OS Mountain Mayhem 2009- First Attempt

Race Report By Annabel Simpson

For a few weeks before, the thought of Mountain Mayhem had been occupying my mind. It seemed such a daunting prospect for me to race for 24 hours, even if it was in a team. My main worry was that I didn’t want to let my team down, as I knew we were capable of winning.

I left home Thursday morning, all packed up and ready for a busy four days. I had a photo shoot in Harrogate for the Altura winter range on the Thursday with team mate Jenn O’Connor and coach Andy Patterson, then on Friday we were on our way down to Mayhem. I just hoped I had packed enough food and kit to get me through the weekend. I had always associated Mountain Mayhem with rain and mud, but the weather forecast was surprisingly showing sun. I didn’t want to fall for it, and so packed my wellies just in case.

We set up camp and got to do a lap around the course in sunshine on the Friday evening. It was a really fun course. A mixture of fire roads, fast single track and strength sapping climbs were definitely going to make for a hard yet enjoyable race. The race didn’t start ‘til 2pm the following day, so we had plenty of time to chill and prepare. A nice thing about being there early was that Jenn could take me round the trade area and I got to meet a lot of our sponsors. So thank you to the guys from Adidas Eyewear, SRAM, Crank brothers, Cannondale and Hope for all your encouragement over the weekend.

We returned to the tents for lots of pasta, and because there were no parties going on we retired to bed, where I was kept awake a lot of the night by a huge amount of rain. Joy! All I could think about was how the lovely bone dry course was now going to be so muddy, and I was dreaming about which Panaracer tyres would be most suitable.

The next morning we were joined by our team mates Ruth Mordaunt and Nadine Spearing, and 2pm was fast approaching. All tyre selections had been debated and set up, and we were ready to rock, and I was stupidly excited about getting started.

The claxon went and Nadine was off running, while I stood there watching thinking ‘Man I’m glad I didn’t have to do that!’ Nadine finished her lap and passed the baton on to me. We were in second place at this point behind the Beyond girls, so I knew I had to chase. I was getting quite frustrated on my first lap as there was so much traffic out on the course, but I did a 50 minute lap which I was pleased with. I then passed over to Jenn, who dished out some real pain to the Beyond girls, by passing and leaving them. Ruth then went in and did another quick lap, so by the end of the first rotation spirits were very high!

My second lap was my favourite. I’d topped up on Powergels and I wanted to put in a fast lap. Five minutes into the lap a guy overtook me at a decent pace, and I saw my chance there and then. I jumped on his wheel and we proceeded to blast around the course together. On the muddy back section of the course I had a few sneaky lines which allowed me to get the better of him few times, but we eventually arrived over the line together doing a 46 minute lap. I was very happy and also feeling rather sick after the effort, but it was definitely worth it.

Night was coming and this was the bit I was most nervous about. Jenn and Ruth did the first night shift from around 10.30pm ‘til 2am and during this period I was meant to be grabbing a bit of sleep but I was far too excitable and barely slept a wink.

Then it was my and Nadine’s turn. I downed a can of Red Bull ready for my lap, and went out into drizzly rain, equipped for the darkness with two Lupine Wilmas, on helmet and bars. The drizzle managed to destroy parts of the course, making loads of sections really slippery, especially the grass. I was getting stuck in long queues of people dragging their bikes through the mud, and I was finding it really hard to overtake safely.

Night soon passed though, and with all the team back awake it felt like we were on the home straight. All the team were still doing solid times, and we’d had no mechanicals or bad crashes (apart from Ruth’s pedal falling off and me giving myself a dead leg). The Beyond team in second were also riding a solid race and were only 30 minute behind, so we had to keep pushing to make this gap grow.

I hit a bit of bad point in my second to last lap when I kept getting cramp, and it was really making me suffer up the Kenda climb. I finished the lap feeling exhausted, demoralised and I thought I had let everyone down by doing a slow lap, but to my surprise I was only a little over 50 minutes. Coach and Ruth got me to drink as much salts as possible, and assured me I only had one lap left. The end was in sight and it felt good.

I crossed the line after my last lap with a smile from ear to ear. I had survived it and we were winning! With just Jenn and Ruth to go, I was confident that we had it in the bag. And we did! We even got an extra lap in on the Beyond team in second. I’m just so proud of us all for sticking at it all the way and I feel that I have definitely achieved something and I’m sure the other girls do too! We stood on the podium and received our winner’s jerseys and prizes and after that I feel like I’ve done nothing but sleep up until this point.

I’d like to say a big Well Done to everyone who took part, and especially to the Beyond girls for keeping us on our toes. I’d like to say I will do it again in the future, but we will wait and see.

Now I’m more that up for my next race at Crow Hill, which is another round of the National series. We will all be there and I’m even going to have a go at the 100k English Marathon Champs on the Sunday.

We will keep you posted
Annie

Annabel Simpson is 19 years old, and a former Junior National XC Champion. This is her first season as an Elite racer, and she rides for the Altura Patterson Training race team. Mayhem ’09 was her first attempt at 24 hour racing, and one of the biggest challenges for her this year.