Mountain Mayhem 2013

A bit of rearranging of my weekend work and the manager at my new work arranging for me to have a couple of days off after the event meant that I could race at Mountain Mayhem this year. I had been meant to ride there solo last year but then broke my collarbone. After last years mud-fest it was at a new venue so I had no idea what the course would be like. We were also were unsure we had everything we needed as we still haven't got everything unpacked and organised after our move but Ali as always was a star and had basically packed everything herself. We arrived on Friday night and got ourselves set up in an ideal spot, tent and Gazebo up just in time for the rain.

The short story is that everything went better than expected, I lasted the 24hours and amazed myself by winning the event. Trophies were presented by HRH Princess Anne as well!

So back to the race, the morning was spent getting everything set up and before I knew it I was lining up ready to start the run, the start was at 12noon which I much prefer as less hanging round but also a 12noon finish the next days. I started near the front of the run and just took it easy on the way round so people were streaming past me but hopefully I didn't lose too much time but also didn't kill my legs off too much! There was some queuing on the first lap and I came over the line in second place, behind the current European Champion. It had started raining at this point so I grabbed a waterproof and headed out again, I was already spending a lot of time pushing as the course was very up and then down. I was finding that it was hard to eat or drink on the lap. It was during this lap the girl in 2nd went past me and I was down to 3rd, it was early in the race though and I was more worried if I would last the 24hours as I haven't done anything apart from my ten miles commutes recently. I also saw a number of crashes, one guy who obviously had concussion and I crashed on the first descent which left me covered in mud.

Fortunately the rain stopped and the course started drying out, I had swapped onto Ali's bike and her tyres seemed to work a bit better in the mud. I had taken to walking the first descent as I had scared myself when I crashed! In the next few laps I moved into first and started pulling out a small gap. I came in to swap bikes, back to mine as it had lights on and it was going to get dark soon. Al and Sarah from Garage Bikes had arrived with more supplies and to help Ali with support.

During the night I had a couple of bad laps where my eyes kept closing, including having to walk a long section of singletrack so I didn't fall into the lake. My support team were fab and kept me going, force feeding me and making sure I kept drinking. Sarah seemed to really involve bossing me around! The gap to 2nd was staying pretty steady but I was struggling, I was glad when dawn came which sped me up a bit. At some point I got myself a lap lead so I was able to lurk at the end although I was keeping an eye out just in case we had got that wrong. I crossed the line just after the 24hours to be met by Ali, another true team effort as once again she worked as hard as me to keep me going.

(c) Joolze Dymond

I couldn't have done it on my own, lots of people to thank:

• Ali who is the other half of this team, I have a lot of respect who do these events self-supported as I'm not sure I could!
• Garage Bikes who not only got my bike ready, help me out with kit etc also came down after a busy day in the shop on the Saturday to look after me and my bike.
• Work for letting me have the Monday and Tuesday off to recover even though others were already off.
• Cooksons Cycles who helped me so much over the years and helped with getting me and Ali the Superfly's I used during the race.
• All my friends for all the support and putting up with me being 'Amy' and all the fun rides.
• The organisers for an amazingly organised race and the marshalls who cheered and encouraged me throughout the race.