I don’t think I can really explain how tough it was, very little can prepare you to exercise constantly for 24 hours in temperatures reaching 30’C.

The race started at midday Saturday and we had to run about 1km to our bikes before starting the first lap, this spreads out the field so you are not all racing into narrow wooded sections.  The first four and a half hours were fairly uneventful, I was cycling in blistering heat on a technical hilly off road course.  I stopped at our tent at around half 4 on Saturday afternoon just to have a quick mechanical check as something didn’t feel quite right, it soon became apparent that there was something wrong with my front brake as it was dragging preventing the front wheel from freewheeling, that’s why the last lap was so tough then!  I did not have the parts I needed and none of the support tents in the paddock area could help.  This resulted in us frantically ringing around local bike shops to try to find a new brake before they closed at 5pm.  We found one and someone went to get the brake while I went out and did another lap, we had managed to stop the dragging but this meant I had no front brake on quite a tricky course with some dangerous descents; I made it through with only a few hairy moments.  We then fitted the new brake and all was well again.

The next problem came at about 10pm on lap number 8, about ¾ of the way round the lap I started to get terrible cramp on my right quad.  This then quickly spread into my left quad and both hamstrings.  I was in quite a lot of pain finishing the lap but after a bit of rest, a piece of pizza, some salty chips and some salt/sugar water I was back on track again.  I had been trying to keep up on my salt intake but obviously I still hadn’t had enough.

The following lap in the darkness was probably my favourite lap, it was cool, it was peaceful and I had brakes which were a bonus!

I pushed on for another lap (it was about 11:30pm when I started lap number 10) but this lap went a bit downhill.  We had radios so I could keep my team up to date with where I was on course.  By the end of the lap (1:30am) I was struggling to string a sentence together and had the shakes. We decided I had to get my head down for a couple of hours so I hopped in the tent and had just over 2 hours sleep.

At 4am I got up and with a bacon and egg bap in my stomach was ready to head off for the morning laps.  I took it pretty steady and did 5 laps between 4am and midday, I’d already done 10 laps between midday Saturday and 1:30am Sunday.  These were fairly uneventful aside from the ridiculous heat.

I’m still waiting for the official results but I managed to do 15 laps over the 24 hours.  I averaged around an hour a lap so this is approximately 15 – 16 hours in the saddle.

A bit more data from my activity watch:

  • 180km of riding,
  • Fastest lap – lap 15 (last lap) at 57:42,
  • 8,607 calories burnt,
  • 5,542m climbed (the equivalent of Everest base camp to the summit)

If anyone would still like to donate here is the link again: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/challengemartin