Into the Night - Day 1 Recap

As I rode around a damp wood in Southern England today, a couple of thousand miles away some of the best ultra endurance racers in the world took to the Badlands course to do battle with high altitude, temperatures up to 35 degrees and a lot of gravel.

Credit: @victorperezpl

As is often the case with these races, the first part is always a period during which riders settle into a rhythm and as such, the lead of this race was changing hands constantly within in the first 30km. Hitting the biggest climb of the day spread the riders out, and it was Lachlan Morton and Hayden McCormick who were leading the way up the Collado Aguacil. Behind them Christian Meier and Toni Calderon were trading 3rd and 4th before Toni stopped around 80km, mostly likely to re fuel in La Peza. Further up the course, a lot of riders were stopping in Gorafe to re fuel, before tackling the final push to to CP1. From Gorafe to CP1 was the riders first taste of the Gorafe Desert. No doubt there were a lot of riders who had never rideen in this sort of area before, but from the pictures I'd imagine they're all having a hard time concentrating on the road.

At CP1, the top 10 looked like this.

1. Lachlan Morton
2. Hayden McCormick
3. Christian Meier
4. Ashley Dennis
5. Oscar Pujol
6. Toni Calderon
7. Jame Hayden
8. Daan Van Meeuwen
9. Liam Yates
10. Jose Angel Diaz

(There seems to be a bit of confusion with the tracking, this top 10 is based on the segment time)

Credit: @victorperezpl

At 100km in, Sonia Colomo was riding as the first female rider on the course, closely followed by Yolanda Magallon and Yishuang Gao, at 92km and 89km respectively. At the time of writing Sonia Colomo was still leading the way at 118km, with Yolando Magallon just over 10km behind her. Yishuang was at 97km at this point.

In the pairs race, David Rovira and Ricard Calmet reached CP1 after 9hrs 11 minutes, and at the time of writing were the only pair to have made it. We're unsure the details of India Landy and Daniel Loftus, but it seems they had to head back to Granada due to wheel issues. Hopefully the get it sorted and are back on the course ASAP.

Jose Patrick Mothes has posted on Instagram giving his account of the first part of the route. https://www.instagram.com/p/CEy_jl0qCab/

With the top riders already into the ride to CP2, here is what they will be encountering. Riding back through the Gorafe Desert, they then head to Sierra de Baza, where they gradually climb to around 2000 meters. They stay at this height for around 50km, meaning that altitude will become a big factor, if it wasn’t enough one already, before dropping out of the Sierra De Baza to CP2 near Fuente Santa. At this sort of height at night, the temperatures will probably be close to zero so it could mean a very cold night for some of the front runners.

Credit: @victorperezpl

Heading into the evening, Lachlan is still leading, around 10km in front of McCormick and, alongside the pair of David Rovira and Ricard Calmet, are the only riders to have left the Gorafe Desert behind. Will the pure ultra riders be able to catch Lachlan during the night or will he be even further ahead come the morning? Who knows, but what we do know is that we have a blinder of a race on our hands.