Puffer Love

I am writing now with slight hesitation......I can not quite believe that the whole of last year escaped without a blog post. It was a year that did not quite go to plan. I started off on the journey to become a Primary School teacher however the timing to take on the challenge was just not right. I made the difficult decision to withdraw from the course. For those of you who know me, when I take on a task it is with 110%. I quickly realised that the workload and balancing act of juggling family and study was not working. It is never easy admitting defeat, however in this case it was the right thing to do.

 

Then.......

 

On top of this I started to fall out of love with a sport that I adored. This was a culmination of being on the receiving end of endless amounts of manipulative behaviour. I can only really describe it as toxic. A type of bullying that is so sly that no one else really notices, on the surface the persons portray the image of being infallible while behind the scenes are hard at work trying to win your friends over. This left me on the periphery of local biking groups as I simply could not face it any more.

However.....

 

I continued to train, less so on the bike. I mixed it up more with a combination of swimming, biking and running and returned to my love of triathlon. August brought the Scottish Cross Triathlon Championships to Aviemore where I placed 3rd Female Senior. A great result for me and should have been worthy of a post race high blog report but it quietly slipped by.

 

 

What next.........what oh what was going to reignite my passion and love for mountain biking!?

Freezing temperatures, 17 hours of darkness, one of the US Bike Magazines top 10 toughest mountain bike events. Yes oh yes the Strathpuffer24 has undoubtedly and absolutely reignited my passion for biking and love of endurance races! Wow what a weekend it was. I am still smiling one week on and the buzz has brought me back to the keyboard!

My friend Duncan decided he wanted to enter a team and roped myself and Oli in, I then asked Fiona, also a Puffer virgin but not shy of an endurance challenge.There it was, 'Moray Loons and Quines', a mix of characters, ranging from dry sense of humour, quiet and self sufficient to fiercely competitive AND a big yellow van, courtesy of Fiona and Partner Gary. Gary was our pit hero! Bike wash, bacon rolls, cups of tea, no problem Gary had it covered. The big yellow van was the hub of lots of banter and hilarious craic in the wee hours of the morning. Things were just not the same when Gary went to bed!

We set up camp at the top of the initial fire road climb just over the brow of the hill alongside all women's 'Team Teacake' armed with every piece of cycling clothing we owned as well as the luxuries of a power washer and boot/glove dryer, it proved to be a saving grace through the night. Stocked with a never ending supply of firewood, tea, cake and home made broth for the night shift, I am ever grateful to Oli for my post lap cups of tea.

An approx 2 mile long fireroad climb is the start of the 6.4 mile loop however for our team it was the end of our basecamp lap, this worked well as our legs had warmed up by that point. I was happy to ride the first lap and a half as I love climbing and with no time for a recce loop pre event I viewed this as my recce lap. The race start included a 200m ish run accompanied by bagpipes to our bikes before heading up the climb. I rode hard up the climb passing by some fantastic set ups on the way and my legs felt great. Unfortunately I clipped the tyre of the rider in front of me in the congestion before the skinny bridge that leads into the start of the technical section. I fell hard on my side  bumping my head and loosing all the good time I had made on the climb. The Marshall held me for a wee bit and off I went.

Progress through the technical section was slow as expected on a first lap and I took another hard slam on the rocks when my front wheel slid out. Painful was not even close. Riders passed by but one guy stopped and helped me up, my garmin had escaped from my handlebars so I stuffed it in the pouch and carried on to finish the loop trying not to wince at my throbbing upper thigh and finally handing over to Oli.

The loop is unforgiving, with a fabulous combination of technical riding, steep descents and energy sapping  climbing. After the initial hiccups on the first lap, daylight hours were relatively straightforward for everyone and proved to be fast and furious single laps, the rocks were grippy and the course was riding fast. I completed two more daylight laps and found my flow on the course with a big boost from some very welcome visitors on the Saturday afternoon. Good friends Janet and Joe came for a day out to drop off the biggest Custard Creams and Empire biscuits I have ever seen. Team Main survived the epic climb and arrived at basecamp to cheer us on as well.

The fast and furious daylight laps soon became a distant memory, with darkness came a multitude of challenges, sheet ice and frozen gears being the main contenders. I rode a double night shift plagued with gear issues and sheet ice. It became a ride of mental toughness to get round with temperatures plummeting to as low as -8. Team spirits remained high with everyone taking on a double lap to allow additional time for resting. I was nearly done, the pain in my leg was getting the better of me and I decided to go for a single lap next time which would be my final lap. Frozen shifters meant one gear for the whole lap, this was frustrating as I could not put any power down and my legs were spinning like crazy. I called it a day on my pedalling contribution at this point and kept the kettle boiling from the depths of a duvet. My team mates were putting out faster laps by this point so it made sense for them to put in the additional final laps.

24 hours and 29 laps later  we were all still talking, all in one piece (just) and pleased to place 4th in the mixed quad category. Not too shabby for our first team outing.
Thank you to an absolutely fabulous team and to the Puffer for bringing back the fire in my belly for mountain biking.

The Puffer has to be on every mountain bikers tick list of races to do. The beauty of the Scottish Highlands, the atmosphere, the course, the dark, brutality of the weather, sleep depravation and of course the sheer buzz! What is not to like!?

See you all there next year.....!?

I am thrilled to be joining Team Flare https://flareclothingco.com/ for a third year and am ever grateful for their support. I look forward to more spirited adventures in 2017!

'Love can be lost but found again'