The April issue of Explore Magazine has a feature article on MOMAR Squamish’s Course Designer, Jen Segger. The article details the amount of training and focus it take for Jen to complete at the international level.

Jen is currently in Whitehorse, NWT, taking on the Rock and Ice Ultra.  She is running in the 6 day stage category and just finished the first day in second place (third overall).

Jason Terauchi-Loutitt who did the MOMAR 2006 and won the recent Yeti Snowshoe series was also on the start line but suffered from frostbite and is a DNF. Tough break for Jason.

MOMAR’s media sponsor, Sleepmonster.ca, is doing a great job in covering the race with reports and photos. Read it all here.

Team Helly Hansen/MOMAR (l-r), Mark Fearman, Gary Robbins, Nick Bladen, and Megan Rose (photo by Wouter Kingman)

I totally forgot that Austrailia is a day ahead of us and that the 800km XPD Expedition Race has already started! I just checked the leaderboard and Team Helly Hansen/MOMAR is doing really well and is sitting in 7th place after two stages.

The team is made up of Gary Robbins, Megan Rose, Mark Fearman, and Nick Bladen. Nick raced all the MOMARs in 2006 with Team Giddy Up and they placed 1st in their category a few times. Mark raced with Gary at the MOMARs and at Utah’s Primal Quest. He moved to Oz last year. Megan just moved back to Oz a month ago. This is one fast team! But without Todd Nowack, my question is who’s navigating?

Also racing in the XPD is Jen Segger-Gigg with her DART-nuun team and Jim Mandelli with Canada Post.

The first stage of the XPD required teams to rogaine through a series of CPs out on the open water. It looks super cool–just take a look at the map. Keep checking the MOMAR Blog for regular updates this week.

Go TEAM go!!!

Frontrunners’ co-owner Normon Thibault (above) and his wife Wendy Simms are currently at the Transrockies Mountain Bike Race. Yesterday was the first day and they are off to a great start! Here’s what the TR people has to say “In the mixed category, Wendy Simms (Team Kona) and her partner Normon Thibeault (Frontrunners) send a loud message to the rest of the field with a dominant 25 minute win in stage 1. Their finishing time of 2:27:34 was actually good enough for 10th overall.”

Norm and Wendy had another great day on stage 2 at the Transrockies Mountain Bike Race. Today’s stage was 60km from Invermere to Nipika. Here’s what the TR people wrote, “One category which shows no sign of being competitive is the Open Mixed category in which the pair of Wendy Simms, one of Canada’s premiere women’s mountain bikers and her partner Norm Thibault, both based in beautiful Nanaimo, British Columbia, have put on a clinic with consecutive crushing wins and now lead the GC by over 32 minutes.”

The photos from the Reckless Bike Store Checkpoint at the MOMAR Shawnigan are now available for you to check out. Click here to find your photo.

Big thanks to Jed and Regan Grieve and Reckless Cycles for looking after this CP and handing out cookies to the energy depleted racers!