The first round of Scottish Enduro Series at Innerleithen didn't exactly go to plan. But at least the bike was working well and felt good.
For the few weeks before the race I'd had an illness that had gotten progressively worse. It had really affected my chest and given me a horrible cough, and I'd ended up on antibiotics. It had also meant I hadn't been able to get any good training in so I was feeling way less than fit enough for an enduro race. I had decided that I wasn't going to go to the race but a few days before I began to change my mind. I felt I would be expected to go to it, and I would be annoyed at myself if I didn't at least give it a go. Anyway I might feel ok when I got down there, and the forecast was for warmer weather than up north.
I set off in a group with 2 of the other girls who were racing. But after a bit I got distanced from them as I had decided I was just going to take it super easy to try and save myself for the stages.
Although even after taking my inhaler a lot I was still finding I was still finding I could hardly breath going up the hill and my coughing was coming back. I had made sure to get plenty of sleep and really fuel up beforehand but still as I was going up I could feel the energy being drained from me. It was on the last climb to the top of stage 1 that I knew I probably wouldn't be able to finish this race, so I was going to give stage 1 everything I had.
The first half of stage 1 was super fun and muddy, and I was really enjoying sliding about on all the roots. Then there was about a 30 second fire road uphill sprint, which wasn't so fun. I tried to sprint but was just breathing so hard I felt quite close to fainting. And one after the other people would fly past me, which was rather demoralising. I was pretty glad to finally get to the top of it and zoom down the steep little chute off the fire road. But just as I was descending into the second half of stage 1 my goggles suddenly steamed up and I could hardly see a thing. Not wanting to stop and take them off I continued on swerving my way down the muddy track, narrowly missing quite a few trees. I knew I was in some sort of muddy rut but I really couldn't see it very well. My front wheel must have hit the side of the rut and washed out because next thing I knew I had face planted in to the mud. At least this gave me a chance to take off my goggles. I scrambled up, untangled my bike and put the power down on the pedals now I could see again. But only a few corners later I was out of the trees and down the little chute to the bottom of the stage. To add to all that I had a bit of a nightmare getting my dibber to register at the bottom, and had to frantically wipe the mud off it before it finally beeped.
I felt annoyed that I hadn't been able to finish the race, and that I'd wasted an opportunity to get some good training in and practice on the Innerliethen trails. But I also knew what I had felt like at the enduro races last year when I had been fit and well and this wasn't it. I knew I would probably make myself more ill if I carried on. Now I'm going to focus on getting better and getting fitness back for the next races.
