"3rd Place baby!!"
MOMAR has two different courses: the sport course, which is around 30kms, and the enduro course, which is 50kms. Of course our brains are slightly broken because we always do the endure 50k. This race is what I train all year for. It is always on my brain. It is fun and challenging, both mentally and physically, I love it!
Pre-race Night: MOMAR has been held at various different locations, but for the last couple years has just been held in Cumberland. The Friday night before the race Darryl and I always head up to Cumberland for pre-race registration and beer. We showed up at the Riding Fool Hostel at about 7:30pm and joined the lineup of people waiting for their race packages. It didn't take long before we were handing in medical waivers, drinking a free beer, getting our pre-race pictures snapped, and checking out our new race shirts. We also received some information about the bike drop before the race and shuttles to the start line out at Comox Lake. |
Morning of the Race:
As always, the morning of MOMAR we woke up far too early for a day off work after a poor sleep in a weirdly unfamiliar place. Darryl and I stumbled out of bed, drank some coffee, and choked back a giant lump of steel cut oats in preparation for the race. We loaded up our gear and were on the road towards Cumberland not long after 0600.
Up at the mountain it was crisp and clear, but as we descended down into the Comox Valley a blanket of low clouds enveloped us. I was actually quite happy with this because I knew the chance of rain was pretty slim, and the fog would eventually burn off. As far as weather goes it has rained EVERY MOMAR I have ever done... So this was a nice change of pace.
We dropped off our bikes and equipment for the biking stage at Cumberland Village Park. I am always thankful that they don't make us tote around all of our mandatory bike gear for the whole race... After we were finished kissing our bikes goodbye we hopped on the bus shuttle to Comox Lake.
When we arrived at the lake we b-lined to the registration table and grabbed our map. When we sat down to examine it I was very pleasantly surprised. I knew most of the trails from previous years racing and exploring the area, we did not have to hike-a-bike anywhere near "wookie's toothpick" like the previous year, and we did not have to run AND bike all the way up and down the mountain. Phew, things were looking up. We had a good stretch, small snack, located our kayaks supplied by Sea Legs Kayaks (they rock), and soaked in the map debriefing before piling into our boat.
The start of the race is always my least favourite... I am not the most experienced kayaker and it is alway quite the grunt to just paddle as fast as I can for 10kms... Darryl and I had been out kayaking two times to practice and had asked various people for tips and tricks on speed. This stage had always been our weakest so we needed to get better.
When the air horn sounded we were off at a speedy clip. As far as I could see there were no teams of two girls ahead of us so this was a good sign. Darryl has been in the back steering for the past two years and this year she did a GREAT job! We whipped around the buoys like nobody's business!
About 6-7kms into the paddle I noticed a team of two girls called "jail break" hot on our tail. Immediately I quickened my pace and strengthened my paddle, I felt Darryl respond in the same manner. We kept a good distance ahead of them and they never caught us. We were the first team of two girls out of the water by a minute!
After scrambling out of the kayak we ran up the beach to grab our packs and get to checkpoint(CP) #1. My legs always feel like jelly at this point after jarring them in the kayak for an hour. Darryl ran up to punch the CP and we were 1:07:04 into the race.
We then ran down the beach, which was the same as the previous year and collected another CP before heading up into the woods. This is never the greatest part of the trek stage since most people have not quite spread out. We found ourselves stuck in a long line of racers slowly slogging along on rough single track. Here we aggressively powered passed a few people and were overtaken by others. The first part of the race was all marked with pink flagging so we were on autopilot. At one point our rivals "jail break" overtook us for short while...
Once we obtained the last marked out CP I took a look at our map. A lot of racers were heading off on a different trail I didn't think was the right way... We followed my instinct and came upon CP 4 all alone at a trail junction. I decided to sneaky pee here while Darryl punched the CP and pulled up my pants SECONDS before 10 other racers flooded the area. Lucky!
After this we carried on to a trail called "pity the fool" and were spit out onto a road. I was a bit confused here and we took a wrong turn with "jail break" and another team dead ahead of us. We all ended up at a paved road and decided that we were in the wrong spot. We turned around and took a different turn meeting up with more and more teams. Finally we found CP#5! After that point I recognized most of where we were from a bike race a couple weeks previous and we ran our way to "two and a juice" and then the Cumberland Village Park. The time was 2:37:30 when we arrived.
Bike #1
We punched CP#9, grabbed our bikes, and munched a cliff bar as we sped off down the road to head up the mountain. I felt like I was on cruise control because we had biked this same route many times before and I knew just where we needed to go. Heading up the gravel road we ran into our friend Jeff, who we had met a couple years previous during MOMAR and partied with him and his pal at the after party. We all rode up together to the trail "miners," which I knew was going to be a slog/pushup, but felt it would be slightly quicker then riding the road around.
I was indeed correct about "miners." We pushed our bikes straight up for what seemed like an eternity. There were a few people that we saw take the ride around and we ended up slightly ahead of them, which was satisfying knowing that we made a good choice. Once at the top we dropped our bikes on an old skidder road and Darryl punched CP#11. It was 3:18:00 into the race.
Trek#2
After dropping our bikes we were given a new map with an assortment of hidden CPs numbered 12-18. They were in a closer radius then the rest of the race, but were more well hidden. I usually enjoy this part of the race because Darryl and I are quite smart with our map skills and often pass other teams here.
We quickly devised a plan for the order we would collect the CPs, since you can get them in any order you choose, and took off. We ran around and grabbed CP#17 first since it was a bit out of the way and would require some back-tracking. We followed a trail called "bear buns" until we hit the top of "bucket of blood" where the CP was stationed. Here the race director Brian Tasaka was hanging out with Dave Silver and a few others snapping photos. He even got one of me as you can see below!
As we were re-applying our biking shoes and grabbing our bikes a couple teams of two girls came out of the woodwork and started riding. I was nervous, but I knew that biking was our strong suit and we had a good chance of catching up. We blasted along towards "thirsty beaver," my all time favourite trail, and barrelled down. Here we caught one of the teams that had over taken us on the steep downhill and they gladly let us pass. At the bottom of "thirsty beaver" we got CP#20 and caught another one of the teams that had passed us, the "biking vikings." However, this was short-lived. Not long down the road they caught us again and whipped by.
I was having a good old time by this point. The next trail we headed onto was "blue collar," which we had raced two weeks previous in the Cumberland Enduro, and it felt fresh in my mind. We then took a short cross country rip on "crafty butcher" and another trail where we caught another random team of two girls I hadn't even seen until this point. One of the team members gladly let us by, while the other tried to stay ahead for a short while. She eventually gave up and we never saw them again.
After a while the road turned back into a trail and I thought to myself "Woohoo! Just around the corner and its all downhill from here!"... NOT. The trail became extremely steep, which required another hike-a-bike and I was exhausted. The good news was we had caught the pesky "biking vikings" and they reluctantly let us pass.
From this point on I was hardly functioning. I must have been a disaster to watch. I kept thinking we were getting close but then we would hit another cross country trail, then a road, then a trail, etc... I yelled "FUCK MOMAR!" and "I'm never doing this again!" but I kept going... What else do you do?
Finally, we hit the road back to town. We pedalled our hardest and screeched into the bike drop at Cumberland Village Park. Darryl yelled "You got this T" and we ran into the finish!! I was so exhausted... of the five MOMARS I have done I don't think I have ever been that wiped... We mingled with "jail break" who beat us by 10 mins and collapsed on the grass visiting with family that came to watch. It was finally over... 6:39:37
Turns out we came in 3rd place. Beat by "Jail break" in first and "ELM racers" in second. I am very happy with our podium place! As always the dinner and after party were a riot! We shared a table with "jail break" and danced to some great music at the after party. I take back all the terrible things I said about MOMAR and I guarantee I will be back again for more.