Sleepless in the Saddle 2009 – Race Report

by Alan Cole · Published Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 · Updated Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

As you know from my previous ‘Sleepless in the Saddle‘ post I’m back and not only survived, but had a good weekend. so here is how the race went from my point of view.

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, but my sore throat and cold had developed into full-blown flu-like symptoms, with a raging headache, cough and worst of all muscle aches all over my body, not ideal a few hours before starting a 24 hour mountain bike race.

Bike preparation

Bikes were prepared and team tactics discussed. I opted to go last in the team to hopefully give me some time to dose up on ibuprofen and paracetamol and feel a little better. So in our team, Ian went first and had to do the initial run on the first lap, followed by Martyn doing the second lap, Dan the third and I took up the back of the train.

I didn’t feel any better when my turn came around but couldn’t let the team down so just went out one lap at a time with the aim of simply completing the lap and then trying my best to fight off the cold. Anna was on hand at the end of most of my laps with food ready, drinks and clean clothes along with some support which was very much appreciated. She was really good at it too, somehow knowing just what I’d need. Fortunately the lap was only fairly short at around 7.5 miles so I was able to get around without expending too much energy.

My first lap was a fairly respectable 50 minutes 39 seconds and my fastest of the weekend, although if I had been feeling 100% I think I could have knocked a few minutes off that as I never really pushed myself. The course had dried out quite a bit from yesterday as well which made the going easier. Although it was still pretty slippery on the rooty sections and the mud was really sticky making the going tough in places.

We had decided to each do two laps in a row overnight to allow the others to have more rest time so the next time I was due to go out at around 9pm was to be my double lap run. I took these really easy but managed to stay under an hour for each one. Everyones times were slower overnight. I also had a lap at around 4am. I didn’t get any sleep at all during my rest period, but the lack of sleep didn’t really bother me. The 4am lap was pretty slow though mainly because the course was now very slippery and sticky (yep, both at the same time!) with the overnight dew and it was also very misty out there so I could barely see the course. Everyone was tip-toeing around trying to spot the course markers and not miss turnings etc.

All was running smoothly with our team, but the other Ystwyth team had some problems overnight. Gari finished his 2 lap stint to find no one there ready for the changeover so he went off again for a third lap and then later on Dave finished his lap and also found no one there so ended up returning to camp to wake Gari up loosing them about an hour in the process.

My turn came around again at about 9am and I had a nice easy lap in the early morning sunshine and I was feeling a little better. I still didn’t push it but my time was back down to 52 minutes. My 6th and final lap came around at about 12.30pm and I had intended to take it really easy, but I had a flat tyre early on in the lap and had to stop to pump it up a couple of times. In order to stay below my 1 hour time I had to go a little harder towards the end. I also had an incident when I let someone pass me and he knocked my handlebars sending me flying into a spiky branch sticking out of a tree which scratched my arm and hit my chest. I was pretty lucky that I wasn’t going any faster as it could easily have impaled me. As it was it just hurt and I now have a very swollen and very blue nipple!

After that lap it was just one more lap by Martyn and the 24 hours was up.

Overall for first timers that weren’t ever considering ‘competing’ we did OK. 25 laps in total in a time of 24:23:03 putting us 64th out of 122 teams. Mind you, the top team did 36 laps! More results from Sleepless in the Saddle 2009 here, and Sleepless in the Saddle Photos here.