Merida mountain bike marathon

A change of event yesterday, as I completed my first mountain bike marathon. I rode Merida's Ruthin event, which is close to home and therefore lacked surprises in terms of the route - but it was really a matter of curiosity. I wanted to find out what these events are all about, and enjoyed it a lot. I went for the 75k course, with around 2400m of climbing: quite enough to be getting on with, particularly as I could still feel last week's Jungfrau marathon in my legs. But it went well - an amazing start with 1000 mountain bikes heading through Ruthin. The rest of the day was an epic blend of hard climbing and exciting descents, almost all of which I'd done before but never in such a long day (didn't stop me going over the bars above Cilcain and breaking my helmet). Finished in just under 6 hrs. Some running last week, recovered OK from the Jungfrau - which is still fresh in the memory. Now I need to start upping the running again for the forthcoming Cardiff and Snowdonia marathons, as well as some local 10k's.