MOMAR Race Day!

(See previous entry, The MOMAR Journey for all the events leading up to race day!)

Here we are, on September 26th 2009. My first Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race, in Cumberland!

The alarm went off at 6 something and it was time to get ready! Indigo had the bikerack on her car so she picked me up and we headed out to find Bike Drop. Luckily, it was another BEAUTIFUL day! It had been dry for a while, so that meant the trails would be dry. Thank goodness, I needed all the help I could get! We dropped the bike at the No 6 Mine Site and then headed out to Comox Lake. The Enduro course started at 9 am so all those racers were getting their kayaks ready before the 8:30 am Captains Meeting at the Start/Finish line. They got their maps at 8 am but we had to wait until 9:05 to get ours. There were 280 racers in the Enduro course and the Start line was quite the sight! All those kayaks lined up, luckily the water was calm for them!

We registered and got our map. We were pleased to see a few things! First, the kayak was only 5 kms. We expected that to be our slowest leg compared to the other racers, so we were happy it wasn't 7 or 10 kms. Second, we were familiar with some of the mountain bike trails on the 3rd leg of the race. It was flagged and we had to collect all of these checkpoints in order. There were 16 checkpoints on our Racers Passport that needed to be checked. Not all of them were on our first map. At this point, we were confident that we could complete the race!

After checking out the map, we headed back to the car to get ready. We had to eat breakfast, stretch, decide on outfits (based on temperature), and attach our race bibs to said shirts. That all went quite well, so we headed down to the start line to find our kayak! The rules with adventure racing don't allow you to leave any items behind (except kayaking gear), so we had to take our backpacks and shoes into our boat with us.

I decided to wear flipflops, Indigo went in barefeet. We paddled out onto the lake only to find that the wind had picked up considerably. It was super choppy and we weren't wearing skirts on the boat! The seats were already soaked from the Enduro racers who used the boat before us. We had to accept that we were starting the day soaked, which wasn't my favourite thing, but at least it was sunny!

We got off to an Okay start with the paddling! Our race started about 5 minutes late. Indigo was having rutter problems, but other than that and the amount of wind, things were good. We were at the back of the pack, but we weren't last and we weren't really getting too far behind! Considering my paddle experience, that was pretty much what I expected. We ended up passing the yellow boat in front of us near the end. My calves were a bit tight getting out of the boat, from pushing on the pedals...but everything else was good. We dried our feet, put our shoes on, and ran up to checkpoint one!

By the time we were all set and running on Trek #1, it was 11:25. Not bad! It was only a little ways on the road before we ran into the woods and started on the trails. There was certainly some hiking, but we were hitting the checkpoints and thankfully, Indigo is good with maps and direction ;)

We got up to one of the checkpoints only to find that we were coming down the same trail we had come down the Saturday before while out wandering! We were running to the bike site when I saw my moms vehicle and my niece inside cheering us on! That was awesome to have support during the race! It put a smile on my face and kept me going through the tough parts! I didn't have a watch but we knew we were about an hour on the trek.

The bike transition was a bit of rest time for us before a long uphill climb! I don't mind the uphills, especially when they are gradual. It was fun. We had to do the whole climb before we hit the checkpoint at the top, and then the way down started :O

The first part of the trail down was okay, I only had to walk at a few points. The trail was quite crowded because the sport course and Enduro racers were on it. The 2nd part of the trail was quite technical. I was slow on it, but remained riding cautiously most of the time, lol. We were on Steam Donkey extension, then the more technical trail itself called Steam Donkey. It was very technical and I was slow as usual!

The last part of that leg was where we cut onto another trail which was loose, steep downhill. I walked the whole way and regularly got out of the way for some of the people riding their way down. I was starting to tire at this point and get frustrated.

Once we got out of the downhill stuff, we were back on the road to another checkpoint. Luckily, we were sent into a trail called Buggered Pig, and then into Mama Bears! These were the exact trails my brother had taken me on earlier in the week, and I did reasonably well on them. I was soooo happy to know what obstacles were coming up!

After we got back to the No 6 mine site, we got a new map for our urban checkpoints. We had to run around Cumberland. Again, my partner was very good with maps and I just ran along with her. My chest was starting to tighten up and restrict my breathing. My left hip was sore, going from kayaking to running, to biking and back to running. I shuffled through the urban part and then we got back on the bikes.

There was an unflagged checkpoint, so we could choose our route. We rode up next to a bunch of other people and Indigo said we should make a left when everyone else went right. I followed. We made a right only 50 m's down the road and it ended up being the shortest route. Good job teammate! That was our 2nd last checkpoint on the passport so we biked back towards the finish line.

We dropped our bikes at the bike drop there and I ran up to get our last checkpoint and grab the map for our orienteering section. Indigo was changing out of her bike shoes back to her runners, and I set down the 2 pieces of paper next to her. We studied the map together then took off. Just down the road she asked me where our passport was...and I told her I gave it to her. We both checked our bags and neither of us had it....... so we turn around and ran back to where we dropped our bikes. I saw a folded piece of paper waving in the wind on someones bikespoke! Woo, that was it. Close call!

Indigo was great with the orienteering map so we snagged those pretty quick! I had lost all track of time at this point and couldn't think straight. We ended up running back along the beach to the finish line!!! I had lots of fans there which was awesome.