Well done to Chris and Damian who finished 1st and 2nd respectively in their categories last weekend -

A great result for both riders, considering Chris had a mechanical in the race and Damian broke a few ribs two months ago!

Sorry about the bad phone pictures, its all I can get.

After 24solo I made the decision to enter another 24hour race but to ensure I had time off work to recover. That way I had no excuse not to push myself. SITS was my first choice as it was my first ever 24hour and the two times I have raced there I have enjoyed it. I made the decision to race gears this time and Chris kindly lent me his bike, I am now converted and I am going to get my own lovely geared bike.

All too quick I was on the start line just before 2pm on saturday and we were off. The run was hard and I spent the whole time being overtaken, but at least it was over with in under 4 minutes. Onto the bike and there was some congestion at the singletrack but it wasn’t too bad, I didn’t want to go too fast as I wanted to get my heart rate down. The first four laps were relatively straight forward, Ali and my sister did a fantastic job as my Pit Crew and I built up a reasonable lead.

I had a brief stop and started to tire, the lap times had gone up and I was concentrating on getting to the night. Midnight came and I realised I wasn’t even halfway through, suddenly a 24 hour solo seemed a silly idea. I got myself through to dawn and I thought that was the hard bit done. But no I started falling asleep on my bike. I had my worst lap then when I had to walk loads, thanks to everyone who asked me if I was okay. Ali fed me loads and sent me back out telling me I had a four lap lead so I just had to keep going. Which is what I did, plod, plod, plod. Out at 12noon for my last lap content to lurk as I didn’t need an extra lap. It was nice to have time to thank all the marshalls who had kept me going in the night and chat to people on my way round the course. It also meant I had time for a shower before the podium.

So I finished on 20laps at just a few seconds over the 24hours. First place on the podium and very sore hands, wrists, legs and back.

Will I do it again? Maybe!