Mountain Mayhem, 2008.
Having been lucky enough to miss the worst of the mud in the middle of the night, I went out at around 5:30am in the early sunshine on a fast drying course, and was really enjoying myself.
Approaching the entrance to ‘Crazy Coppice’ wood however, any riding skill I once had deserted me completely. Too sleepy to remember my brand new cleats, I ran out of grip, failed miserably while trying to unclip and landed elbow first on possibly the largest, pointiest rock on the entire course, still clipped in.
One cut to the arm all the way down to the tendon, a lot of blood, a ride with the medical team down to the arena and 18 stitches later, I returned to my bemused team who wondered why on earth my lap had taken so long and was promptly relegated to pit bitch for the rest of the race.