Mountain Mayhem 2008

So on friday after shoe-horning everthing into the car I collected Ali and we went to Pizza Hut for tea before heading down to Moutain Mayhem. We got there and got the text pitched with the other shecycles girlies. Miska had brought a huge tent with carpet!!! We also had two gazebos so we were set up for the rain. After catching up with everyone we headed to bed and woke up to a bit of rain, fortunately it didn't last long.

Miska did our first lap with the run, I had slightly tweaked my hamstring and it was fine cycling but walking was a little sore so I didn't think running would be a good idea. After that I headed out on my first lap, this was to be my fastest lap and I'm sure I could have gone faster if I had pre-rode the course but hey! Also falling off on some of the easy singletrack didn't help, ahh well it'll add to my collection of bruises. Pic below is of our changeover.

After that Vix headed out on the third lap. She was unlucky and ended up coming off into a pile of nettles and then puncturing! Then lizzie headed out (thank you so much for steping in at the last minute) before miska headed out on her second lap. Since Vix's legs were nice and sore at this point I headed out to do a double lap just as it was beginning to get dark. Picture below is me coming through after the first of the double laps, thanks Ali for popping up to check if I needed anything. The second night lap was really hard work, the rain had been falling for a while and some bits of the course were just un-rideable, it added 15minutes to my time. I got back to find out there was no-one to go out, Ali had been given the job of coming up to tell me! As Vixster's legs had got worse so she couldn't ride. I was tempted to head out again, but I knew my lights wouldn't last and I hadn't eaten yet. So after a quick feed I got my head down. Lizzie headed out again by 6am, followed by miska and then Vix to make sure everyone had at least two laps. I was last out and just took the first lap really easy, I was back before 2pm so I headed out again, by this point the course was running a lot better. Ali was out on the course this time to get a picture of me at the top of the Kendra climb.
Then it was into the finish, all the mud forgotten about as I collected our medals.
We couldn't hang around at the end as Ali had an important meeting today (which was then cancelled) so no idea how we did overall. But probably not great due to injuries etc. I had great fun and will definetly think about going back next year. But my night laps put me off the idea of riding solo, really don't think I could ride for 24hours! Thanks to all my team and everyone else we were camped with for a great weekend. Oh and to whoever it was lurking near the end who cheered me, made me smile.

More pics on Ali's flickr, link over here ---->

Edit: Results are now up
We came 4th in the sports womens category and 429th overall.
My laps times were:
lap1: 00:59:55
lap2: 01:19:09
lap3: 01:35:53
lap4: 01:14:59
lap5: 01:10:25

Edit 2: Results have been changed we actually came 3rd in the Sports Womens category due to the team in 2nd being disqualified.