Kielder 100

After a little break from racing I’d finally had time to take a rest and rebuild some fitness for what was a huge focus, the Kielder 100. TORQ In Your Sleep a week ago was a good tester and showed some promising lap times even beating the times of our teams full time professional guest rider which was surprising as I’d not been doing much high end speed work, instead I’d concentrated on long base miles and tempo speed work more specific to the 100 mile marathon epic I’d be racing.

My motivation was sky high having completed the hard training and even loosing some unnecessary body weight. The determination reminded me of how I’d felt after training hard for last years National Champs where I won the silver medal; no compromise, no fear.

Unusually for such a big race I felt no nervousness at the start, I was relaxed and ready, even the horrible weather couldn’t distract me from the race ahead. From the moment the lead car pulled off my focus never waivered. Mike Blewitt pulled some good turns on the front of the group along with 2 other racers and myself who reduced the number of lead riders. Throughout the race no one really attacked, instead the weather and steady tempo pace detached racer after racer until there were just 2 of us. I eventually rode the final 35 miles alone to the finish line to take the win in 8 hour 50 seconds.

My post race interview with MarathonMTB.com tells the story


The £1000 sub 7 hour prize fund still stands for next year and I’ll be back hopefully in drier conditions ready to take on the challenge.

Many thanks to Tim Dunford and Steven James for organising the weekend and also well done to them both for achieving their race results.



Video and post Kielder recovery ride blog soon!