A tough day out on Exmoor

I headed down to Minehead for round three of the Scott Mountain bike marathon series with Matt, Ollie and Ryan.

Because of the long drive we camped on Saturday night. It was actually a lot more pleasant than I expected! By the time we’d put the tent up I was feeling hungry, so Ryan and I made the short walk into Minehead to get ourselves a baked potato, which we ate on the beach.

We were woken at 6am by a generator starting up right by our heads! In hindsight this wasn’t so bad as it allowed us plenty of time to pack away the tent, eat breakfast and fill my camelback!

On the way to the start, I stopped off to see Matt and Marcus (from Torq) to run over my nutrition strategies. With that sorted, me and Joe (my Torq teammate) got ourselves a good position at the start. I suddenly realised I’d completely forgotten to pump up my tyres, with promise of sharp stones I panicked – I definitely didn’t have enough air in my tyres to withstand that! Luckily another rider next to me had a pump and helped me fix my tyres! With that sorted we set out on our 65Km ride over Exmoor.

The neutralised section took us right out onto the seafront, before climbing up to the headland. The first climb was a killer – super steep, and with the legs not being fully warm they hated it.

Once at the top though, it was a treat; looking across to beautiful views of the Bristol channel. I pushed on – with one girl already in front of me, I didn’t want any others overtaking me! The course took us up some very rocky sections, this was very challenging terrain and I was lucky to come through it without a puncture – many others weren’t so fortunate.

Feed

To prevent ‘bonking’ or ‘hitting the wall’ I ensured I ate a gel and some jelly beans every half hour, this worked a treat and I felt great throughout the race – I didn’t even have to stop at any of the feed stations!

The hardest section of the course came after the longest climb of the day, a long steep rocky decent which just kept on going. It took everything I had just to hold onto the handlebars – this is where I lost the second place I’d been battling for, for the last 10 miles. After 65km of gruelling terrain I arrived at the finish in third.

I headed straight to the shower, as it was raining – something I hadn’t noticed when riding. After a lovely hot shower, I stuffed myself full of Soreen and Torq recovery bars (I’d earned it). Unfortunately, I will be missing the National Champs due to continued shoulder issues and a lot of Uni work to contend with! However, I will be racing at Pivot 24/12 with my Torq teammates!