Well, I have ridden at Bedgebury quite a lot, it is in Kent, it's for charity (British Heart Foundation) and its a new event, so I might do alright. I have done quite a few night rides on singletrack.
August 2009 - I signed up for the event and set up a BHF fundraising page with target £50 (BHF would like it if you could manage to raise this much for them). First person to sponsor me was my Mum - thanks mum.
So now I have entered, I start thinking about how its going to work. It's going to be 8 mile (13km) laps. The most I have ever ridden off road before in one day is 60km and there wasn't a whole heap of singeltrack involved, it was a good few years ago, in Greece, on a mountain.
After entering the race Alaric and I decide its a good idea to attempt 3 laps of the Bedgebury singletrack (13km each) in a row (stops for bites of cheese and marmite sandwich as required). I was pretty impressed with this acheivement in itself. 40km total if you include the ride too and from the car. Lap splits were 1hr40, 1hr15 and 1hr15.
Based upon these calculations and completely forgetting that my back was a little sore after the 3 laps, I thought, well at 1hr30 per lap, in 12 hours, I could (if I was insane) do 8 laps. I am not insane, so I could do 6 or 7 perhaps (allowing for breaks).
A few days passed and I thought, I wonder how far 6 or 7 laps is. 6 is 78km and 7 is 91km. Sounds like a lot. Anyhoo, I stick with this plan because well, I am going to be riding solo and I can decide to do whatever on the day, so at least having a plan is a start.
Race day arrives and we turn up at Bedgebury at around 4pm with the trailer and I have 2 bikes (professional). We park up in the corner and more folk start to arrive and set up camp. We aquaint oursleves with important things like where the loos are and the start, that kind of thing. I had pre-prepared a bolognaise which alaric cooked up so I would be finished eating by 6.30pm when registration opened.
At this time, I hopped on my bike and rode down the hill to the start/finish and registered. The woman at the desk commented on my apt name of 'Epic Em' since I would be riding solo. Unlike me, I was not in the mood for fun and replied 'humph'. Hopped back on my bike with race number, timing chip and wrist band, rode back up the hill to the campsite.
I was feeling nervous and my dinner wasn't sitting too well. It got dark-ish and we went back down the hill to the start. We had the pre-race briefing and then lined up at the start. I couldn't see any other women and did wonder if I was the only woman in it. Ray assured me otherwise.
The claxon sounded the start and we set off. After about half a k, everyone was off their bikes and I was wondering what was up. Too bloody steep was the cry - surely not I thought. Most folk went past me at this point and walked up the first short steep bit. I rode it with a couple of other guys. I think I was at this point, at the back of the pack.
So I cracked off two laps with an arrangement for Alaric to meet me with refreshments at 11pm (though, we had to change this to 10.30!) The laps were 15km each, but about half and half singletrack and fireroad, so I was riding faster than I was expecting. It this time I was feeling nausious, drank a sip of coffee and shoved in a hob-nob bar and went on my way for the next lap.
I was most surprised at how many folk I was passing (mainly on the fire road descents, occaisionally on the singletrack descents). I felt good in my legs, but bad in my stomach. Before the end of lap 3 the first lot of batteries ran out and all I had to do was switch to the second lot. I rang Alaric at this point to tell him I would be in soon for a battery swap over. He told me to carry on until the end of lap 4. At the beginning of lap 4, I fell off and I knew I was tired.
After lap 4 (at about 1.30am) my back was killing. I had taken pain killers which had eased the lower back pain, but not the pain in the middle of my back. Alaric encouraged me to get a massage from the on-site sports masseurs. It was great. All credit to those guys!!
After my massage, I went to bed. I had done 4 laps and I wasn't sure at this point if I would do any more. However, Alaric asked if I thought I would do 2 or 3 more laps after a sleep (I said 2) and he set my alarm accordingly.
5am - I awoke busting for the loo. Damn, I was now up and I might aswell get back on the bike. It was the dawn lap. Half way around, I no longer needed the lights and I started to recognise some of the bits of trail I thought I'd not used before.
After lap 5, I was finished!
It was about 7.30am and I went and got Alaric up and got dressed into some less sweaty clothes. I had pre-booked 2 cooked breakfasts at the Pineatery, so we went and got those. I wasn't sure I could eat anything, my stomach had been so weird all night and at 5am I had to really force down half a banana (didn't want to do the 5th lap on an empty stomach).
So I wolfed down bacon, egg, sausage etc. And hung around waiting for the final riders to finish and the award ceremony. While I was waiting, I felt a bit green and had to throw up. A few minutes later I was standing on the podium!!
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