“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 wasn’t at all what she was expecting, compounded somewhat by being caught out by a a great number of the women’s field starting all at once en masse.
“So it started with no drafting, a.k.a. a peloton for like three hours, as apparently that’s a thing in ultra racing that they say no drafting and everyone still drafts because it’s impossible to spread out if you have like a grand depart and everyone goes off together?
“So I went way too hard early on because I thought if all the other women are in this bunch, and I’m going my own pace, I’m gonna lose so much time, so I went over where I wanted to push…. And then, suddenly, I had this moment where I feel like my body just recovered from those efforts, and I could just push really good power.
“I think it was about 210k in, and I suddenly was, like, ‘oh my god, my legs don’t hurt at all, and I can push really good watts… let’s go!’”
Considering the point at which Nutt realised she felt good was greater than the total distanct at the Traka 200, I was curious as to whether this was when she thought she would win.
“Halfway is when I decided I wanted to win, not that I realized I was gonna win,” she said.
“I didn’t realise I was gonna win until maybe 60k to go, because I hadn’t got any information about where anyone was, and the other thing that’s weird about ultras is because people go off course to fill up water or wee or whatever, you don’t always pass people. So people can disappear, but you’ve passed them.”
Meticulous planning no stopping
Ultra races are won by good legs but also strong heads and a slightly obsessive approach to race prep. Nutt told me she reconned several parts of the route ahead of time, scoping out water fountains and making sure they were operational. this clearly paid dividends as a bar, advertised as definitely being open for resupply by the organisation, was closed for a national holiday.
“I did really prepare for this race in the sense that I’d reconned quite a lot of the course and I bikepacked part of the course. They changed most of it anyways, but for the main big climbs I had done recon, but also I think by reconning I had found a couple of water fountains that I was certain worked, because not all of them do, right?
“When you’re having to constantly be on the lookout for water fountains, I think actually, mentally, it’s so much easier just to know you’ve got everything, and there was a bar in the middle of nowhere that they’d like advertised as ‘this will be open on Friday night’, and it was in the middle of nowhere, and it was a it was a holiday in Spain, and it definitely wasn’t open.”
Despite paying close attention to her hydration, bathroom breaks were few and far between, totalling only three over the whole course, though I was told in no uncertain terms that peeing in her bibs was a non-negotiable.
“Unlike for shorter gravel races where people just wee themselves, I was like…I’m absolutely not doing that. Absolutely not.
“Also when you get into the rhythm and flow of it, you don’t want to stop. I actually found I didn’t want to stop, and when I had to stop to refill I would have wanted to keep going, but I knew if I stuck to the plan I wouldn’t run out of water.”
Gels formed the backbone of Nutt’s nutrition strategy, and despite considering a pizza stuffed down the inside of her jersey, sense prevailed and two pesto, ham and cheese wraps were substituted. There was a glimmer of concern that the ham, at body temperature for the best part of a whole day, may have been something of a digestive risk. The total calorific expenditure was then revealed with glee.
“Fifteen thousand [calories]. I fainted when I finished. I fainted because I didn’t eat enough straight after the race, which is not good. I should have been on top of that to be fair, but I felt fine until I finished and then sat down and then I suddenly felt really awful.”
What does this mean for Unbound?
Naturally the conversation landed on the prospect of switching her race entry from the standard Unbound Gravel 200 to the monster Unbound XL, which is typically 350 miles (563km).
However, there is more than a touch of trepidation there, not in terms of the distance, as that has been proven to be more than achievable for the Brit, but in terms of the monotony of the course, especially when Nutt refered back to that hellish 60km, counting each kilometre.
“Unbound is like that on steroids so I fear that, like, you don’t get [anything] exciting, it would just be counting down kilometres, and I think I’m mentally strong, but maybe not that strong.”
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