It’s less than a week until the start of the Atlas Mountain Race. I’m sat on a plane bound for Marrakech, feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness about heading into the unknown.
There’s generally a perception that I’m an old hand at this as I used to ride bikes a lot when my life looked very different, but I’m definitely new to this game and I feel every bit of that naivety.
It’s my first ultra race in a foreign country, my first race of any kind on a mountain bike, and it’s not an ‘easy’ one to start with. Not that any of them are, but there are definitely degrees of difficulty in terms of terrain, weather, remoteness, culture, and numerous other factors. This one isn’t the most extreme, but it’s certainly outside of my comfort zone when it comes to all of these differentiators.
“The Atlas Mountain Race is a fixed route, unsupported, single-stage cycling race that starts in Marrakesh, crosses the Moroccan Atlas before taking riders through the Anti-Atlas and on to Essaouira. The clock does not stop and there are no prizes. It follows gravel, single and double track and old colonial pistes that have long been forgotten and fallen into disrepair. There is very little tarmac. There is some walking, and at times there is great distances between resupply points” Atlas Mountain Race
I also haven’t had a good leadup to this, after getting ill with flu in January and barely touching my bike for the entire month, but in many ways that makes it easier to see this purely as an adventure. That’s what it was always supposed to be, but it’s all too common to stray from that mindset as the days countdown. I know I’ve never managed to keep the feeling that I must succeed at bay, but it’s been a big aim of mine this year to work on that mindset.
Pressure only really exists if we let it, but it’s not always an easy task to shut out the voices in your head that tell you that doing well in a traditional sense (aka winning) is the only metric that counts.
Anyway, I digress. I’m here, I’m excited for an experience like no other I’ve had before, and from everything I’ve heard this event is one that provides an arena for a two wheeled adventure that can have a big impact on a rider.
I won’t post a full kit list and the like until a couple of days before the start, as I haven’t made my last few decisions on what to carry with me. Currently it’s looking like snow and sub zero temperatures are fairly certain, but I’ll see how things shake out in the forecast over the next few days. The fine line between taking what’s critical and what’s comfortable is difficult to tread at the best of times, but the broad spread of the climate in the atlas mountains makes this one a little trickier.
The countdown is on, the kit faff continues, and I can’t wait to touch down in Marrakech for a bit of tourist time in between riding and resting.
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Molly Weaver.