My name is on the Taurus start list. But my brain can’t compute.
My name is on the start list for the Taurus Mountain Race, and I still find it difficult to believe it belongs there.
I look at it and get this little flicker of excitement in my tummy. Then, almost immediately, a tidal wave of “oh my God, what have I done? You can't do this. Who do you think you are?”
Even calling it a race feels strange. Saying that I'm going to race makes me feel like I'm claiming something about myself that I haven't quite earned. I can see my name there, but the scale of what I've signed up for feels completely at odds with the version of myself in my head. This seems like something Claire Sharpe wouldn't do. Couldn't do, even.
And yet I'm the one who entered.
That's the bit I keep coming back to. I wanted to find something that excited me enough to try, without knowing whether I could do it. I wanted to feel a bit scared and uncertain again, because that’s when I’ve had some of the most amazing, confidence boosting moments of my life. I went looking for that uncertainty, and now it's here, and apparently I would like it to leave me alone for five minutes.
When I started looking for a race, I had a fairly clear idea of what I wanted:
Technical riding, not cruisey gravel.
The chance to be somewhere remote.
A place I really wanted to explore by bike.
And definitely under 1,000 kilometres, because anything over that sounded batshit crazy.
But the events I found weren't quite right. Something would be missing, or I'd find something that interested me and decide it was too long. Then the Taurus Mountain Race came along, and I kept coming back to the images.
There weren't that many of them. A few photographs and reels, enough to show me a landscape unlike anywhere I'd ridden before. When I'd thought about mountain biking in Turkey, my mind had gone to Cappadocia and hot air balloons. These images opened up something else entirely, somewhere I hadn't even known to imagine myself riding.
I could imagine the feeling of being there, and I wanted to know what it was like for real.
There are moments on a bike when you've pedalled all day and find yourself somewhere with no buildings in sight. There might be a dirt track under your wheels, evidence that other people have passed through, but no houses or surfaced roads or towns spread out below you. I love that feeling. I love getting somewhere under my own steam and looking around at a place that feels so far removed from everyday life.
The possibility of having those moments in the landscapes I'd seen was enough to keep drawing me back.
There is also so much I don't know. We won't get the route until two days before the start. I can't fill in all the gaps, and neither can anyone else lining up. The women's start line looks amazing, and there's something exciting about being part of this group, all heading towards an experience we can't fully picture yet. Future editions will have stories and photographs from people who've done it. We get to find out together.
Sometimes I manage to stay with that thought for a while.
How lucky am I that things have fallen into place so I get to do this?
How many people ever have the opportunity to spend their days riding through somewhere like that?
Photos by Tom Gibbs from a trip to Montenegro
Then the fear comes back, and I find myself trying to explain why I entered to the same brain that thought entering was a good idea.
I know, from other things I've done, that confidence can come from giving yourself the chance to be surprised. If I only ever choose things I'm completely sure I can do, I don't give myself much room to discover that I've underestimated myself. It's very easy to decide what I'm not capable of. I can come up with a whole list before I've even got on my bike.
Finding out what I am capable of takes a bit more participation.
That doesn't mean I'm certain I'll finish Taurus, or that wanting it enough will make everything work out. I don't know how it will go. That's part of what makes this so difficult to sit with. I want the opportunity to learn something about myself, but I'd also quite like advance confirmation that it will all be fine.
For a long time, I barely spoke about entering. I've found it hard to know what to say on social media, or when it comes up in a group of people. I worry that I'll sound big-headed. Or stupid. Or delusional for thinking I could do something this big. Keeping quiet has felt easier than letting people see the ambition and the uncertainty together.
But making cycling feel relatable matters to me. And pretending that these fears and doubts don’t creep in isn’t honest. I can guide and coach other people, encourage them to give themselves a chance, and still struggle to believe my own name belongs on a start list. The imposter syndrome doesn't conveniently disappear because I understand something about building confidence.
So this is where I am before Taurus. Little flashes of excitement. An enormous amount of doubt. A landscape I can't stop thinking about, and an opportunity I feel very lucky to have.
I still look at that list and think: surely not me.
But I want to give myself the chance to find out.