Race around Rwanda 2023

1000km of rolling green hills, jungles, lakes, nice gravel, not nice gravel, and MTB worthy single track (aka really not nice gravel)Rwanda is a stunning country with some of the friendliest people I've ever met, including thousands of kids who would run alongside for as long as they could while shouting 'good morning' not matter what time of day or night it was. Might be time to add 'good evening' to the English curriculum please 🙏😅Since it was my first ultra race the goal was simply to push harder than I ever had. I got a bit carried away with that one and after 800km of riding the most technical gravel of my life on just over 2 hours sleep I ended up collapsing at the side of the road. Thankfully help is never too far away in such a densely populated country and in no time there were locals bringing water and flagging down a passing pickup truck to bring me to the nearest big town. That put an end to the competitive side of my race but after a good nights rest the rules allowed me to continue the race from where I had been picked up the day before. It's a lot harder than you'd think to convince someone to drive you to a random point at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, especially when you look as tired and confused as I did, but after an hour of my best google translate negotiating I had a willing taxi driver.From there is was an 'easy' 200km back to the finish to round out an unforgettable 4 days (will do it in 3 next time 😉)I didn't take many pics while racing so massive thankyouthankyou to @mattgrayson_photo for the pics and to @theracearoundrwanda for putting together such a cool event