Dunkeld SDA 2014

Possibly the hardest downhill track in the 2014 SDA series and I was racing it as only my second ever SDA in probably the wettest and muddiest conditions possible. Over the two days of practice and racing I think I had more crashes than most of my other races put together. When I rode the course for the first time I was pretty scared by the look of a steep rock drop with an off-camber roots run in, into a muddy rutted corner, but once I did it I actually found it one of the easiest parts of the course. After the Saturdays practice I was feeling ok but I knew it was going to be a hard race.

However a crash on one of the steep shutes on my practice run on Sunday, knocked my confidence a bit and also quite hurt my leg. I was pretty scared to ride that bit again but I was really happy when I made it down the whole top section cleanly in my first race run. It was the bottom section that caught me out. After the fire road I got stalled on a rock and ended up stuck in the mud so I had to get off and run to the top of the rock drop and then get on my bike. But then after the drop I skidded out on some roots and couldn't get going again in the mud so had to run up the little hill and then get back on to go down the steep muddy section where my feet weren't clipped in yet and I slipped out and when over the handlebars hitting my leg in the same place as practice. After that I was a bit shaken so I just tried to get down without falling again. I decided not to do a second race run as my leg was really painful riding on the bike.

The fact that 4 women and a few juvenile boys pulled out of the race after Saturdays practice, and out of the 5 junior girls who did the first race run only 2 completed the second race run, just shows how tough the track was. As nobody had a perfect race run, I ended up coming 3rd which wasn't my best result but I wasn't too disappointed with it given the conditions and I was pleased that I managed to face my fears. 

Scottish Enduro Round 2- Innerleithen

In the week leading up to the Innerleithen enduro I was ill with a cold and hadn't been able to get out on my bike much so I knew it was going to be a hard weekend. When I woke up on the Saturday morning I felt alright and I thought that maybe my cold had gone, but I realised I was very wrong as we started pedalling up the first hill and I was already finding it hard to keep up. I began to feel quite sick as my lungs struggled for air and my legs struggled to keep turning up the hour long climb to stage 1. It was a pretty frustrating day as I felt like I was putting so much energy in and not moving anywhere: like I was pedalling through treacle and as the day went on that treacle got thicker and thicker. 

There was a bit of a reward after the massive climb to the top as I enjoyed stage 1 which was down a man made trail with some drops and rock steps. Although it was quite pedally it was nice and flowy and you could carry quite a lot of speed. Then it was up a super muddy climb to the top of stage 2 which was probably quicker pushing up as cycling got you nowhere. Stage 2 was so slippy and it was impossible to keep your momentum with roots and ruts everywhere to throw you off.  It wasn't very steep either so it required a lot of pedalling through mud and pumping through holes and round corners which was very tiring. The climb up to stage 3 was mainly pushing as well as the gradient was just way to steep to even think about cycling up. Pushing up to stage 3 my legs were already burning and I couldn't make them go any faster. I was so hungry but I’d run out of drink after stage 2 and I already had a really sore throat. I found stages 3,4 and 5 all really quite tricky and they’ve all kind of blurred into one in my head: steep, muddy, slippy, rooty, tight corners, trees to hit on the way down, crashes, burning arms and legs, and fire road sprints. There were some bits that were quite fun and some bits that were really not especially after the massive uphills and lots of pushing to the top of each stage meant that I was really tired for all the downhills. The last stage was the worst because all the mud and stones and sticks got clogged up between my frame and my tyres and stopped my wheels from turning which meant the bike kept suddenly coming to a halt and throwing me off and I had even more resistance on the fire road in the middle. 

Race day was just like practice day except there was an added what felt like constant headwind and the downhills seemed to go even worse than the day before. I ended up winning junior women because I was the only junior girl racing on the day, but I was mainly just pleased to have completed it. It was possibly one of the hardest two days of riding I’ve ever done with overall 52km, 2400m of climbing, and about 8 hours of riding on some really technical trails.