“I think I might be good at Ultras,” said the Traka Adventure winner Maddy Nutt (Q36.5 Off Road Racing) with an easy smile that belies the effort she just put out over 560km and the last 24-plus hours. Her eyes told a different story; bloodshot, and at times the thousand-yard stare taking over as we sat down for a drink in one of Girona’s many cafés.
Only a handful of hours previously Nutt had outlined to me that her aim was to beat the women’s course record on her first attempt at an ultra-distance gravel race, something she achieved by almost two and a half hours.
“Guess how many calories I burned?” she asked me, genuinely excited by the magnitude of the number. I ask to save that for later, because with a course that kisses the Pyrenees before heading for home I wanted to know where the hardships lay on the course, and it wasn’t where you’d expect.
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“I was really enjoying myself when the course was interesting and stimulating, but there was a section of 60 kilometres that was flat road, simple gravel. [Then] a corner, flat, and it cracked me mentally. My legs were fine, but I got to a point where I noticed I was counting every single kilometre, and it was like a lot of kilometres to go.”
“It was really difficult because they let people start whenever they want it right. There are a couple of women who were strong because you were supposed to start between 7:20 and 7:40 [Friday morning -ed.], if you thought you’d finish under 30 hours, and there were a couple of fast women who started like 6:20, so that they get more daylight.
“There was a really technical section at about 260k… Most people would think, oh, they’re not going to make that, and they’re gonna have to do the descend in the dark, which would be awful.”
A chaotic start
The start, by the sounds of things, was somewhat stressful, and it’s a theme she returned to often in the course of our chat. Nutt joked that the spirit of gravel felt very dead for the opening kilometres, and the vibe…
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