Hannah Barnes is a professional mountain bike racer and emergency medicine nurse. When she isn’t travelling around the world competing in elite mountain bike competitions, she works at the Belford Hospital in her home town of Fort William in the Scottish Highlands.
Hannah is a brand ambassador for Specialized Cycles and the smiling face of women’s mountain biking. Recently back from finishing 2nd female in the epic 161 mile ‘La Ruta de los Conquistadores’ endurance race in Costa Rica, Hannah caught up with Adventure Medic staff writer Calum Stannett to talk about her adventures both on the bike and in the hospital.
Congratulations on your result in the Conquistadores race! I heard it’s one of the toughest mountain bike events in the world… how did you find it?
Thank you! Yeah I was so pleased to come second! The race was really tough, and definitely lived up to it’s reputation. After reading the stats and hearing horror stories of how gnarly it was, I was mentally preparing myself for the worst. I hadn’t done any specific long distance marathon type training for it, so I was relying on general fitness from a long season of racing. I think I’m naturally more suited to these long tough races, I just hoped that I could be competitive and be able to push myself when it came to it.
Being the infamous ‘La Ruta’, my aim was to just finish the race and for me and my bike to be happy and in one piece at the end. My memories, experiences and friendships made during the three day adventure across Costa Rica I would never forget, so a good result would just be the icing on the cake! The humidity and long steep climbs were the toughest aspects. Hydration and nutrition were key to keeping performance consistent, especially as it was so hot.
Day 1 (90km, 3,800m of climbing) contained the most ‘adventure’, with lots of river crossings, deep jungle, hiking up muddy ravines & through mountain villages, and over misty ridges. I was exhausted! Day 2 (100km, 4,200m climbing), was the toughest day and I think everyone had to dig deep. After this you’d pretty much made it, as Day 3 was relatively easy, with an undulating fast race down to the Caribbean sea. Day 3 started off with a three hour raft down a beautiful river to the race start. The river got pretty wild and took us though incredible jungle. What a cool way to get to the start of a race! You could choose not to raft, but got a time penalty. Day 3 was very strategic with a lot of the race on dirt road. It felt a lot like road racing, with racers taking a turn at the front and all working together. There was no time to slow down and eat or you’d be off the back of the group; I managed a couple of bottle changes from a moving support vehicle which was pretty awesome!
With good support and recovery each night, and not going too hard on Day 1, racing felt better and better each day. Riding from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean sea, we climbed 8,000m and covered 260km. I moved up from 8th elite female on Day 1 to 3rd after day 2, then managed to finish the race in 2nd – I was so happy! In my experience however, I wouldn’t say it’s the ‘toughest’ mountain bike race in the world. I think that the aspect that makes a multi day event tough is the post race and overnight facilities. Camping or staying in basic huts, doing your own bike washing and mechanics, etc. really make a race tough. It was a complete luxury to be able to just concentrate on the race, have a hot shower, a good nights sleep, pancakes in the morning, and a perfectly tuned bike. I liked that after racing you could properly recharge, it meant you could start each day feeling relatively fresh and ready to race. I loved everything about it – the racing, seeing the beautiful Costa Rican country and culture, the food, and especially the incredibly kind and fun people I met. I love how these extreme adventure type races attract and bring together a really cool group of people from all over the world. I stayed for a week after and did some surfing on the Pacific coast, it’s a very cool country!
You’ve travelled all around the world with your bike and must have seen some pretty incredible places. What has been your favourite place so far?
Hmm that is a tough one and hard to choose just one… I’ll pretend you said top three! British Columbia (BC) has awesome riding, I love everything about BC and could definitely live there. Whistler is one of my favourite places in the world to ride. The ride/yoga/lake swim/healthy good food lifestyle make it pretty ideal. BC is so vast, I’d love to explore more. I also love the French Alps, they are so beautiful with endless singletrack to explore, there is also loads of ski lifts if you want to just punch out runs or do a big day covering a few valleys. Stopping to eat in the little boulangeries, the french cheese, wine and coffee… I really enjoy the French culture. It’s also relatively close to home and easy to get to. I’ll also pick New Zealand. I was there for our last two winters, it was great to have back to back summers! I loved Rotorua, Nelson and Queenstown. New Zealand really does have it all!
As well as your exploits on two wheels, you’re also a practising nurse. Why did you decide to do nursing?
I always thought that nursing would be a nice job – it’s centred around people (patients and the team), practical, hands-on and logical. There are also many different areas to specialise or work in to keep it fresh and move around if you want to. For example: hospital, GP practice, A&E, theatre, clinics, expeditions, oil rigs, all the specialities… endless scope to find an interesting and fun area which suits you. Being able to work worldwide is awesome too; everywhere needs nurses! During high school I worked as a carer in a nursing home and enjoyed it. After getting the grades needed for University in 5th year, I left school and went to Alaska to work in a sled dog racing kennel. Trail Breaker Kennel had around 100 dogs, and was owned and run by Susan Butcher and Dave Monson. Susan has since passed away. Sigrid Ekran from Norway, now a professional sled dog racer, and I were the ‘dog handlers’. It was hard physical work but great fun and one big adventure.
Working as an A&E nurse is a challenging job and must be very different from when you are racing. How do the two compare?
I really love the variety of doing both! The travel/racing/training/emails/admin etc. of being a professional mountain biker is amazing, I feel so incredibly lucky to do the sport I love as my job. It is hard work, and you get out what you put in. I think that by doing both professions, I can fully appreciate each one and never take either for granted. To have complete flexibility and also be financially stable doing what I love is great. A&E can be steady and relaxed, then all of a sudden all hell can break loose and there are multiple emergencies all at once. I love that variety. It is a really fun and interesting department with never a dull moment, and the staff are great too! Alongside being an athlete, the interest and stimulation of nursing is a great thing to have.
Fort William is a stunning place with many adventures to be had. What do you miss about home when you’re away?
The more I travel, the more I appreciate how great Scotland is. I love that everything is right on your doorstep, the mountains, rivers, sea, and white sand beaches too. The west coast of Scotland is really magical and beautiful, you don’t have to travel far to have an adventure! The Highland people, the ‘craic’, the traditional music and deep history of the area is pretty special too. I miss my own place, family and friends. The local bike and hill running scene is really active and full of great people, so doing all the local events is great. Home is the most relaxing place there is, the only place where you can fully re-charge and re-centre yourself. I think most people think that of where they call home.
Getting a good work-life balance is something that’s important to many of us and certainly for us at Adventure Medic. Do you think you’ve found a good balance?
Definitely!
You’re a role model to many young riders, as well as hospital workers who love adventure and the outdoors. Do you have any advice for young students interested in combining adventure and medicine?
I think it’s easy to get sucked into the system and onto a steady career path, and although it takes a lot of hard work, it is generally the path of least resistance and is financially and professionally the sensible secure option. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and doing a bit of biking or skiing etc. on days off could be just enough to have a happy balance. The most important thing is to live in a nice place, where you can get out into the mountains easily. I always wanted to work to live, not live to work. Finding a rewarding way to earn a living, and being surrounded by like-minded, intelligent and nice people is so important. I think there are loads of awesome people in medicine and nursing, it’s just finding a way to make it work for you. If you are a doctor, I always thought that being a locum GP or a flying doctor somewhere like rural Alaska would be cool. There’s always a level of compromise, whether that’s more in favour of career or lifestyle: it’s just finding the best balance for yourself to feel content.
Have you ever thought of combining your nursing skills and adventures?
Not now, but at Uni I thought of it. After doing placement after placement in Glasgow, I asked the head of nursing if I could do my next placement in South Africa. They miraculously agreed and off I went to a government teaching hospital attached to the University of Limpopo. That was pretty full on and I learnt a lot! When I left Uni, I had a full time job for a year in Lochgilphead which was great. During that time I got properly into training and racing, and since then haven’t had a full time nursing job, working on the Nurse Bank around travels and racing. I have always wanted to just have ‘adventures’, even if I didn’t quite know how or where or what. When I was 15 my family and I took a year off work and school and sailed from Fort William to the Caribbean and back. That was amazing and we all learnt so much. Since growing up with that adventurous lifestyle, it seems pretty instilled in me! I read a great book years ago: “High Endeavours – the lives and adventures of Miles and Beryl Smeeton.” They were definitely at the extreme end of living an adventurous lifestyle; a very inspiring and enjoyable read! I’m not sure what the future holds, but perhaps one day I’ll combine the two.
What’s next for you? Do you have any more adventures planned?
In a couple of weeks I’m heading to Cape Town to do a week of filming with Specialized, then I’ll stay for a couple of weeks after to get some sunny training in. A lot of cross country racers go to Stellenbosch in the off-season to train, so I’ll spend a bit of time there and also go to the coast to do some road riding and get some beach time in! Then after that I have a month at home, then the season kicks off with the first couple of races in South America! From there it’s all go into a busy season, with the Enduro World Series being the main event. I’m finishing the year with the Yak Attack, an eight day race across the Himalayas!
You can find Hannah on Twitter, like her Facebook page and check out her website www.hannahbarnes.co.uk.
Photos: Hannah Barnes / Justin Sullivan
