Despite entering quite a few off road 24 hour events in teams I decided to enter this one solo, so off I trotted on Friday to Newnham Park, with the car loaded with camping gear, multiple & varied food items and a bike.
I'd met a few like minded friends in the solo camping area, and preceded to set up then stuff my face before retiring early ish Friday night in anticipation of not sleeping again until Sunday night. Registration provided a sudden dose of reality as I received the extra "solo" gift of a Bontrager bottle cage. Shortly after I went for a sighting lap, which revealed a starting climbing of 1.4k - the Clif Climb, some incredibly stunning and dry singletrack trails, whooping downhill sections, two stream crossings and dust, lots of dust. I returned to customary Bonty free Beer & cheese (just the one) and sat in the festival tent listening to a Stones tribute.
I awoke Saturday in trepidation, getting down two planned breakfasts of porridge then Sausage & beans, before prepping all my bottles food and placing them near to the door of my trackside tent. Before I knew it, I was thinking strategy and then it was time to be off. Seeing as I've knocked off some 100k off-roads this year I thought the best plan was to get one of those 100k rides in the bag Saturday before Dinner time, do two night stints before/after midnight with a short sleep in the middle, then after Sunday breakfast get as many laps in as possible before midday.
However, in the first four laps the monumental heat hit me an all the riders on the topmost exposed section immediately after the 1.4k climb. It had reached 29 degrees and I'd polished off 4 litres of fluid in 4 laps. Worse, as I came back to the start/finish with a thumping headache and feeling sick (heatstroke?) my tubeless tyre rolled off the rim after suffering a cut on a rock. This forced me to "pit" and change cassettes/wheels with an unscheduled stop but also to refill bottles losing me an hour of riding time in the process. Then, half hour later I broke a spoke! I tied it around another, ah well there's 31 more - this wheel saw me through to the end so I was grateful for that.
The dust was now a real issue. All the riders were covered in it where it'd stuck to sweat and sun cream, and streaked down our arms, legs and faces, in the trees it was hanging about and causing a breathing issue also. Everybody valued the river crossing, most of us plummeting into it with much more enthusiasm than would be usual.
I rode all afternoon, and after 96k at 7pm, I decided it was time for Dinner. However, I didn't fancy any of the food I'd brought as I really was sick of High5 and Jelly babies, so settled for some "borrowed" pasta & pesto with two cans of coke, and was off again, this time adorned with lights in preparation for the night ahead. Again the dust was an issue as the wider areas appeared "foggy" in the lights, not good when trying to avoid rocks, roots and wheel traps. Even more, the lights has a strange effect of making the plumes of dust from the rider in front "a negative", so you'd ride along seeing a black plume in front of you obscuring the obstacles. As per plan, I rode until midnight - I was starting to get really tired and my average had dropped to a mere 8.2mph per lap - time for a cleanup with wet wipes, a change of clothes and into bed wearing the next sessions bibs & top. Except - I barely slept. Even with earplugs, as Will had mentioned in his Mountain Mayhem thread I was high off gels, and could still hear bikes coming past and people chatting around the campsite. I did manage to nod on and off.
So, at 3am I was up again. I stuck the Espresso stovetop on and helped myself to mug of espresso and and half a box of fig rolls, winced at being re-introduced to a sweaty helmet (fnar fnar). This was the hardest start - despite a well lubed "Chamwah" area, dust had got in and I was considerably chafed, my quads had stiffened and my wrists were quite affected by the braking bumps on the extremely dry circuit. The first lap was a lesson in pain tolerance, especially as the constant braking of the riders has enlarged the braking bumps so as to make a 45 degree descent as comfortable as hammering the backs of your wrists with a rolling pin. As I warmed up and set to the task of getting through the sunrise and gobbling a bacon roll though, I started to feel really good on this session though and knocked out another few laps. The sun rising over the trees was absolutely stunning and with its slowly increasing warmth providing some much needed motivation, i extended my run for an extra hour. I was only halted by a lady in front of me pulling off the circuit to be greeted by a team-mate with a huge cup of steaming tea. Tea! Suddenly I was mentally craving Tea, and spent the whole next lap grinding around at snails pace reminding my self that a bacon roll and tea was at hand as soon as I was done with this lap....
So shortly after a tea and bacon splurge, I was out again. It was now 9am, I had three hours to go and was determined to put three laps onto my total during this time. Post Tea and Bacon I felt revitalised and knocked out a good first lap, a slower second lap and the final lap - a bit of a crawl as more than 17hrs in the saddle started to catch up with me. At this point there was loads of encouragement from kids and family's with cheers of "go on Solo!", a chap handing out sweets on the course and my basic strategy was to mentally pretend this was a Sunday morning jaunt and just tick off the laps. The hills though were getting harder and harder and I started to regret my biggest gear combo choice of 28/34 when I could have taken 22/36.
Finally, I rounded the last corner to see Keith Bontrager ready to shake my hand as he does with every rider as they cross the finish. I'd done it, survived my first solo, and as I'd find out later with results that aren't bad at all considering my inexperience.
So what did I learn? Solo's are for those of use for whom a screw is slightly loose
; just when you can't keep going, actually you can; 3hrs sleep was a wrong decision, the odd power nap would be a better use of time; nature is a wonderful yet fickle thing; ...and never say "yes I'll do that again next year" before the adrenalin has subsided 
Just in case you're wondering, I rode16.5 laps, if you want to know what a real achievement is, the winning solo rider rode 32, yes 32 x 7.5 mile laps or 240 miles in 24 hours, amazing stuff!
