Nicole's story: Cactus Cup

BaseCamp athlete Nicole Gunton shared her experience at the 2026 Cactus Cup bike race in Arizona.

The 40-mile XC MTB race was landed just before the end of BaseCamp. I used this race to see where my endurance was with minor edits to the basic schedule including an extra rest day prior to the week. Temps were high on Friday, and I decided to go out for a warm-up/pre-ride in the thick of the heat at 2pm for some minor heat acclimation. It was HOT! Coming from the 30s in the PNW to the 90s in the AZ desert was a serious shock, but having lived there, I know what to expect, and I survived a short 45-minute course preview to get myself used to riding on the sand over hardpack that is Arizona mountain biking.

On race day I had it in my head that my start time was at 8:46, so I rolled over about 8:42 from my warmup, and everyone was leaving! Did they start early??? Nope, I got my corral time wrong. Sprinting to catch the tail end of racers with maybe 10-15 seconds lost due to my mistake, I blew myself up and wasted a good amount of adrenaline. Soon enough I settled into a 3- to 4-hour race pace and slowly picked riders up and passed them throughout the course.

An hour and 11 miles to go, I started getting goosebumps and chills; knowing the signs of heat exhaustion, I backed off the intensity and tried to keep sipping water and hydration drink every couple minutes. About a mile from the end, I gave one last push to the finish, which got me a 3rd place in my age group.

I never have super high expectations for early season races like this, but I am happy with my performance and came close to my same time from last year, though the course was slightly different and possibly a bit longer.

Day 2 was a 20-mile sprint race. I made the start line on time! Mostly the same group of ladies, but a couple new faces since not everyone was doing both days. Legs were a little tired and took a good 15-20 minutes to shake out after the start, but I was still able to catch a good amount of other racers that started in earlier waves. A short 1h 35 minutes later, fortunately done before the real heat kicked in, I finished for another 3rd place. Felt good, but I may not have left it out there. I was alone for a good part of the race, and I feel like I could have given a little more, but not having a carrot on the second half took a toll on my motivation. All in all a good day and a great event!