I had the option of doing a marathon on Sunday, treating it as training rather than an important race. I wasn’t sure putting on muddy wet shoes and braving the trails for a second time with heavy legs from Saturday, but the sun came out making it much more appealing.
I went to the team tent where Trevor asked if I’d taken my bike – ‘no’. Uh oh, I’d already heard of several bikes being stolen over night, and two of our Modas were missing from the rack. We ran around thinking of all the options of who might have them but they were gone. Altogether 15 bikes were taken from the campsite, locks cut, tents slashed, all whilst people slept right beside them. It took a while to sink it, we were so p****d off. The bikes are only a few rides old, my forks and brakes were literally brand new, and my garmin was on it which is really, really annoying since I use it for training every day. Also I’m racing in Germany in 2 weeks and I’ll be lucky to get a new bike sorted before that. So keep your eyes peeled for a hardtail or full-sus Moda for sale, or infact any of the parts from them.
I’d almost forgotten about the race in all the panic, but at the last minute we were kindly offered the loan of a bike from the Merida demo fleet. So with some running around and without time to warm-up or test the bike, I made it to the start line for the 50km race. It was a mass start, straight into a big long climb that was quite loose and rocky at times. I put in a bit of effort to get up towards the front, keeping my eye on Sue Clarke who was ahead of me, and then settled into a steady rhythm. My legs were definitely lacking some power after yesterday but felt ok considering.
With all the rain the day before the course had been changed to that there was more fireroad than had been planned. I don’t know how they did it but it felt as if the course was about 80% climbing and only a few short descents! Luckily it had dried out quite a lot and there were only a couple of really muddy parts and some greasy rocks. For most of the first lap I was riding just behind Sue, I don’t think she knew I was there so just kept quiet and ploughed along.
It was an enjoyable course despite being hard work, the sun came out and there were great views across the mountains and out to the sea – something you never get to appreciate in an all out xc race. As time went on Saturdays efforts started to take their toll and I struggled to keep the pace up and started to drop back. I could probably have forced myself to go faster but my head wasn’t really in race mode and I settled for a steady training session and enjoying the trails. 
I finished 2nd behind Sue, with teammate Carla also on a borrowed bike having a good ride to take the final podium spot. Although my second lap was quite a slower I felt I could have kept that pace going for a lot longer, maybe I should have done the full 75km! A big thank you to Merida for the loan of the bike, it was good to salvage something from an otherwise frustrating day.