite season opener and there were certainly quite a few famous names to be spotted on course!




The last time I rode here was at SITS 2007 when I was doing my third 24hr solo in just over seven weeks so tackling a six hour as a pair was a welcome change of pace! There were no real race glitches and 11 laps later we were packing away and receiving the bad news from Jo that the batch of sugar bombs she had made were not set before she left. Bummer.


Anyhow here are a couple of final shots of my trusty steed taking a well-earned breather in the pits and my other trusty steed looking a bit spannered after the final lap!!

Next outing as a pair is up at Fort William at the end of May for Ten under the Ben which I am REALLY looking forward to. The last time we rode there was for the National XC Champs a few years ago and as I was a bit of an MTB newbie then, I can remember it being an absolutely terrifying experience. Fingers crossed I don’t break any essential parts of my body I might actually need for Mountain Mayhem!!

My calendar had already warned me that April events were not going to be blessed by the lovely weather that we had last year.

Nevertheless, bikes and ancillary stuff were packed in the van the night before the Merida Spring Marathon at Builth Wells but at 6am the next day we sat in silence, coffee in hand, watching the rain pouring down and Mr M was definitely feeding me the option to wimp out!!

I was quite brave though and we convinced ourselves it would be a good test of bike, kit and body so agreed that after some gruesome muddy event experiences last year this would be the ideal opportunity to find out just how well the Soda’s performed in the welsh mud.

One thing I have missed these last couple of years was that the MTB “marathon” events I did were mostly multi-lapped affairs and my own take is that this format then forces the loss of that “epic” feel that I personally feel a MTB “marathon” should have. Don’t get me wrong, I do also love multi lap events for their own particular persona but I do miss the adventure of an out and back loop when you can be miles from anywhere and have no idea what is coming up or even how far you have to go. This was one of the main reasons we planned to go back to at least some of the Merida events and soak up what is a different experience from the multi-lap event format.

Having experienced the White House Farm parking area after heavy rain before we were pleased that when we rolled up they were suggesting that folks might like to park on the road. The last thing you want to do when you are pooped and caked in mud is to then work out how to get yourself towed out of the parking field.

Despite the soggy conditions the event village was holding up well and there was the usual friendly vibe in the registration tent. By the time we had signed on and caught up with a few friends (including fellow endurance nutter Jezz and AQR team-mate James) it was time to get ready for the off and before we knew it we were zooming through the town in the usual peleton-style to tackle whatever challenges lay ahead.

I’ve done quite a few of these events in the past and it is always difficult to balance the course content to please those that don’t like too much road and those that don’t like too much gloopy forest trails. Looking back on this particular one, there were some forest sections that if you were mid-pack or later you just didn’t stand a fair chance of having a stab at riding as with a whole bunch of wheels already there before you the trail had turned to ankle deep sludge but if you’re not averse to a bit of hike-a-bike then it’s no big deal really other than it slows down your pace a bit. The moorland sections being so wet were totally energy sapping too - not a problem in isolation but combine that with LOTS of steep climbing and a fair amount of hike-a-bike in the mud and you could see why there were plenty of folks out there gradually losing the will the live.

Even by the first feed station I could see that I needed to hugely revise my ride time expectation so I don’t mind admitting that I sneaked some custard creams at the second feed station as a reward for persisting with the long course option. Probably the worst bit I found was when we eventually hit the top of Fforest Fields and I was happily thinking “Woo Hoo not far to go now”. How wrong could a gal be?!?! It was a cruel torture indeed to be turned off the main Builth road not long after we had plopped out of Fforest Fields to do yet another circuit of steep climbs (including more draggy moorland) and then some pretty scary muddy downhills to be spat out not far from where we had originally turned off. Luckily I made some good company for this last section in the form of Dave (who it turns out was actually a road crit racer coached by Torq’s Matt Hart) and we just about managed to stave off exhaustion with lots of good humour and a fab roadie style thrash along the river to the finish.

It was great to finally get to the finish, collect my well-earned tee shirt and catch up with Mr M and James. I even got asked “how was it for me?” by some very nice men from MBUK although I am not sure that I gave a very sensible response!!!!!


Oh yes, my Soda passed the mud test with flying colours, it was brilliant not to have to stop and poke all sorts of icky stuff from here, there and everywhere - definitely the bike of choice for me when the conditions are typical UK gloop.

It was a great sense of personal satisfaction to have completed it in one piece; it definitely gave me that “epic adventure” feeling I was looking for!! Of course as with most endurance events the “enjoy” part usually comes the day after and as expected I woke up the next day rather creaky but already planning to sign up for the next one at Ruthin!!

Event link: www.mtb-marathon.co.uk. You’ll find four choices of distance: 25km, 50km, 75km and 100km so something potentially “epic” for everyone!

Time seems to have suddenly flown by with lots of things happening - some good and some not so good - so here follows an entirely random collection of, well, the fun stuff.

Looking back it seems that most of March was actually spent lurking around in various woods either on two feet or two wheels.

Here is one of Mr M’s lovely shots of my Soda and me heading down the local leaf chute. Nothing like hurtling downhill in hub deep leaves not having a clue what might be underneath to add a bit of excitement – well at least you know there will be a nice soft landing!

Midland Counties 6 Stage Road Relays at Sutton Park

I had a bit of a panic a couple of weeks ago when I realised that I hadn’t really done any running since the Wyre Forest 8 in February AND I was committed to running a leg of the Midland Road Relays for our local club in early April. Eek. Now you might think that running three miles can’t possibly hurt that much but even more acutely so than in biking, running at speed can inflict pain on so many new levels and getting dragged along with a bunch of uber-fast track fit runners at a pace that is way out of your league has the potential to hurt quite a lot actually.

This might explain the look of slight terror whilst getting ready in the back of the van although I was rather pleased to have fourth leg so that the potential to self-destruct wasn’t quite so great!

Luckily I managed to miss the heavy hail showers and paced myself well enough that it didn’t feel like my arms were sprouting out of my ears during the final long uphill. Result!!

2008 Spring Lamb Award

I don’t really want to admit just how many photos of sheep I actually possess (those that have found our Flickr might have an inkling about this) but this is the time of year when I am frantically scouring the fields on my rides to spot qualifiers for Spring Lamb of the Year Award.

Competition was quite fierce and although I won with sheer quantity, Mr M pipped me to the win on sheer quality with this amazing Ride ‘em Cowboy shot.

Bring me the horizon

April is where it normally starts to hot up a bit - not in a weather sense as I can actually see it snowing again out the window as I type – but with events coming up thick and fast.

Apart from another solo outing at Giant Mountain Mayhem, my overall objective for 2008 is to go for different events and formats from years before in an effort to improve my overall speed on the bike in the hope that I can get fast enough to do justice to the events still on my wish list. On the immediate radar are the Merida Spring Marathon at Builth Wells followed a few weeks later by a multisport weekend at the always brilliant Wiggle Enduro Six Hour (this year featuring a 10km off road run on the Saturday) and then nicely capped off a week later by the so-popular-it-sold-out-in-a-few-days Howies Dyfi Enduro. Stay tuned to hear the lowdown on how they went and if you are going along of any to these then please come and say hello.

Oh yes and finally, don’t forget that Jo will also be bringing lots of cool girlsruntoo stuff to the Enduro 6 at Catton Park and run-shop-bike sounds like a pretty good event format to me….

When we spotted this event being promoted we thought what a brilliant idea it was that you could come and have a great days riding on some top class trails knowing that just by entering you would be helping to raise funds to help some very good Rotary causes including the Institute of Cancer Research and Wales Air Ambulance. It was a 50km timed event that you could do either as a three lap solo (which I signed up for) or a two or three person relay and for an inaugural event it was brilliantly organised by the local Mawddach Rotary Club, and has to be one of the most friendly and welcoming events that we have been to in a very long time!

We were loading up the van with our only-just-built-last-week shiny new Cotic Sodas on the Saturday in nigh on gale force winds and the Sunday weather forecast for Snowdonia contained phrases like "avoid coastal areas", "extreme wind chill risk", "hail showers", "gusting winds" and "hill fog". Undeterred we were up and on the road before the birds were even awake and after travelling through almost every description of weather we arrived at Coed-Y-Brenin and headed for registration.

We got the Sodas ready for action and I layered up with lots of warm clothes (including faithful Skins top, PI long sleeve and gavia tights) as I knew from riding the Tawr trail before I would most likely be out there for quite a few hours! The event was chip timed and you could start any time in a half hour window so you basically picked a likely little wave of riders and off you went. The course itself turned out to be a real toughie – in my opinion harder than the marathon course last September with some of the fire road sections replaced by tricky single track and evil loose rocky climbs. I was sooooo glad that it was 50km and not 100km!!

It was when we hit the first section of tricky single track (which was actually towards the end part of the Tawr loop but run backwards as a rather nasty twist) that I was totally impressed with the Soda. I had only ridden it for the first time last week at Sherwood and hadn't actually raced a hard tail for several years (being a full suspension endurance type of gal for a while) so I wasn't quite sure what to expect around a course like CYB.

My theory is that if I can master a hard tail around here then that would surely mean that my skills were improving so I just put total faith in my Soda with its super-plush Magura Durins and I was really amazed just how confidence inspiring it was. I'm not generally the bravest person on tricky rocky courses but it just ate up technical sections that I thought I might not be able to clean and it clearly loves climbing, climbing and then climbing some more. I also quite liked the sensation of zooming down loose sections with rocks pinging here there and everywhere knowing that I wasn't losing chunks of paint and carbon :-)


The marshals were brilliant (still smiling despite several hail storms!) and encouraged everyone to give it their all to complete their own personal challenge. Us girlies on course were probably getting more than our fair share of support as there were only a few of us giving it a go amongst the men folk but I hope that this will change for next year when word gets out what a superb little event this is!!!

Just over three and a half hours later I was zooming down to the finish line for the final time and Mr M was there waiting for me, already cleaned up and poised to take the usual unflattering photo of me covered in muck.

Back then over to the café for a well-earned cappuccino whilst we waited for the presentations and the random draw to see who had won the “pot of gold” although the guy who won this had apparently crashed out and broken his nose so maybe not so lucky after all?

All in all it was a cracking enjoyable day and amazingly well organised for a first running. There were some nice touches such as the free shuttle from the registration area to the start for your gear etc, the dedicated parking area, the “pot of gold” draw and the fact that it wasn’t a totally mass start straight into the single-track.

I do hope that more folks will be able to make the trip next year, as it is a worthy way to make a contribution to some good causes by just having a great day out on the trails.

Check out: www.mawddachgoldrush.org.uk
Photo Credit:Mr Miles

It's not often that you are driving to a race quite so fixated on the temperature gauge but Sunday was certainly one of those days. I had already been up the garden at stupid o'clock in the am with my head torch to break the ice on the bird bath and fill up the feeders so I knew that maybe I needed to worry about what tyres for ice.....

Heading out west to Coed-y-Brenin for the first round of the Dragon XC Series we were treated to some spectacular views when the sun came up - somewhat different from the weather we had for our last trip over this way for the Marathon Champs last September when it took about six washes to get the grit out of my shorts. This was to be my first XC race since 2005 and I was really looking forward to doing an event that would be a couple of hours at most instead of at least six!


We got there in plenty of time, signed on and decided that as it was just too cold to stay hanging around the still minus-something car park, a brisk walk of the course would do the trick. Unfortunately around half way round we realised that the course was longer than we expected so had to run the rest of the lap back to the van to get togged up to actually make the start line! Not the best relaxing preparation but at least I was VERY warmed up!

As we hung around waiting for our wave to start my hands and feet started to freeze again but we were soon on our way up a short section of tarmac before diving into the single-track climb. At this point I was about mid-pack and getting stuck in when disaster struck. An extremely keen chappie decided to ricochet off a fellow rider whilst trying to get through a gap that probably wasn’t actually there and slammed into me taking us both straight down on the deck. The spectators thought it was great fun yelling “riders down, riders down” but by the time I had got back up and on my way I was pretty much dead last in our wave – a rude reminder of how frenetic an XC start can be!!!! Oh well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I wasn’t too worried though as there was pretty much a few miles of solid climbing ahead and plenty of time (and space) to hopefully make up some places.

The course was very similar to that used for the marathon champs course last year with the evil twist of replacing a section of nice smooth fire-road climb with an energy sapping rocky climb instead. It was a hard but really rewarding course to ride and it’s the first race I’ve been to that the cheery marshals were warning you to watch out for sheet ice!!

Roving reporter Santiago was on hand to take the scoop on how it went and catching my breath on a rock here’s what I had to say:

“I was sure I could detect the faint taste of blood from breathing so darned hard but it was a real nice change from doing endurance events and great to see that it was so well supported. Despite the freezing temperatures most folks hung around for the presentations, which was only right and proper, as the organisers had gone to a lot of trouble to have a proper podium and trophies for the top three in every category. The course was top fun and a decent length, marshals cheery and the general atmosphere very welcoming to all abilities so all in all pretty amazing value for money really. Well worth supporting if you are in this neck of the woods.”

So there you have it. First outing of the season and from now on events are coming up thick and fast so stay tuned to hear how it’s going. Happy riding x

(aka Roc Fencing Wyre Forest 8)

Next stop in our quasi off season was the local Wyre Forest off road 8(ish) miler and because I had discovered somewhere in the small print that if you finished you would get chocolate I had decided that I would give it a go and join Mr M on the start line. I duly sent off my entry and back came number 86 so that said to me that my target should be to try and finish in less than 86 minutes.

In anticipation that it may actually be warm enough for bare legs, I went over to see Jo and Heather a week or so ago to hunt out that mystical pair of running shorts that would not make me look like a woolly mammoth. Not unexpectedly, running shorts are usually designed to suit folks that run and it seems quite difficult to get the right fit if you are rather strapping of thigh like many cyclists (including me) tend to be. After much girlie faffing and trying on by me, Heather very patiently helped to find my perfect match - the Pearl Izumi Splices.









The weather for race day turned out to be gorgeous and the whole event itself was extremely well organised by local club Amazingfeet.

In my heyday I was a not-too-shabby club runner and although my heyday is now getting on for a couple of decades and almost a stone lighter ago, I do clearly remember the pain of going through the first mile marker way too fast.

Restraint early on was clearly the order of the day as looking at the course map it indicated the first two miles or so were more or less downhill followed by two miles or so of VERY muddy bridleway, then another couple of miles of up and down and finally about two miles uphill to the finish. So that’s all that stood between my finishers goody bag and me. Mmmmm.

The downhill start was taken nice and steady and the muddy section we were warned about at the start turned out not to be that gruesome and once I got to the water station at around half way I was feeling not too bad. I’ve no idea how you’re actually meant to drink out of those little cups full of water whilst actually running, I must have lost half of it down my shorts.



Next was the mostly uphill half - I had done the long climb to the finish many times on my bike so pretty much knew what to expect - pacing is key unless you want to die a horrible death. In the end it was not quite as painful as I was expecting (maybe as I found a totally new dimension of pain from my MTB race season last year!!) and as a bonus I also managed to finish 13 minutes inside my pre-race target.

Waiting at the finish was my beloved Mr M poised to take the always-unflattering post-race drool-faced photo (see above). I placed an unexpected 4th in the F45 category whilst he’d had a rather great day in the office scooping 7th overall, the M40 trophy and men’s team trophy!

Next stop is back on the bike at Coed-y-Brenin for the Welsh XC Series this weekend. After two years of endurance only racing it will be my first short course XC race since 2005 and I’ve got a sneaky feeling that it’s going to hurt….

As you will probably remember from my earlier weblog piece, in addition to guided holidays in the Pyrenees, AQR regularly offer a range of mountain bike Technique & Skills sessions at Sherwood Pines and due to popular demand from lots of us girls Kate and Ian Potter are offering a day that has a Ladies mountain biking theme to it but where their partners can easily tag along too.

Why not get the year off to a good start and learn some stuff that will stand you in good stead for many biking years to come. Don’t worry about what level you are currently at as there will be groups that will cater for both novice and more experienced riders and all will be welcome.

Key info is set out below but if you need any further details or a booking form then please contact kate@aquickrelease.com and she’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Allow a little extra time for a reply at the moment though as she’s currently still in Australia….

SUPPORTED BY - Sherwood Pines Forestry Commission
A Quick Release Holidays
Cotic Bikes
TREK WSD
Bontrager Wheelworks and Components.
DATE – 1st March
VENUE – Sherwood Pines Visitors Centre
COST - £35 per person or £50 per couple.

Just to give you a bit more an idea of what’s involved, here are some further details direct from Kate…………

“WHY?
As a female biker who only discovered mountain biking through my partner, Ian Potter, I want to encourage more women out there to try mountain biking. Mountain biking has allowed me to see parts of the UK and the rest of the world that I may never have experienced otherwise. I have made new friends, gained confidence and improved fitness in a natural environment rather than a gym or indoor sports hall. Plus it has meant quality time with my husband as I try in vain to rip his legs off down our favourite piece of single track....but more importantly mountain biking is just so much fun.

Now I know there are more and more women participating in mountain biking today then ever before. However there are still many women out there who don’t know what they’re missing out on. Then there are more experienced lady riders who simply don’t know where or how they can advance their skills and understanding of how their bike works. Furthermore there are a lot of women who have contacted AQR who would just like to meet other ladies involved in the sport.

THE EVENT
AQR are running a day of mountain biking for women that will involve technical skills coaching, trail side mechanical workshops and bike set up. Cotic and Trek WSD bikes will also be available to test ride around Sherwood Pines with COTIC and TREK staff to assist you on the day.

Partners and male friends will also be catered for on the day. This can be particularly helpful for newcomers to the sport who would like to go out riding with their partners, but who don’t have the confidence to do so in case they are left behind. AQR will pass on helpful tips on how experienced riders can encourage their partners to improve their mountain biking when out riding together. Plus ladies will also meet other like-minded women who share a love for mountain biking and discovering more of the great outdoors

AQR will cater for all ability levels with the option of beginner and advanced workshops and guided loops throughout the day. Ladies new to mountain biking will be able to learn basic technique and bike handling skills, while more experienced riders can move on to more advanced skills and trail craft.

MOUNTAIN BIKE PHOTOGRAPHY
As an extra option Joolze Dymond (check out www.joolzedymond.com) will be offering a mountain bike photography workshop on the day. If you fancy learning more about mountain bike photography then this is an opportunity to learn some tricks from the trade. There are only 8 places available, with the choice of a full day or half-day workshop.”

Hopefully we’ll see you there!

USEFUL LINKS:
A Quick Release Holidays www.aquickrelease.com
Cotic Bikes www.cotic.co.uk
Trek WSD www.trekbikes.com/uk/en/bikes/2008/women
Bontrager Wheelworks & Components www.bontrager.com

So here we are then, January in the glorious Mudlands. The superb frosty weather we had a while ago is now a long distant memory and the grumpy weather gods continue conspiring to produce what seems like an endless string of barely light days.

January is my least favourite weather-wise so it feels rather like a poke in the eye with no endless hot, dry and dusty summer to look fondly back on to help you make it through the gloom to Spring!

Fortunately January is also the time when it gets rather exciting as the MTB event calendar is more or less out there and you can start feverishly signing on the dotted line for whatever blows your skirt up. In addition to some old favourites I’m going to have a go at some new stuff but before I piffle on about that here’s a random collection of what I’ve been up to lately.

XC without wheels
Our particular festive season was dotted with a few coughs and snuffles, lots of scrummy food and a healthy dose of our favourite monk’s nectar. 2008 sort of crept in without me really noticing and all of a sudden I was also another year older.

Now I've not done a running race for, well, probably a decade and a half (eek!), so although I’ve been dabbling in a bit of cross training I really don't know what on earth possessed me to agree to turn up and run in the County XC Champs the very first weekend of January.

So there I was, freezing on the start line in what felt like my underwear staring at my lily white cycling legs and counting my goose bumps to take my mind off the inevitable pain to come. It was all suddenly seeming like a very bad idea but before I could say, “Where’s my bike?” off went the gun and it was way too late for me to wimp out. Off I trotted around the muddy course in a sort of mass-in-motion fashion - for Lord of the Rings fans out there it was definitely Gimli-style (but without the beard) rather than Legolas - and when I finally plopped over the line I had clearly scraped out parts of my lungs that haven't been used for while. Well that’s gotten one new experience under my belt for 2008 already!

Santiago; Sheep of Destiny

Oh yes, during the festive season came the unexpected arrival of new race mascot Santiago and over the coming months you will probably be subjected to seeing a unique sheep’s eye view of the 2008 race season rather than just listen to me rattle on about it.

With access all areas expect a brutal appraisal of the various highs and lows of our efforts at the races and maybe also enjoy a keen insight into exactly how much slacking (red wine drinking and chocolate eating) might actually go on behind the scenes. Anyhow, the woolly S will be on location 24/7 and telling it like it happens so you can read it here first.

Well with January almost done and some start numbers in the bag I’m finally feeling that the worst of the winter is behind me (kiss of death, famous last words etc). I can’t really say with any honesty that I’ve been truly loving getting outside on the bike this last month and as a consequence I had to endure an excruciating visit to Helga’s House of Pain (aka the Physio) where I had a bit of a ticking off by Neill for spending way too much time at the movies on my trainer. Ok, I am not ashamed to admit it, I become VERY bored VERY quickly having to do all my riding (and running for that matter) on pieces of tarmac and concrete but after this nice little introduction to the joys of RSI for legs (another new experience) I guess it’s time to go find somewhere rocky…….

TTFN

Before I go here’s a lovely shot by Mr M to prove that there is still the odd gorgeous sunset to be seen over West Malvern - even in the depths of January.

I am off now to pop the kettle on and continue pawing over the events calendar, as whatever sort of event takes your fancy there is certainly plenty to choose from!!

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed the sudden appearance of a cheeky little link on the left to AQR and are wondering what’s going on. Of course the avid weblog readers amongst you might recall that I donned AQR colours for night-time adventures at the recent Dusk ‘til Dawn 12hr and the huge excitement for 2008 is that in addition to being lucky enough to have the continuing and amazing support of my friends at girlsruntoo, both myself and Mr M will be part of a newly formed AQR Race Team under the direction of skills guru and guide extraordinaire Ian Potter and elite MTB endurance and XC racer Kate aka Mrs Potter.

AQR have just in fact been nominated for the prestigious Singletrack Reader Awards 2007 under the Best Holiday Experience category and offer a superb array of skills coaching and holiday options so hop on the link and have a good look around to see what takes your fancy. The lovely Joolze has also been nominated under Best Photographer category (you’ve seen lots of her cool photos already on this weblog) so I for one will be getting Singletrack issue 39 and casting my votes!
In my opinion the all-ability skills sessions offered by AQR are worth their weight in gold. We went up to Sherwood Pines a couple of times recently and had a brilliant time being taught the mysterious arts of cornering, manuals and bunny hops by trail gurus Ian, Kate, Jon and Paul. Well maybe my bunny hop was more like an ant hop but at least it gave everyone a good case of hysterics with my rather excessive rear wheel lift!!

Seriously though, whatever level you are at there is a whole bunch of stuff you can learn that will help you ride faster and in fact it is sometimes better if you are able to learn this stuff at the outset of your riding exploits as then you don’t have any bad habits to unlearn!!

You see in this shot here I’m now going sooooo fast that Mr M almost missed me!!

Of particular interest to us girlies in 2008 is the all-ability ladies day scheduled for 1st March (our men folk are also most welcome as there will be two groups) when you can hang out and learn all those things you might have been afraid to ask in a welcoming social environment. It is bound to be great fun and Kate is just in the process of finalising all the surprises in store so if you fancy coming along then keep an eye on the AQR site for how to book - of course Jo doesn’t actually know this yet but I will be trying to talk her into coming along and keeping me company 

This brings me nicely on to what will be the noble steeds of choice for the AQR Race Team which as you’ve probably guessed from the logo are Cy’s super sexy cycles Cotic. If you haven’t been lucky enough to catch one up close yet and are wondering what all the fuss is about then pencil 2nd March in your diary for the COTIC BIG DAY OUT where you can see them and try them so again, keep an eye on the AQR website for details. I will also be posting up some photos of my sexy new Soda on the weblog when the frame arrives in the New Year - I can’t wait to put my lucky gold Chris King headset back into active service 

The team will also be fuelled by TORQ energy products and I have to say that I am starting to go a bit cold turkey when I don’t get my daily dose of banana and mango recovery drink - it’s almost worth four or five hours on the turbo trainer to be able to have an extra big double helping although I think that my butt might actually beg to differ!!

Here for your amusement is a rather bizarre shot by Mr M of yours truly on the trainer watching movies in the comfort of our kitchen. I never really enjoyed resorting to the trainer but this year my inner hamster appears to be gradually taking me over……..

Anyhow, if you need to keep those legs either spinning or running then it’s worth checking the Torq stuff out as they do a great range of natural tasting flavours in drinks, bars and gels so there is bound to be something in there you might like (still waiting for someone to bring out marmite flavour though) or if you don’t really dig flavours (which I quite often don’t at 3am in the morning in a 24hr race) then there is of course the trusty no-taste neutral.

So that’s it for my piece of exciting news. I’ll of course keep you posted on the full team story as it unfolds over the winter and all that’s left is to wish you all:

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Catch up with you all again soon in 2008 when by then I hope you will have all pencilled in your forthcoming adventures for the year and I can also share with you mine…..

Now THIS is what I call Tadasana….

I’m waiting for the early morning fog to clear before layering up for another chilling to the bone on my bike and I couldn’t help but think wistfully back to one of the best parts of the year which had my very favourite ingredients of Mr M, huge snow capped mountains coupled with some gorgeous weather. This shot by Mr M (I’m the little dot at the bottom) just about sums up my dream day’s riding in Toblerone country…..

Scanning around the web reading my favourite blogs I noticed that this is also the time of year when the MTB racing crowd kicks back a little and reflects on what a glorious or disastrous year they had so here follows my (albeit a little late) effort at a retrospective on my particular year that I guess, on balance, was a mixture of both……..

The before
Around this time last year I could be caught happily clutching a pint of beer at the Real Ale Wobble in blissful ignorance of what pain and suffering was to come.

After several 24hr races as part of teams I did my first 24hr solo attempt last year and absolutely loved it. It’s a very different experience to riding on a team and although I got through this first one pretty well (probably mostly on sheer adrenalin) there were obviously lots more weird and wonderful things to learn about this ultra-endurance malarkey.

So that’s pretty much how it happened really, I thought why not do all of the big three 24hr solos in 2007 and accelerate my learning curve - sort of a crash course but hopefully without the actual crashes.









The During
By the start of the season proper I had been lucky enough to meet up with top gals Jo and Heather at girlsruntoo. I’m sure they actually thought I was quite mad at the time but Jo threw caution to the wind in deciding to support me in my efforts and she has been tireless in coming up with brilliant clothing solutions to all the crazy situations that I found myself in – just ask her sometime how wet she has ever seen a base layer!!!!!

Before the 24hr challenge there were some marathon and 6hr races and these certainly had a few ups and downs of their own including the high of seeing the smiles on Jo and Heather’s faces after nailing the ladies day at Catton and the low of bailing Mr M out of hospital from a suspected femur fracture after the Sherwood marathon.

So what about the big trio then? Well apart from lots of time spent contemplating the reflectivity of Mavic Crossmax wheels and of course the constant support of the long suffering Mr M, there were so many highs and lows that it’s difficult to squash the list down so it won’t totally bore you to death.

It was certainly a huge learning experience and has given me plenty to think about as the winter season approaches but I’ll give a short wrap up a little go though so here are some key memories…..

First there was Giant/T-Mobile’s Mountain Mayhem (mud, rain, white tops, Jo in a dog blanket, tassels and custard) then there was Bontrager’s Twentyfour12 (glorious sunset, more mud, more rain, Jo’s boiled potatoes, slippery roots, Neill’s dedicated pit support, making the podium and getting on TV) and finally there was Kona’s Sleepless in the Saddle (really sore hands, sunburn, my only puncture all season, red wine, shaking Pat’s hand at the finish and the shock of being presented with a new USE Joystick - from Rory himself – for completing my epic trio and not dying in the process).



The after
It’s only since I’ve had a little break from the bike that I’ve come to realise just how spent I really was at the end of the season. I suppose somewhere along the line I reached the point where I was so used to riding with tired legs that I actually forgot what it’s like to have one of those rides where you burst out of the box like a coiled spring ready to maul. Thankfully I’m now starting to enjoy what that feels like!

Well that’s pretty much it for the MTB retrospective so I’ll leave you with another of Mr M’s fab shots of me pondering the November sunset from the top of Malvern in my new favourite winter essential the Gore Alpine jacket - it really is a revelation how little you need to wear under this jacket and still stay warm! Check back again soon to see what I’m getting up to in the off-season and what I’m looking at doing next year. I’m rather hoping that the next few weeks will include some adventures on two feet instead of two wheels as we all know that cleaning muddy shoes takes a lot less time than stripping down your beloved mud caked steed 

This is so cool I’ve just got to sneak it in to start with – poster boy Mr M spotted in glorious Technicolor in the changeover area! Nice one Joolze.

Anyhow, back to the beginning. After clocking up over 100 hours of racing already this season I was rather pleased to be this time riding as part of a trio for Kate & Ian Potter’s A Quick Release Holidays comprising myself, Mr M and jolly nice chap James.

We had plenty of time to set up camp and fit in a super-fun daylight ride around the almost twelve mile course before the atmospheric dusk descended and the temperatures started to fall. I was volunteered to do the slightly longer first lap melee – apparently as my bones don’t break very easily - so I togged myself up a few layers and lurked around the rear of the start pack in true soloist fashion (hard habit to break!).




Here’s a great shot by Mr M of the arena lights circling through the trees – it was a rather surreal experience, something akin to being in the front row at a Deep Purple concert (Oops! Showing my age!).

Rather conscious of the fact that I probably wasn’t in possession of the required zip in my pace for shorter distances I did my best to try and zoom round my first lap. It did feel to me a bit like zooming although in reality I guess this is clearly a relative perception! Anyhow it wasn’t too shameful and it was great fun to have the excitement of the changeover to James and handover from Mr M and also having the chance to be part of the never-sleeping camp scene in between laps that of course I don’t normally get the chance to enjoy when chugging round solo.

We were all enjoying pretty consistent laps with nice smooth handovers and after a steady start (courtesy of yours truly!) we were rather pleased to be gradually making not too shabby progress up the leader board. At around the halfway point the low cloud decided to clear and opened up a fantastic vista of starry skies although unfortunately the price you pay for this is what felt like nigh-on freezing temperatures and in between laps I was wearing almost every item of dry clothing I could find in the van!

There really isn’t anywhere else that I have ridden so far that is (and gives you backache) like Thetford and I particularly love riding here in the dark as with a bit of imagination (OK for me maybe ALOT of imagination) you can rail through the trail just like Rossi.



The tight twisty single-track here is also somewhere that you DEFINITELY need a light on your helmet and I was lucky enough to be able to run the hot-off-the-press USE Exposure Lights Joystick Maxx. I’ve had the original race bar light and joystick for a while now but boy does this baby take it to a new level.

I only ran it on the ride setting (in theory 10 hours run time) but it was certainly well bright enough for this course and a very noticeable improvement on the original.

Dawn finally came around and with it, thankfully, some slightly warmer temperatures as by this time I had actually run out of dry clothes. Blimey I can’t believe I’ve actually written that, surely no self-respecting girlie EVER runs out of clothes!!! In the end we had stealthily crept up a few places during the night and James did a storming final lap to bring us home in a creditable 5th spot in mixed overall and 3rd spot in the trios.

This originally quite cult fringe event has now gotten so big that it’s attended by most of the racing big-hitters and sold out early but it fortunately still manages to retain its fun, folksy atmosphere and most importantly it still hasn’t actually rained on race night!

It was such an enjoyable end to my longest season so far but now it’s all over I have very mixed emotions. Racing friends that I probably won’t see much of again until next year and the rather yucky prospect of starting winter training when we haven’t actually even had a summer. Anyhow, at least I have a bit of a break now before I have to start worrying about digging out my winter booties.

Time for reading, time for thinking and hopefully time for Fish ‘n’ Chips by the sea……..

The cuts and bruises had only just about gone from my last visit to Coed-Y-Brenin so it was not wholly unexpected that I was more than a tad nervous waiting on the start line in the pouring rain for the final round of the National Marathon Series which for added eek factor also doubled up as the National Marathon Championships.

CYB is of course well famous for its tough climbs and gnarly man-made technical riding loops and with my riding this past year focussed on going long, time spent honing my not-that-spectacular technical skills was rather less than I somehow felt it needed to be at this exact moment!

Having got to the start line already soaked and grubby with about thirty seconds to spare I thankfully didn’t have too much time to ponder this and before I knew it we were off – well sort of - and into the bottleneck at the entry to the first single-track climb.

I was at the back of the pack anyway so hopped off and ran until it thinned out enough to get a clear run. Then basically it rained and I pedalled and I pedalled and it rained. It reached the point where I thought it just wasn’t possible to get any wetter or for the grit to get in any more places (!) and as you know I haven’t exactly had a run of dry races this year!! There were cheery faces and cheery words in the feed zone and also the climb up to it (thanks guys and gals!) but mostly they were just gazing at the mud-splattered riders as if they were all totally mad. Of course everybody knows that we are actually the totally sane ones and it’s the rest of the world that is quite mad…..

My good ol’ skins top was doing its best and just about kept me above shut down temperature and I’m still amazed that my PI gloves perform faultlessly even when caked in mud and still manage to come up almost as good as new. Unfortunately I think I might have killed by PI butterfly socks this time but luckily they are mostly black so hopefully they will live to fight another day!

The laps ticked on and on and six or so hours later I safely arrived at the finish with no mechanical problems to speak of and in one unbroken piece, well apart from that rather painful crutch/headset incident when I forgot I’d had new brake pads! I was sooooo glad that this time my category race distance had been set at six laps as in the end only five of the veteran men actually posted more laps than this!
So was the course as terrifying as I was expecting? Well in a nutshell, no. Yes it was very challenging, there were hard climbs and lots of places where bits of rock were just waiting to shred your tyre, grab your wheel and/or face- plant you into the deck but it was such a fun rollercoaster of a course – the one I dreaded most but in the end turned out to be one of my favourites of the year.







So I guess that’s the National Marathon Series in the back of the net for another season and as I successfully retained my veteran title I’m of course dead chuffed with how it’s panned out.

Just one more MTB event to go and for a change I’m part of a team for the super-fun twelve-hour night race at Thetford - Dusk ‘til Dawn. Even if it’s not raining there the overnight “moistness” of this forest can chill you to the bone when hanging about between laps so this will be the ideal opportunity to try out some of my latest gear including a fabulous pink Odlo evolution warm zip neck base layer and Gore’s Alpine jacket in a yes-I-know-it’s-not-practical-but-I-love-it shade of bluebell.

Then it will be just about time for a bit of a rest and then probably a bit of a change so watch this space and see what adventures are coming up next…..

Catch up again soon!

NEXT RACE REPORT:
Dusk 'til Dawn at Thetford Forest 6-7th October

Once the euphoria of SITS had worn off I freely admit to feeling spannered. I’ve therefore been taking a few weeks of R&R to indulge in a bit of intensive recovery and just do whatever takes my fancy.

To sign off on the 24hour stuff for this season though here’s one of my favourite shots taken by Mr M of dawn over the solo tent at SITS. Sweet memories.

Here now are a few random snippets of what I’ve been up to since the triple biking epic - the rather pudgy bit around my middle might indicate that I’ve been doing rather too much recovering of late though and maybe I need to get off my butt sometime soon 

Little green courgette….

OK so maybe it's not very exciting for everyone but this is the first courgette I have grown - EVER.

Following the photo shoot it is sat in the fridge but I'm really not sure whether I have the heart to hack it into pieces and eat it just yet.....

Run Charlie Run

I’ve done virtually no running since before Mayhem and venturing out again was not surprisingly a bit of a challenge as although my lungs are saying “yay let’s go!” my legs are saying “noooooooo!” It was great though just to slip on my running shoes and pootle off down the lane and across the footpaths – very pure sport - nothing mechanical to worry about. Just need to decide now with Jo which distances we are going to go for in the upcoming Forest of Dean Winter Trail runs (and of course what really cool outfits to wear!). I can feel a shopping spree coming on…

Up a mountain (down a beer)

In advance of the last Trek National Marathon coming up we took a trip up to Coed-y-Brenin to check out what had happened there since the new centre has been built and wow it was pretty impressive. As well as what seemed to be a greatly improved network of MTB trails for all abilities, the new eco-friendly centre also actually served decent food and drinks and the bike-friendly facilities were superb. With trail runs and walks as well as the MTB trails it’s definitely worth spending some time there if you like anything outdoorsy.

We rode what are now called the Tawr and MBR trails which were pretty challenging (for me anyhow ) and driving back I was pondering what carnage there might be later this month as the marathon course is rumoured to include the Tarw trail - well I just hope that they have plenty of Savlon on tap!!!

Anyhow, that’s pretty much it for now as the final marathon is now looming large and with a bit of luck I will be looking back this time next week (hopefully still in one piece) and feeling pretty pleased with how this season’s efforts have gone. Oh yes and there is then of course a bit of end of season fun with Dusk til Dawn, a twelve-hour night race in Thetford forest but more about that later…….

Well my main challenge for 2007 is finally over and I successfully completed my third 24hour solo in eight weeks at the weekend. Hoorah! Living proof that even at my shonky age you can set yourself an exciting target and get a real buzz from achieving a goal you can be really proud of....

You gals out there who haven’t yet taken to the dirt can sit down right now and pencil in something for 2008 that sparks your interest. I’m already pencilling in possible stuff for the long winter months and hopefully I’ve persuaded Jo and a few other friends to come join me over the winter for a go at some trail running and other off road adventures! And as for my 2008 MTB challenges well you’ll just have to wait and see……

Back for now to the fantastic SITS experience where we were finally blessed with some decent weather but even that had its price as the fun but bumpy course battered your body and keeping hydrated in the heat was a real challenge that proved too much for some. Having raced at the six-hour solo in April I was pleasantly surprised how “different but the same” the course felt - there were enough changes and new bits to make it feel fresh but the very best bits were still there!

Fellow Climb-On rider, Pro-Velo gal and singlespeed rocket Sara was also going for it solo and Mr M selflessly gave up the weekend and took on his alter-ego pit persona Ocsar the Grouch to look after us - he even had a last minute and very welcome sub pit crew of EvilGordon, B (Mrs EvilGordon) and Harold the dog.

My hands were still real sore from the previous races so my bike was decked out like Mr Bump with some snazzy road bar tape to try and get me through this last one. It worked fine but looked a bit strange!

Sara and I lined up together in the start funnel wondering if we had applied enough Factor 30 sun cream to get us through till dusk and before we knew it we were off and running round the start loop before heading back to the start for the usual game of hunt the bike.
I think my first eight hours or so went pretty well apart from the fact that my front tyre decided to wait until it was just fully dark before it picked up a monster thorn. I was being systematically eaten alive by midges whilst I changed tubes and wrestled with my pump (thanks everso to the nice man from Berties who kindly stopped to lend me his pump when I had a mental block with mine!) but I was pretty soon up and running again and thankfully this was the only mechanical issue I had for the whole race.






Whilst the pit crew was enjoying a selection of scrummy nutritional options, in the next few hours I hit my usual sickie patch (this is the really glamorous part – not!) and I had to take longer breaks and go slower as I simply could not keep enough food down to keep me going as fast as I’d like.

In the past when I’ve done 24hour racing on a team I used to dread riding the night laps but I’ve really grown to love it although when it started to rain in the early hours and riders were going down like skittles on the greasy grass my enthusiasm did wane just a little!












One essential item to have to enjoy the night regardless of your favourite main lights is the super dinky USE Joystick helmet light (this really is unbiased opinion as myself and Mr M bought these when they first came out). They are invaluable for nighttime single-track when your bar light is waiting to catch up on tight turns and of course they are great for trailside repairs, looking at your watch, midnight toilet stops, impromptu “I-am-a-Dalek” impersonations and other general camping duties.

The rain thankfully died out after a few hours and was replaced by a rather dewy dawn - the end was almost in sight (well only about eight hours to go anyway!).

By this time the pointy end of the women’s solo race had seen some scary drama with leader Sally Bigham whisked off in an ambulance so I was focussing on trying to keep eating and drinking as I didn’t particularly want to suddenly drop dead having got this close to my third finish.

Laps were steadily trundling by and it was soon time to shed my nighttime layers as the sun was back out and the temperature steadily rising. This is a really nice point of the race when the arena comes fully alive again, the music and banter is in full swing and once I change into that final outfit I really know that unless I have a stack and lose a limb I’m going to be able to make it.

Through bleary eyes I spotted Jo and Gwen (complete with sugar bombs) and it was fantastic to have them there to see me finish. By now pretty much everything was hurting and I could hardly even move once I was perched on my bike but I was enjoying the chilled out atmosphere that there always seems to be at this event and looking forward to that wonderful moment when you see Pat waiting under the finish banner to shake your hand.

I confess that I did indulge in a little bit of gratuitous lurking so that I didn’t have to go out for lap 20 but I was very happy with 19 laps and in the end it wouldn’t have made any difference to my 6th place which I was well chuffed with considering what was already in my legs.

MASSIVE thanks to my great little band of long suffering pit supporters (especially Mr M who gets to put up with me the whole year and therefore deserves a medal) and also to all those friends and people I don’t even know yet who kindly spared a valuable breath and cheered me on.

Would I do it again? Well I don’t really feel the need to do three solos in quick succession again but I will definitely be found at one or two in 2008 as the overall experience and challenge of these events is one that I really enjoy. I learned many things of course but most of all you find out what’s really lurking deep down inside you both physically and mentally.

[This is the part where you need to read whilst humming the tune to Top Gun]

Even when I felt what I thought was the crappiest I have ever felt I found that I could in fact feel even crappier and still be able to carry on and complete the task in hand. It just goes to show that to get a whole heap of personal satisfaction you don’t necessarily need to possess Olympic type fitness nor even trials standard technical skills - mind over matter will take you a long way on any journey you care to set for yourself. Whatever your ability just set yourself a target and give it a go – I guarantee you will probably surprise yourself!

[OK you can stop humming now!]

Oh yes, and what were a few of my favourite things?

o Skins recovery tights – I live in mine virtually non-stop when I’m not riding, they do wonders for aching legs
o Assos cream – worth the extra money if you want your sitbits to survive.
o Odlo X-warm long sleeve – I never thought I’d wear a winter base layer so much in an English summer!
o Buffs – you can never have too many
o Concurve windstopper singlet – brilliant for taking the nighttime chill off without being bulky - a steal on the GR2 site – spend your £10 now!
o Nivea face wipes – when everywhere smells like a sweaty dumptruck a quick wipe with these can make you feel like Kate Moss
o My Nalini tops – functional stuff that’s so cute just wearing it makes you smile

Well that’s it for now; I’m off for a bit more R&R that will probably involve beer and most likely several of Jo’s sugar bombs…….

NEXT RACE REPORT:

National Marathon Series Finals at Coed-Y-Brenin on 23rd September

Next stop on 11th/12th August is my third (and final!) 24hour solo for this year - Sleepless in the Saddle at Catton Park. I feel pretty smashed up after the Twentyfour12 with various shades of black and blue appearing pretty much on a daily basis......

Next stop on 11th/12th August is my third (and final!) 24hour solo for this year - Sleepless in the Saddle at Catton Park. I feel pretty smashed up after the Twentyfour12 with various shades of black and blue appearing pretty much on a daily basis – my hands also currently need mechanical help to get lids off jars. Ouch. Good job that beer doesn’t come in jars. Attempting three 24hour races in such short succession means that I’m more or less reduced to recovery mode between each one and whilst I did think that lots of resting would be a total piece of cake for the sloth in me it hasn’t really panned out like that - not riding when I’d like to just doesn’t make my head feel a very good place to be!!

Rain stopped play….

Although I was still pooped for riding purposes, we had planned to travel down to Newnham Park for the next round of the National marathon series so that Mr Miles could strut his stuff and hopefully pick up some better series points than the crash strewn round at Sherwood.

With hindsight we should probably have better spent our time building ourselves an ark as the biblical floods that descended on our area meant that we didn’t manage to get down to the race. Things could have been so much worse as friends also trying to get there actually spent the whole night on the M5!

This is a shot of Worcester racecourse a week after the deluge when the water levels had actually gone right down! We were a bit stranded for a few days but we were unscathed relative to the terrible damage done to huge swathes of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire and even as I write now the massive clean up goes on and on. I think the planet is maybe telling us that enough is enough.

Scully goes racing

To make up for missing Newnham we decided at the last minute to pitch up at the newly launched Midlands XC at Cannock so that Mr Miles could “go short” and dip his toe in his first XC format race of 2007. The weather was fabulous and the testing course and unexpected heat wave was clearly giving everyone a real challenge to make the journey worthwhile.

I had pit babe duties (which was actually more nerve wracking than riding) but it was nice to have the chance to cheer everyone on and also catch up on the latest gossip with friends.

The weather forecast is (so far!) looking not too bad so if you fancy a nice laid back festival atmosphere and are not already riding or supporting then do pop along to SITS (www.konasits.co.uk) and soak up the unique atmosphere of this great event. Mr Miles will be there as my pit babe and Jo is hopefully there on Sunday with emergency sugar bombs so feel free to come and heckle as I battle to try and get my failing body parts to the finish line!

It was around 3am on Saturday morning and the rain was still lashing down with the sound of frantically flapping soggy canvas echoing around the solo camping area. It was clear that even though the walk around the course on Friday afternoon looked rather promising, the subsequent weather would make the already tough course even tougher. I pulled my magic bobble hat down even further over my ears and tried to pretend that maybe when I woke up we would have a heat wave.

We were fortunate enough to be able to try things a little differently this time as Mr Miles was racing in a mixed four and would have even less time to keep an eye on me than he did at Mayhem. My massive lucky break this time was that Neil (our good friend and knowledgeable guru of all things sporting and outdoors) and also Jo (minus shop and heavily armed with sugar bombs and other scrummy edibles) both happened to be free from Saturday evening and despite the gruesome weather forecast they had volunteered to come and help. A very HUGE thanks to you both!

The weather on race morning was much improved although the damage to the course had already been done and the first few laps were a bit of a hard slog until the multitude of wheels had succeeded in packing the course down to something a little more fun.




I was planning to be eating a lot more from the off but as usual my plans didn’t quite turn into reality and when Neil arrived there was already a bit of catching up with the packing in of food to do. I was lapping pretty consistently at this point and felt reasonably within myself given that the course itself was personally very challenging as slippery off camber roots are not my favourite cup of tea (I’ll take a double massive snow capped mountain with extra climbs please!).

The hours ticked by and Neil kept a watchful eye on what I was up to whilst Mr Miles had the not too joyous task of trying to keep the bikes clean in between his racing duties. Jo arrived later in the evening armed with lots of new food choices including freshly boiled homegrown potatoes, which were gorgeous. Note to self - remember to remove potato skins in case they make sudden reappearance like this time!










The high point of the evening for me was the glorious sunset, which just seemed to go on and on forever. This was however followed by the not so glorious hours of darkness and the return of the rainfall to produce ever-decaying course conditions and a serious reduction in enjoyment! The 12hour riders just about escaped the return of the mud fest (top ride Jenn!) and the course had now became rather deserted (minus the desert!!).

There now followed some real comedy moments when on consecutive laps I took two rather painful flights over the handlebars when my front wheel was so packed with mud it had less grip than my turbo training tyre. The next lap produced the icing on the cake when I fell completely asleep whilst riding and smacked straight into a tree! Needless to say at my next pit stop there was a request for emergency caffeine before I knocked myself (or someone else!) out cold!









Daybreak normally gives a bit of an emotional lift but on this occasion the weather was dampening everything, including riders’ spirits. It was bizarre how much the birds were singing their heads off though, clearly oblivious to all the suffering going on below them!

I had slipped down the running order during the night and off a podium spot but I was now getting over my sick phase and being able to keep food down so I was starting to feel much better and picked up my pace. Sneaking back on to the podium was starting to look within grasp and it was time to dig deep. Digging deep this particular time was literal as well as emotional with mud packed wheels just ceasing to go round making the task in hand even harder than usual (think disc wheels by the Flintstones).

The finish of the twentfour12 (in coincidentally twenty-four hours and twelve minutes) was very emotional for me. Mayhem was gruelling and tough to finish in the weather conditions (and a completely different experience to the previous year) but when you attempt three of anything then the middle one is always going to the hardest.









I learnt a lot from this one, I was able to ride very strong at the end even though the course conditions were getting worse and as a bonus I successfully sneaked back onto the podium! Hoorah! It was certainly a very surreal experience being interviewed the moment I finished by the lovely Countryfile TV crew – I just hope that I managed to string together some sensible words!!

Thanks to all those cheery souls with huge smiles that gave me so much encouragement throughout the event (you know who you are) and an especially MASSIVE thanks again to Neil and Jo who gave up a nights sleep to make such a huge difference to this particular 24hour experience and of course always to the long suffering Mr Miles who with his team stormed to top spot in the mixed team category. Nice one babe.

Well I’m off now for some more recovery (beers) - there is a great report on the whole event and links to a kerbillion of fabulous photos from Joolze and Mr Joolze (aka Dave) on www.britishcycling.org.uk and also on www.joolzedymond.com so take a look and pencil something dirty in your diary right now!






NEXT RACE REPORT:

The final piece of my 2007 endurance challenge is my third 24hour solo effort at Kona’s Sleepless in the Saddle on 11th/12th August 2007 to be held at Catton Park. Jo has become an addict to the adrenalin of lurking as pit crew so she will be joining Mr Miles for the home stretch on Sunday as he has decided to dedicate the whole 24hours to being able to tell me exactly what to do and me being too tired to argue back!

Hopefully we will see some of you there; you never know I may be able to fit my white tassels back on my bike and we may even need to buy sun cream!!! Let’s hope so.

All photos by Mr Miles and his trusty snapper (don’t ask).

Well it’s almost time for the second chunk of my three part 2007 challenge. I’m still picking mud out of various interesting places from Mayhem and my legs aren’t quite fully back to life yet but I’m really looking forward to the challenge of pitching up at Cotswold Farm Park and having another weekend of bike related fun.

24hours on a bike (again already)

Well it’s almost time for the second chunk of my three part 2007 challenge. I’m still picking mud out of various interesting places from Mayhem and my legs aren’t quite fully back to life yet but I’m really looking forward to the challenge of pitching up at Cotswold Farm Park and having another weekend of bike related fun.

The rather unseasonable weather we seem to be enjoying (not!) at the moment coupled with the terrain of this particular course means that, for me anyway, anything resembling semi-slicks will be staying at home - something with grip on roots, decent mud clearance and puncture resistance will be the order of the day methinks!



I’m not known for excelling at the housework thing and our house still resembles something akin to a garage extension with bike bits, clothes, lights and piles of food over most of the visible floor space. It somehow just didn’t seem worth packing it all away after Mayhem only to have to get it all out again (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it).



I’m also determined to ignore the weather forecast and I’m packing my favourite white top – can you believe it’s come up this clean after Mayhem?

And then there were three….

How about these? Jo’s secret formula power food disguised as harmless looking goodies. I’ve just had one of these for my mid-morning snack and they are soooooo scrummy - I reckon a whole tray of these would fuel you for 24hours no problem.

Go Tinks Go….

Mr Miles has also recently set about converting Heather to clipless pedals and fuelled by a few glasses of wine she bravely took on the challenge and whizzed around fine. Check back on Heather’s diary and I am sure she will be posting how she’s getting along before using them in anger at the London Tri.

That’s it for now folks as I’m off to do some more general sorting out, tyre changing and bike washing and hopefully later on a bit of resting with my feet up (one of my favourite parts of training!).

Do come along and check out the event if you happen to be in the Cotswolds this weekend as the setting is lovely, especially if the weather holds. Entries have now closed to the actual race but further details on what’s going on (including demos from Bionicon, Cotic and Santa Cruz and the UK launch of certain 2008 Trek and Gary Fisher models) can be found on www.twentyfour12.com.

Today I find that I am still alive and feeling pretty darned pleased at being one those brave souls that managed to stick it out to the finish line of the gruelling mudfest that was the 10th Anniversary Mountain Mayhem. A huge well done must go out to all those that got their very hard earned souvenir finisher medals.

24Hours of Muddy Mountain Mayhem (one down two to go)

In such a high quality open category women’s field it was exciting enough to even be part of the start sheet and just before the start I was contemplating again that little gem told to me last year by Rob Lee when attempting my first solo that your second one is usually your worst!! I was therefore secretly a little envious of those doing their first one as the sheer adrenalin of this life changing (a bit cliché I know) experience can certainly help get you through but I guess more than anything I was in total admiration of eventual top trio Jenn, Kate and Jenn who have done (and won) so many 24hour solos already - they must truly have that mind over matter thing nailed down.

Here for your amusement are a couple of atmospheric shots of the (relative) calm before the storm:

Firstly here’s me making that “I’m gonna feel good regardless” dress choice of favourite Nalini top in white (Gulp!) and not white (!) Sugoi RS shorts. These shorts may feel like super silky underwear and look potentially see-through on the hanger (don’t worry they’re not) but they easily stood up to the off-road abuse of the first eight-hour shift, were sooooo comfy and have come out of the wash as good as new.

Secondly here is that “only twenty-four hours to go” moment captured whilst packed like a sardine in the start funnel before the le-mans style run to find your bike. Oh yes, and it started to rain at around 1.58pm!!




So how did it go then? Well, it was all such a blur and a bit difficult to condense such an huge adventure down to something short enough where you won’t lose the will to live by the end of it but I’ll give it a shot…












In a nutshell the first eight-hour shift went fine stopping each lap for bottles and food and after changing over to mud tyres following a couple of speedway style laps, the course seemed to be riding pretty OK during this time. I’m a bit rubbish in the mud but with the right tyres it was mostly rideable even for me and I was optimistic that I could keep on going if this was as bad as it got so I popped in for a change of clothes into something warmer at around 10pm-ish and dragged my butt out for the horrible night shift. Blimey that Gore liquid shirt is well pink, even in the dark!

I think it was around 2am-ish when it started to rain again and by 4am-ish sections of the course resembled trying to ride your bike through peanut butter. I was soaked to the skin and cold through to the marrow and this wasn’t helped by the fact that I was also struggling to keep any food down. I just couldn’t stop shaking and luckily Mr M had just got back from his own muddy lap and he threw a load of clothes on top of me (whilst managing to take this lovely “leave me alone I’m dying” shot) and exchanged my soggy helmet and buff for the magic bobble hat that is usually only in service during mid-winter!!

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to the low point of my race. Having hit this point before (albeit a few hours earlier last time) it was not wholly unexpected and I knew that if I could just get warm and eat something I would be able to get back out so I just bided my time until I could stop shivering and feel hungry again. This process took a bit longer than I wanted but after a while I hauled myself into the warmest clothes I had (skins top was my saviour) and listened to the sound of the rain pattering on the van roof whilst downing a couple of pots of rice pudding and custard with a Pringles chaser.







It was now fully light and Jo was up and about looking toasty warm in an impromptu pink fleece number and had come over to see if I was still alive. I think she thought I looked dead but I felt that I might just about be alive so I duly set about churning it out to bag 14 laps in just over 25 hours and collect my finishers medal. I’m quite surprised I didn’t get trench foot such was the depth of the Somme-like muddy single-track by the end of the race.
That last stint just seemed to take forever and the course conditions were getting worse and worse. Lots of riders had clearly had enough by now but those that were still going were kindly taking the trouble to cheer on the weary soloists, which together with the equally worn out but still vocal spectators was really lifting and made me determined to keep going until the bitter end. Thanks especially to Jenn H who, at the pointy end of the race, took the time to give me a few words of encouragement and she was clearly really feeling the pain by then.





A very useful lesson learnt this time was that if you are lucky enough to have a dedicated “only for you” support crew of any kind then you should give them a big hug right now and not let them go. This is particularly true when the weather is not kind and I can easily see where this kind of support would make at least a few laps difference over a 24hour period.

Barely a week left before the first part of my (some may say slightly unhinged) attempt at completing three 24hour solo races in the space of eight weeks. The sheer magnitude of this challenge is looming somewhat large and at the moment I do feel a bit like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights but hey if you don’t try something that you think is impossible how do you really know how big your guns are?

So what’s all the fuss about then?

You often read in articles that it’s difficult to describe in words the sheer elation of a respectable finish in your first 24hour solo. Having been lucky enough to experience that exact thing for the first time last year, I agree that this view is right on the money. I can now understand why seasoned 24hour soloists endure these events for their Masters Degree in Pain Management so here I am signed up again too - back for another shot of agony and ecstasy.

Hydration for GR2 athletes

How about Heather and that brilliant vodka filled hydration pack idea then? I’m not sure it’ll translate well from Glastonbury to Eastnor though as with my particular style of riding (i.e. according to Mr Miles a bit like my school reports – “could do better”) I need to have all my wits about me so I’m going to have to the save the beer-fest until the finish line. I’ve already been stocking up the fridge in eager anticipation but I’m sure that Heather will kick my butt on this one as no doubt I’ll have one post-race beer and fall fast asleep!! 

A bad case of piles….

There are little piles of “stuff” all over the house at the moment as I gradually work down all the checklists of things I think I might need for the whole 24hours. I think there may even have been a blip in the National Grid as I charged up all the lights I could find.

Apart from the obvious things (like a bike and twice as much comfy riding gear as you think you might need), other essentials on my particular list include Guinness Marmite, various bum chafing creams (must remember not to get these mixed up in the middle of the night), bar tassels (with built in sense of humour), baby wipes (for the drooling that ensues when you are truly knackered to the core) and a fully loaded ipod shuffle to calm the nerves on the few days before (currently rammed with some old favourite therapeutic tunes from Clutch, Isis and Cult of Luna).
Well that’s pretty much all for now folks - I’m off for some intensive sessions of resting with my feet up.

Here’s hoping to having a great 10th Anniversary time at Eastnor with friends old and new and if you do happen to see me out on the course please say hello. Don’t forget also to call in and see Jo & the GR2 gang who’ll be doing an endurance event of their own by bringing the shop full of gorgeous girlie biking outfits to peruse whilst also delivering some fantastic encouragement to keep me going round and round!!

Hopefully we will all live through both Mayhem and Glastonbury and have some very interesting tales to tell (!) so check back soon and see how it all went……..

Last seen leaving Sherwood Pines in an ambulance!
We can report that Warren was not as badly injured as first thought, he was able to accompany Tracy to the Alps, where he took photographs of his socks!? Firstly his injured sock and then the beautifully titled "Skully in a Swiss Meadow" his Pearl Izumi Skully sock which was a gift from GR2.

On returning from the Alps Warren raced at Margam, placing 4th. Warrens next outing is in a team at Mountain Mayhem. We will keep you posted.

See Tracy’s reports from Margam and the Alps for stunning scenery and Tracy race updates.

Photo credit: Warren racing at Margam - Joolze Dymond
Photo credit: Socks - Warren Miles

After the Swiss Alps trip I was pretty uncertain what I would left in the tank to do a hilly marathon course race......

Trek National MTB Marathon Series: Round 3 at Margam Park
(a.k.a. running out of gas)

After the Swiss Alps trip I was pretty uncertain what I would left in the tank to do a hilly marathon course race only a week later and as the weather forecasters seemed certain there would be a deluge of rain I was pretty much consigning myself in advance to the fact that I would just make the best of it for series points and not get too hung up about trying to get out for the full four laps of the 100km race distance. I suffered badly with dehydration at this venue last year and forcing myself to slog it out for the full distance meant I was pretty wrecked for about 10 days afterwards so with my first 24hour solo effort of the year coming up in three weeks time I really didn’t want to be ending the day in the same state as last time!

Race day dawned and I was my usual “useless before 6am” self, but on the plus side we arrived at Margam to find it actually not raining – hoorah! For some reason I seemed to be piffling around rather a lot in true girlie style trying to decide what to wear and what to leave in the pits and in the end I only got to the start line with a few minutes to spare. Hubby was also signed up for the 100km so I was praying that his leg would hold up OK as it was only three weeks ago that I staged the A&E rescue mission.

The start section at Margam is potentially a flat out sprint along tarmac and if you are not careful you can be dead before you even hit the dirt. It’s quite fun though and belies the gruesome climbing sections to come. My first lap went pretty well and my legs felt good although it was getting deceptively warm especially on the long climbs. The course turned out to be more or less the same as last year with some tricky descents and fast and loose fire-road sections to keep you on your toes in between the climbs. The second lap was not quite so enjoyable (!) and on the long climb after the river crossing on the third lap I knew that my legs had really started to run out of gas. Viv passed me at about this point looking in a good groove and I would have had to dig really deep to try and chase her and certainly endure another lap so I settled in to try and claim second place with hopefully putting three laps in the bag. Viv got in her four laps and certainly deserved the win today but I was happy with second as this will be good points towards the veteran women’s series overall. I will probably have to miss the next round at Plymouth in July depending on how my solo efforts pan out so my last scoring round will most likely be at the finals (and National Marathon Champs) at Coed-Y-Brenin in September but if things go well I have an awful lot of riding between then and now so I’m not quite thinking that far ahead yet!!

Must spend some time now gathering my favorite wardrobe items for Mayhem - it’s time to dust off those tassles……

NEXT RACE REPORT:

T-Mobile Giant Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor Park - 22nd to 24th June 2007. The World’s biggest 24hour festival and this year it celebrates it’s 10th Anniversary. As well as watching the racing which starts at 2pm on 23rd there is plenty to do for all the family over the whole weekend (have a look at www.mountainmayhem.org). Jo and the GR2 gang will be there so come along and see what all this mtb fuss is about!! I’m signed up for the solo womens category which is set to be super-competitive this year. Pretty much all the top girlie names in 24hour racing are on the start sheet so this will be such an awesome spectacle to watch unfold and I am really exited about being able to be part of it! See you there 

All photos: Joolze Dymond (top chick - pure magic with a camera)

After the shenanigans at Sherwood I wasn’t even sure we would actually make it to Switzerland, particularly as when we checked the weather forecast for the Bernese Alps it said it was snowing and below freezing! Not boding well for lots of high alp riding then.

Surviving on the Autoroutes finest fodder of strangely coloured sparkling drinks, Pringles and Nutella for the 15 hours of driving we finally arrived to find glorious sunshine although it had apparently been raining solid for the last few days – could this be a change in our luck we hoped?

The next week was a blur of monster climbing and equally monster descending whilst trying to take in the jaw-dropping views pretty much everywhere you looked. The meadow flowers were in full bloom and the snowmelt was pounding down the rivers in torrents, by far the best time to be in the Alps if you are lucky enough to have the weather hold.

You know that you have hit some serious altitude when you get part way up a major climb and you have a nosebleed. A major panic for me on this particular occasion as I had my new Nalini outfit on so I didn’t exactly want it trashed on its first outing! Funny what strange looks you get from people when you are chugging up a mountain on a bike with tissue stuffed up your nose!

I have never before packed in so many hours of riding in a week and this appeared to be mostly fuelled by Interlaken’s finest brew (Rugenbrau) and mountaintop stops for Movenpick ice cream (usually a double MapleWalnut and Caramellita). It’s amazing how enthusiastically you can pedal up to the foot of the Eiger if you know there’s a double Movenpick with your name on it at the top.

Back to reality now and with another race on the cards at the weekend it seems that yet again the weather forecast is for rain. What with a hosing down on the lawn, scrubbing in the bath with Vanish and two machine washes, I’ve only just managed to get the muck out of my clothes from Sherwood so I guess they’re in for another pasting at Margam – must remember to dig out some old black socks this time…...

Your typical Swiss meadow in full bloom…..

>

The locals were a little non-plussed with my Alp climbing prowess…….

And finally some shots of the gorgeous Nalini stuff with Alpine backdrops

Trek National MTB Marathon Series: Round 2 at Sherwood Pines
(a.k.a. the untimely death of my pink socks)
Now then, I am often at fault for being a glass-is-half-empty kind of person so it’s a bit of a mystery to me on this occasion I decided to go for my pink race socks with the weather forecast being as it was for race day. I raced six hours in the rain at Sherwood last year and let me say that the sandy gritty mud that seems to form when it rains there gets absolutely everywhere!

We don’t usually have time to pre-ride the marathon courses so the first lap is usually a question of just checking it out to gauge what pace to try and settle into for the remaining seven laps of the 100km race distance. At this point it wasn’t raining and I was thinking it was certainly the most enjoyable course I have ridden so far at Sherwood as there wasn’t much fire-road and there was lots of fun single-track that demanded your full attention if any tree/body incidents were to be avoided.

A few laps in and the forecast rain arrived and I tried to kid myself that it just sounded worse through the trees than it actually was but I soon realised this was yet another case of over-optimism when I emerged onto a fire-road section and it felt something like being under a jet wash. The trails were taking on a whole new persona (i.e. pretty gruesome) and instead of my usual plan of trying to get some good even paced laps this outing was clearly becoming a matter of surviving in one piece. Jo and her team of cheerleaders had kindly braved the weather to give us support and the encouragement was definitely something to look forward to on each lap. It was so much the opposite of the weather we had at Catton that I was hoping that this wouldn’t put her off MTB for ever!!

Two flights over the handlebars and a tree hit later I looked down at my mud caked legs and realised that the pink socks would never be the same again but you would however pay a fortune for a mudpack like this at a health club and I was hopeful that at least I would have lovely skin if I ever got clean. It was about this point when the totally unexpected happened and I came across Warren off his bike and barely able to walk. I of course stopped to see what had happened - he had been in a crash with another rider and when he came to get back on his bike he couldn’t stand or pedal but he was insistent that I carry on and promised to somehow get back to the finish arena.

The rest of the race was a bit of a blur really as my mind was now obviously elsewhere. I came through the start/finish at the end of lap 5 and I could see that he had made it back to the Climb on Bikes tent so I just hoped that everything was OK but when I came to pick up my bottle from the feed zone towards the end of lap 6 I could see Team Manager Paul waiting under a brolly and he told me that Warren had been taken off to Mansfield hospital as the Extreme Medics were concerned that he may have fractured his femur. I therefore called it a day after 6 laps to pack up and rush off in search of a hospital that hopefully contained Warren. Jo had seen him stashed in the back of the Ambulance and had very kindly waited for me in the worsening weather to offer any help – I remember saying that I was sorry I had totally ruined my pink socks!

MASSIVE thanks to everyone who offered their help at the time and have since called to see how he is and especially to those that stood in the cold pouring rain and organised getting me changed out of mud caked clothes, getting both our bikes clean and in the car and then pointing me in the general direction of Mansfield A&E.

Surviving the gritty conditions today were my usual Pearl Vertex shorts and Skins compression top together with Pearl’s gel vent pro full finger gloves which were so comfy and ideal in the mud with no velcro closures to clog up. The Skins top temperature control properties really came into their own as it went pretty darn cold as the race went on but I did manage to keep my core temperature reasonably warm with just the Skins top under my race shirt.

The good news since is that there was no bone break and I successfully managed to bail Warren out of A&E with just his souvenir crutches and a very swollen leg. It also turned out that I was actually the last one standing in my category so even though I didn’t get in full race distance I still took the veteran class points on the day.

Race photographs:Joolze Dymond

NEXT RACE REPORT:

National MTB Marathon Series Round 3 at Margam Park on 3rd June 2007

These fabulous photograph's of Tracy were taken by Joolze Dymond at Enduro 6 Catton Park 2007.
Photo Credit Joolze Dymond

Photo Credit Joolze Dymond

Wow! What a totally action packed weekend!!

The weather for both days was fabulous and the super fun course of around 10k was bone dry, riding pretty fast and awash with the usual seasonal colour including carpets of bluebells in the wooded sections.

On the Saturday Jo and Heather tackled the Women’s Challenge and they were both totally awesome! I won’t give too much away as you can read all about how they got on in their own update but I’m sure there will be some more MTB plans in the pipeline! There is definitely a lot of untapped potential there methinks – Jo even made easy work of the gravel sections!

The weather for both days was fabulous and the super fun course of around 10k was bone dry, riding pretty fast and awash with the usual seasonal colour including carpets of bluebells in the wooded sections.

There were bumpy grass bits, swoopy wooded single-track bits and even slalom sections around the equestrian jumps! Thankfully though they didn’t send us actually through the (rather deep) water jumps and a tiny little water splash was as wet as it got.

Sunday dawned and after a false start off the drive when I forgot my breakfast (doh! clearly not enough caffeine in my brain to wake me up yet) we were soon back at Catton and packed tightly together into the start funnel in readiness for the rather peculiar sight of hundreds of cyclists trying to sprint round a ½ mile run in their super stiff soled shoes – sort of “March of the Penguins” meets “Happy Feet”.

10am sharp, the hooter went and we were galloping off. It always seems to be quite a lot further than ½ mile until you are actually re-united with your bike and of course there is the added challenge of actually remembering where you left your bike in the first place!!

After the initial grass climb and a bit of slalom practice around the jumps there was a minor bottleneck at the start of the first wood but nothing too bad and I was soon back round at the start/finish straight where my own personal gang of cheerleaders (Jo, Heather and their enthusiastic backing group) were giving it some at full volume!! This was fantastic encouragement at the end of each lap and combined with all the friendly faces and voices out and about on the course the six hours just seemed to fly by.
...

After the sickie episode at Thetford my dual objectives were firstly to force-feed myself every lap in an effort to get more consistent times and also to try and get in at least 10 laps. With my pockets stuffed with dried bananas and fig rolls the food thing worked much better (although a few fig rolls died in combat) so my laps times didn’t take the dreadful dive that they did last time. All in all it went pretty well for lap after lap until the six hours was up and I had finally got my target 10 laps in the bag – Result!

Throughout the race I had absolutely no clue on my placing which maybe was a good thing as I just chugged around doing my own thing and even when I finished I had no idea that I had actually managed to place second in the ladies open race!

I waited on tender-hooks in the pits for Hubby to come over the line from his 13th lap as he was having a shot at it solo for the first time. In the end he nailed a well-deserved 5th place in the huge men’s open race so all in all a pretty good day in the office – good job there were a few cold beers in the fridge at home!

The following GR2 items made it possible to get to the podium this time:

o Vertex Microsensor Shorts by Pearl
o Sleeveless compression top by Skins
o Originals Butterfly socks by Pearl
o Cheering by Jo and Heather

and for afterwards when just about everything hurts I pulled on the super comfy Peak Performance fitness pants and base zip long sleeve. Sweet.

This is a great early season event with a friendly atmosphere and acheivable for pretty much all abilities so keep an eye out for it next year and mark it down on your list of events to do. For a first attempt it’s probably best to enter with a friend or significant other in the pairs category and you can then decide whether or not you want to go it alone next time for the whole six hours!.

NEXT RACE REPORT:

National MTB Marathon Series Round 2 at Sherwood Pines on 13th May 2007

HONC if you’re happy….

I again woke up with swollen bug eyes so it pretty much looks as if I am allergic to some kind of pollen about at the moment. I duly hid my puffy face behind some sunglasses and dragged my butt to the start of the Hell of the North Cotswolds (“HONC”) 100km reliability ride as, not having ridden there before, I was really looking forward to seeing what this event was like. Despite the 9am start the temperature soon got pretty hot - around 25C - so this produced miles of very bumpy and dusty trails (and probably oodles of pollen!) but also meant that the views of the Cotswold countryside were rather spectacular. There was a good turnout from the Climb on cycling club and lots of other familiar faces were also there so there was plenty of good company to be had and the halfway bun stop was particularly scrummy. As well as the 100km you can also opt for the 50km distance and as the trails are all on quiet back lanes and bridleways this is a good event choice for all abilities if you fancy signing up for next year.

I can’t stop eating this...

If, like me, you are a Marmite fan AND a Guinness fan then how can you pass up this Special Edition food of champions! Available now in your local store and just begging to be smothered over your favourite fodder…..

Specialized Enduro 6+: 2007

My next scheduled Enduro event stop is the six-hour at Catton Park, which you can tackle either as a pair (male, female or mixed) or, as I am doing, solo. The format is slightly different from most others in that it’s a parc-ferme event. This means you get an allocated pit where you dump anything you think you might need for the six hours and once the event starts the only place you can go for food, spares or to swap with your partner is effectively the pit area. It also starts with around an 800m Le-Mans style run to your bike which is always a weird experience in your “not designed for running” cycling shoes!

This is a great event (particularly if it’s dry and the bluebells are out) and new for this year is the ladies only day on the Saturday where you can tackle a lap of the course in a no pressure girl-friendly environment to see if you are tempted to further indulge in the off-road scene. You’ll gather from other postings on the Weblog that I’ve tempted Jo and Heather to sign up so I’ll be acting as their escort - check back soon and see their report on how much they loved it - my bet is that they will be turning up in the pairs category for the six-hour next year!

It’s always a struggle for me to get out of the bed in the morning anyway so it really is a double challenge to be perky and raring to go for a 10am race start (which at this particular venue meant leaving home by 6am). I was still therefore in a bit of a sleep coma packing my last few bits in the car (even after a double caffeine hit supplied by my annoying bright and bouncy first thing in the morning Hubby) but at least it was actually daylight and of course I wasn’t having to actually drive so I guess it could have been worse! We arrived at the access road into the venue to find it was a bit of a dust bowl. This would mean that the course would most likely be baked hard and solid and the Thetford Backache condition that universally afflicts anyone racing here would no doubt be particularly severe today!

This was to be my first race for over six months and as I lined up at the back of the start funnel with only 62 miles to go (!) I realised that this was probably going to hurt. The course was to be eight laps of 12.5km and although there was a decent length fire road start this soon went into quite narrow single track and as expected this meant that anyone not at the front in the start funnel would potentially get held back for a while waiting for the congestion to die down.

My first few laps went fine although I soon realised that I would be coming through the start/finish area at virtually the exact time that the 50km and 25km races would start and this proved to be carnage for me as not only did I almost get mown down in the feed zone whilst pitting for a fresh bottle but I also got slowed up again as all the just starting riders hit the first single track bottleneck!

Another couple of laps later and the pain and discomfort were really starting to kick in. The Thetford Backache was coming along nicely and this was accompanied by a growing feeling of nausea from gels and power drink which when added to the heat was proving to be a less than enjoyable combination! Losing your concentration at Thetford is also fatal and at about this point in the race I was involved in an impromptu tree-hugging incident that amazingly scuffed the skin on my butt but didn’t even damage my shorts (big up the Pearl Microsensor material!).

When things aren’t going too well in a race all sorts of things go through your mind and this is where being able to force yourself to keep going really pays off dividends as there are usually quite a few more lessons you learn from finishing a bad race than from a good one. With seven laps gone all I could think about was getting to the finish line and off my bike although rather bizarrely I was actually starting to feel better at this point.

My ever smiling Hubby was waiting for me at the line (having just taken a cracking 5th place in his race) and much to my surprise I had taken first vet female finisher so I then had to haul myself onto the podium for a photo (which is actually harder than you think when your back has seized up!). I gave a few garbled words to Joolze Dymond who would be putting together various reports for the event and also caught up for quick chats with Jenn H and Kate B who I hadn’t seen since the end of last season - both had posted great results in the Open class.

I finally wobbled back to the car to get changed hallucinating about my cheese and marmite sandwich.

The following GR2 items of kit made it on to the podium this time:

o Pearl Vertex Microsensor Shorts
o Skins Sleeveless compression top
o Odlo light vest
o Pearl Originals Equipe socks
The beauty of these marathon events are that you can approach them however you wish in that you can either race them flat out or you can just tootle round and enjoy the experience. There are 25km and 50km distances on offer starting at noon for those maybe working up to a full marathon (or just plain wanting more of a lie in!) with the full 100km of pain and suffering available starting at 10am. There are open and veteran (over 40) classes available for each distance so if you fancy having a go hop on to www.xcracer.com to check out more details of the next one which is at Sherwood Pines on 13th May and if you are there don’t forget to come and say hello!

NEXT RACE REPORT : Specialized Enduro 6 at Catton Park 29th April 2007

Photographs will be here soon! In the meantime check out www.joolzedymond.com for the very best inspiration to get on a bike.

Welcome to the random mostly bike related musings of GR2 supporter Tracy. I’m certainly not an elite standard athlete but I do have a lot of fun having a go and sometimes even some success! Here’s an insight into what I’ve been up to so far during the pre-season run up……

How d’ya do a du….

Despite my ultra-endurance target of completing three off-road solo 24hour races this year I opted for some unscheduled early season speed training by rashly agreeing to have a go at a super sprint distance Duathlon at Cannock Chase. I’ve never raced a road bike nor done the run/bike/run thing so all in all it was a bit of a voyage of discovery! Having read the rather lengthy BTA rules I was also convinced I was going to break at least one, if not several, of them but I needn’t have worried as once I got going it all sort of made sense really. I did smile though at my muddy MTB shoes in transition next to all those super speedy time trial bikes! Amazingly came away with 2nd in age group so maybe I should polish up my running a bit more…...

Spring is in the air…..

Well my new bike finally arrived and off we went to the Elan Valley for what must have been the hilliest off road ride that could be found. I’d been over to GR2 and picked up some preliminary bits of kit so I donned the Odlo X-Warm base layer and Gore Phantom shirt to see how they fared. Considering the terrain (i.e. big climbs followed by equally big descents) the wicking properties of the base layer were spot on (it was barely even moist when I finished) which when combined with the total wind-proof-ness (is that even a word?!) of the shirt was a great combination for this type of riding – I’ll keep you posted on how they survive repeated wash and wear….

2007 MTB Season here we come…..

The first National Marathon Series race of the season is fast approaching like a speeding train and this is likely to be a severe shock to the system. I haven’t done an endurance length race since the end of last season as I opted for a change to skip the winter racing this year so it’s likely to be an exercise of how to manage pain and suffering for around six hours without climbing off your bike! I’ve chosen the Pearl Vertex shorts to race in so this will be a baptism of fire to see how they stand up to 62 miles of thrashing around the uniquely bumpy and backbreaking single-track that is Thetford Forest. Watch this space for an update of how I fared……

Girls Run Too is delighted to be the clothes sponsor for local rider Tracy Miles.
Read Tracy’s profile and follow her training and racing over the next year.