Maddy Nutt: What it took to win Traka 560
Bikepacking, an AI agent, and ham, cheese and pesto wraps – Maddy runs through her prep for her first time racing an ultra
Maddy Nutt is a gravel racer with wins at Dirty Reiver, UCI Gravel Brazil, and Safari Gravel Race. A fan of long rides – especially for a pastry – her rapid success in ultra looks inevitable in hindsight.
Winning the Traka 560 was definitely not on my 2026 bingo card. As my first ever time racing an ultra, lining up against a stacked field of experienced riders, my target was to get the best out of myself and at a bare minimum get to the finish line – having never ridden over 360km before.
I knew that my fitness was in a great place – hitting an all time 10 minute power PR the week before the race, and feeling consistently strong on longer endurance rides, but I had no idea if I could put this all into action over such a distance.
My training leading up to the race was not too dissimilar from previous seasons. Racing the Traka 360 the past three years I had been doing very long (8hrs+) endurance rides on and off in my training, and I’d gradually been increasing the volume and intensity of my strength training.
This winter, I started my training after a 3 week off-bike holiday participating in the GranGuanche Audax Trail with a friend. We decided to bikepack as much of it as we could, and I completed 4 out of 5 islands, with 8 hours of sleep in Airbnb’s; dinner in restaurants and daily cleaning of kit with a washing machine! The goal of the trip wasn’t to take part in the ultra but more to get some good volume of zone 1 and 2 riding in, as well as ride in a totally new part of the world (the Canary Islands).
Having not touched my bike more than twice in 3 weeks this was definitely a tough few days on a bike at the beginning of the week, but I gradually felt fitter and more myself on the bike, and really enjoyed the whole experience! I would say I caught quite the opposite of the ultra bug through this experience, seeing very broken humans who were racing, and feeling like I would never myself sign up to such a race!
A few months later and I was taking to the start of the Traka 560… How I came to sign up to the race, I’m not entirely sure! But it was a mixture of encouragement from sponsors and also personal intrigue. I’ve always known endurance is a strength of mine and I’ve definitely been intrigued to test it out on something longer. 560km seemed like just about my limit of riding without needing sleep, and so I agreed to sponsors I’d give it a whack and I put the race in my 2026 calendar.
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Leading up to the race I spent some time in Girona, and I managed to recon the Pyrenees section of the course. I was a bit taken aback by the amount of walking I had to do over snow and was worried I would regret my decision to opt for the 560 over the 360 course. I also managed to recon a small section in the dark, and learnt the hard way the need to properly ensure lights are charged – needing an expensive taxi rescue mission from Cadaques at 11pm!
These recons made me aware of the remoteness of the route, and I diverted my strategy away from a light setup towards carrying all of my nutrition for the whole race and 3.2L of capacity for fluids. Further into my planning, a friend and I inputted my power data and weight with the GPX into an AI agent to see what the agent thought about my predicted time to complete the route, as well as offer a pacing strategy. It seemed like I could definitely beat last year’s winner’s time with my power numbers, but that I would need to ensure minimal faff and really maximise where I was to push out more power.
My plan was to aim for 28 hours. I decided that as I couldn’t control how my competitors rode, it was a healthier mindset to focus on my own performance only and just hitting this time target. At the end of the day, their rides would be entirely out of my control, and I should be happy with myself if I nailed my plan and finished in just under 28 hours.
Come race day, I can only describe how I was feeling as excited, and interestingly more excited than I’ve felt at the start of a race! Typically my stomach is a concoction of nerves and excitement, but I really didn’t feel the nerves leading up to this race in the same way. I put this down to the race being more in my control and less in my ability to respond to racing situations. Often in shorter gravel races I find myself struggling with repeated sudden surges in power, but I knew that I wouldn’t want to be surging at all in a race of such distance!
The race began and I was surprised to find riders drafting at the start and made sure to hold wheels and benefit from this also. This meant pushing a little more power than I had planned at moments, but I knew that this would be worth it and something I could recover from later in the race.
Onto the start of the steeper and longer climbs, and I switched into riding my own pace and let riders go ahead of me. I gave myself a few hours of lower power to really recover from the start of the race, and soon my legs began to feel good again…in fact they started to feel great! I got into a rhythm and flow state and time passed fast, as I progressed through the course and caught riders ahead of me.
Hitting the halfway point I shouted at my videographer that I was having so much fun and that my legs were feeling great, filling up my bottles and hydration vest and eating the ham, cheese and pesto wrap I had packed myself for dinner!
Then came darkness and I surprisingly felt no anxiety as the terrain became harder to navigate. I did my best to maintain good power where I could, and keep fuelled and hydrated as I progressed through the night shift section of the race. I had saved my headphones for this section, and treated myself to 8 hours of voicenotes from family and friends. These kept me entertained as some of my friends had recorded silly songs and raps, as well as motivational messages encouraging me forwards.
At about 400km into the race my spirits did drop, as I hit a long monotonous flat section that was soul destroying! I found myself counting every km and wondering when I’d get the chance to climb again. I kept seeing a flicker in the distance of a tail light and used this as motivation to keep pushing and try and find company as morning came.
As the sun rose I finally caught the rider from Movistar ahead and he informed me that I was leading the women’s race. This gave me a huge boost, as I headed towards the final big climb of the race. Those last 60kms I tried to keep focused and make sure to not make any errors, knowing that the win was so close and it was just my responsibility to keep sensible and safe.
Crossing the finishing line I felt a wave of emotion, tears pouring down my face. I was greeted by friends and my dad who were jumping up and down cheering – their excitement with my victory mirroring my own.
The win was definitely a surprise to many, and it’s something I am still quite getting my head around, as I ended up finishing an hour before the next competitor. I wonder whether maybe I have found the thing I was meant to do… my Ikigai.
I guess only time will tell, and I’ll see what motivates me most when my body is recovered! For now, I will smile thinking about the Traka and how I was able to show to everyone that I really can race my bike. I’ve had plenty of scepticism in my abilities and imposter syndrome in my career as a pro gravel racer and I hope this will be a pivot where I leave these behind!
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Chapeau Maddy, this win really puts you up there and remember that every time some one writes about you or mentions you in a list, it's now Maddy Nutt Traka 560 winner. That's massive.