It seems a very long time ago that I was lining up at Battle on the Beach for my first race of the season.

Battle on the Beach soft sand push

I went up to elite this year which was a bit of a baptism of fire! My first nationals were a real eye opener to the speed needed to be competitive in cross-country. Although the race was really hard I learnt a lot from the experience. I went away and worked on my technical skills.

Over the winter I had been doing some longer rides and found these suited me. I have always found the power and pace of cross-country a challenge but this year decided to try endurance racing.

My first six hour solo was tough but showed me that I could turn to endurance racing. I worked hard to improve my endurance building up from 3 hour nonstop rides to 5 hour nonstop rides. These were hard but I enjoyed pushing myself in a new direction and worked hard on my fitness.

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The next challenge was a 24 hour race with Martyn where we got an unexpected 3rd place.

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After Mountain Meyhem I had my own time of mayhem with buying our first house my training was disrupted. I decided to use this time when I was feeling rather stressed to concentrate on training and getting used to being on my bike for long periods of time and perfecting my nutrition during those rides.

I entered the last round of the Southern XC series and was happy that my training had paid off when I managed 3rd place.

Hannah Attenburrow

My next priority race was Torq in your Sleep, my first 12 hour solo. I didn’t really know what to expect but I had a plan which I stuck too and that paid off. I learnt so much from this race like make sure you eat little and often so that you don’t get stomach cramp, don’t take the dodgy head torch light out as coming back to change it costs a lot of time (20 mins to be precise).

TORQ 12-12 2015

The next few months I will be working on my endurance and stamina clocking up the miles and building a good base over the winter.

My aim for 2016 is to race the Trans Alp and continue to improve on my endurance results from this year.

Thank you to my coach Mark at Velo coaching for your help with my training.

Thanks to my sponsors Grip Grab and Bike Fixers. Thanks to Silverback for my brilliant Syncra which has kept me competitive all year.

If you would be interested in supporting me in 2016 please contact hannah@peal2pedal.co.uk