Margaux Jo Elliott - Million Foot Challenge
- By Kate Hector
- Published: Feb 8, 2021
- Last Updated: Oct 11, 2021
Climbing one million feet on a mountain bike
Even before COVID canceled races and forced everyone to reevaluate their goals for the year, Margaux Jo Elliott had already set a unique goal unrelated to races and competition. She set out to climb one million feet of elevation on her mountain bike in 2020. She’s nine months into the challenge, and on track to become the first woman to accomplish this on a mountain bike.
Prior to this year, Elliott regularly raced enduro and in 2019 finished second in Trans New Zealand (a six-day enduro mountain bike event). Later in 2019, Elliott had a rough day at the Enduro World Series 100 in Northstar which led to her searching for non-race related goals. This idea of climbing one million feet in a year stuck and now Elliott has climbed more than 750,000 feet since January.
“I liked how challenging it would be, how not that many people had done it and how it would inevitably make me a better rider,” Elliott said. “I liked that the goal required a long term commitment and would be a struggle. I think I needed something like this to prove to myself that I could do it... that I had what it takes.”
Elliott needs to climb a whopping 21,800 feet each week to finish the challenge before Christmas. For most of the year her weekly target was 19,900 feet per week, but a series of challenges has Elliott making up for days she wasn’t able to ride. Each month has featured its own unique obstacles, including saddle sores, closed state parks because of COVID, and smoky conditions due to West coast fires. Each missed day requires an adjustment to the plan, since each ride contains so much elevation gain (approximately 4,000 feet per day). Elliott typically goes on a 3-4 hour ride three times during the work week, and two long rides each weekend.
Despite the challenges Elliott has faced managing the immense amount of time this challenge requires and the associated fatigue, the rewards are already evident. The most rewarding results so far have been improvements in confidence and consistency. “I’ve struggled with mental strength and feeling confident while riding with friends,” Elliott said. “I’ve always been the “slow one” (uphill anyways). Doing something like this has made me feel strong and proud of myself.” And in a year where everything has been unknown and different, the consistency of the challenge has been positive. “I have been grateful to this challenge for giving me something to keep me grounded,” Elliott said. “It gives me time and space to process everything going on.”
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Follow along with Margaux's journey to climb one million feet on Instagram, @margauxjo.