my first Merida - Builth Wells Spring Marathon

“flippin hec’ – that were hard!”

Saturday 12th April

I arrived in Builth Wells, after a marathon of a drive, at around 1pm which saw me clear to getting a good camping spot tucked away in a quiet corner of the campground. By the time I had all the bits to my tent strewn around the place and the outer tent blowing around like an oversized empty crisp packet the camp ground was starting to fill up rather rapidly.

After a very quick tent building episode (to try and avoid the rain from the ever darkening clouds!) I took a walk over to the event village to see what was happening. A mix of trade stands, registration, food bar and general boggyness under foot. The remainder of Saturday was fairly relaxed (reading, listening to music, drinking tea) and I met up with Glen and Dasnut from Bad Brains.

That evening we watched the ELBNO race get under way just before 8 and I think I hit the sleeping bag and roll mat combo at around 10.

Sunday 13th April

It rained heavily through the night that could mean only one thing; it was going to be wet and muddy today!!

The marathon was due to start at 10.30 so I made my way to the start area just after 10. Myself and the other Bad Brainer’s lined up together for the start, we positioned ourselves fairly close to the front which incidently was to be the only point of the ride where I would be near to the front!

We were off, a mass of mtb’ers pedalling away through the town of Builth Wells and less than a minute in, the pace car was gone which I am sure was closely followed by a number of Elite riders. Glen started showing good pace early on and I decided to let him go on ahead and suss out the route! ;) I made good pace up the first hill which was on tarmac, finding it hard to ease off if other bikes were passing. “pace myself” I kept saying “save the legs”.

The first feed station was around 25km into the ride, just before this little tent of energy there was a wooded section which on map looked good but in reality and in thick ankle deep mud was in fact a bloody nightmare! A combination of mud, slippy tree routes and riders bunching up made for a very tricky section.

Shortly after the first feed station, where I ate a banana at light speed and filled up my Camelbak reservoir, we were back into another uphill tarmac section followed quickly by up hill off road. There certainly seemed to be more up hills on this ride than downhills! Somewhere around this point a fellow biker asked me how to get rid of cramp which he was suffering in both legs, I told him about the old Salt n Vinegar trick which I had learnt from numerous people and offered him the only bag I was carrying. Not long after consuming these on the move, and I had pulled away a bit now, I heard a great ‘yelp’ from behind and turned to see the Salt n Vinegar man going down like a sack of ….!! Maybe the crisps idea was not the best advice after all?! He wasn’t the last I saw suffering the effects of cramp that day.

We were fast (or probably slowly) approaching the 40km mark at which we knew there was a hell of a hill to climb. No sooner had we remembered this, we found ourselves dropping into granny ring yet again for another long drag. I think this ride is the only ride I have done where most of it has been in my granny ring!! We made it to the top where a photographer was waiting to take a pic of the pain in our faces, I’m sure he must have succeeded with me.

After an awesome downhill the choice to take the route for the 50km race was presented to us. Dasnut, who I had been riding with for a while decided this was to be his chosen path back to Builth. I quickly convinced myself that I would carry on and conquer the 65km, especially now I had come this far. Shortly after saying our goodbye’s I started to wonder if I had made the right choice especially now that the heavens decided to open. Huddled amongst a crowd of bikers under a gazebo in the middle of nowhere I found myself at feed station number 2. This time, I could hold back from stuffing my face with biscuits and crisps and the occasional banana. I set off in the rain, some more tarmac and then again off road into what turned out to be, for me, the hardest climb of the ride. A climb so long and with so many false horizons, this turned into a challenge of mind over matter as well as fitness. I eventually got to the top of what I thought was the last hill of the ride.

On the decent, which was grin-tastic again, I met up with a welsh bloke who just happened to be similar pace to me. So, not through discussion, we ended up riding the remainder of the ride together. The hill which I thought was the last, was indeed not. We were met by a marshal who had a smug look about him and proceeded to inform us that we could carry on back on the road which would be 6 miles back to Builth Wells or continue with the marked course up another huge hill for a 7 mile trip back to the finish. At this point my heart sank, thinking I had used up all my energy and that I would most certainly die if I went up this last hill. But…my new welsh friend somehow gave me the motivation and encouragement to do it and go for the 7 mile with huge hill option…so that we did. And, amazingly, I got my second (or maybe this was my third!?) wind from somewhere and started feeling good (ish!) again. The climb was hard, a fair amount of walking but the constant chatting made it all the better.

The final off road downhill was crazy, basically a very steep mud chute, that I rode completely out of control. Concentration at this point was minimal. A short tarmac and path section threw me into the winding finishing slalom through the farm yard and to the inflatable finish line. A finishers T-shirt was shoved into my hand and I made my way wearily back to my tent. 6hrs 25minutes of riding got me round this marathon, I was pleased just to get round, never mind what time I achieved.

There is something quite addictive about this kind of riding, although when doing it I’m sure I asked myself numerous times ‘why’ and probably told myself not to do this ever again, but worryingly I am looking forward to the next one….