After 2 good days of practice I was looking forward to the racing. The sun had come out and it looked like Saturday was going to be a nice day. I started just after Lucy Grant, one of the 3 other under 21 girls, and so we rode together for most of the weekend.
Going along the cycle path to Innerleithen we caught up with a guy who was playing music out of his rucksack so right up to the top of stage 1 we formed a little chain and listened to his music. It was pretty cool. I was working hard up to the first stage as we didn't know what the transition times were like but then we got up to the top with like half an hour to spare. So a bit of sun bathing and refuelling was in order.
Stage 1 was fun, although my chain came off on the uphill rock garden which was a bit annoying. Then on the bottom section I went into the tape at one point as I couldn't remember that the course went left and didn't follow the trail right.
Stage 2 was from the top of the downhill tracks down to the Innerleithen car park. It was going quite well and I managed to roughly remember where the course was going. It was so cool how many cheering spectators there were lining track, I wasn't used to that at all so it was quite hard to stay fully focussed. I got to the bottom corners which were super loose and I can't really remember what happened but the front wheel must have washed because next thing I knew I had hit the ground hard. I couldn't move for a minute because I was too sore. I think somebody picked up my bike and someone else picked me up and dragged me to side of the track. But all I could think about was I need to finish the stage, so I jumped back on my bike and got down to the bottom. It was then I realised that I had really quite hurt my right leg and elbow and my left hand.
Going down stage 3 I was a bit shaken up and sore, so I crashed a few times on the steep stuff but I got down to the bottom in one piece. The last stage of the day was super fun but so long and physical on the whole body.
The amazing hospitality of the Wilcox's, Christine's cooking, and an Osmo recovery drink helped me recover that evening but I still wasn't sure if I was going to race the next day as I couldn't really walk on my leg.
In the morning I decided I was going to race as I couldn't just give up as easily as that, and it was only 2 stages due to the weather.
At the top of the first stage I saw some old friends I used race xc with who had come to watch which gave me some motivation. I was feeling quite good on the steep muddy stuff at the top of stage 5. But then when I got down onto the flat section my wheels completely clogged up and the bike just stopped throwing me onto the ground landing on my elbow and leg that I had injured the day before. It was so slippy just getting up off the ground was a mission. I tried to push my bike to get the wheels moving but they weren't having any of it. Even after getting my gloves completely covered as I tried to remove the thick mud between my wheels and the frame it still wouldn't move. So I tried to carry my bike that was now a few kilo's heavier with all the mud stuck on it but my arms and my elbow were so sore this took a lot of effort. I tried to run with my bike for a few metres until I slipped and ended up on the ground. After a lot of swearing at my bike and ending up on my bum a lot I eventually made it to a bit of downhill steep enough to give me momentum to get the bike going.
Because I'd taken so long getting down stage 5 all the other under 21 girls had gone when I got to the bottom. I had to quickly take my mud guard and jacket off and then start heading up to stage 8. I realised I was actually quite tight for time by this point and didn't have enough time to get anything to eat. Running low on energy, feeling pretty sore, and having no-one to ride with made the climb up to the last stage really tough.
When I got to the top I literally had about 30 seconds til I had to go which was a bit of a panic and gave me no time to recover.
I tried to take it pretty easy down the top of stage 8 to give me a bit of a chance to recover. But when it got rough I could hardly hold on the bike because my elbow was so sore. I felt genuinely embarrassed passing all the people because I was riding so slow and rubbishly. Especially on the uphills I felt like I was going backwards as I had no energy and couldn't put pressure through my injured leg. The last descent to the bottom was a really fun one and so many people were watching and cheering, but I would have really liked to have ridden it faster and better than I did.
I did feel a big sense of achievement when I got to the finish though, and on the plus side I had some snazzy new kit to race in thanks to Nicola from Female Riders. A big well done to the other under 21 women, especially Lucy coming 3rd in her second ever enduro. Now time to rest and recover for the World Cup next weekend, then onto learning how to actually ride my bike.
