I have just posted two new photos galleries onto the Photo page of the website.  Caroline Falconer’s gallery was taken from the Trek at CP 6 and has many great shots of racers in fast action.  The other gallery was taken by Dave Prothero who was at the start of the race for the kayak, then moved to the No 6 Mine Site for the bike transition. He also got some good shots in town.  Thanks to you both, as well as, Tony Austin, Aimee Asselin, and Laura Comuzzi for coming out and taking some many great photos!!!

It’s been a week since MOMAR Cumberland and in that time people have been sharing their race experiences all over the blogosphere.  I’ve also had numerous emails from both racers and volunteers telling me what a great time they had.  It’s so great hearing everyone’s stories especially those from the mid pack who are out there more for the experience rather than a podium finish. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to write these up; I love reading each one and hearing first hand how things went out on course.

I have posted all the blog reports that I have found so far on the Race Results page of site, but here they as well.  Grab a coffee or a beer and enjoy the reads. Be sure to add your comments to the posts if you like them!

• Sleepmonster report by Jackie Windh
• Article in the Comox Valley Record Newspaper
• Article in the Revelstoke Times Newspaper
• Blog Report by Gary Robbins
• Blog Report by Sarah Seads
• Blog Report from Team HHVI
• Blog Report by Shane Ruljancich
• Blog Report from Colin Wilson
• Blog Report from MC Dave Norona
• Blog Report from Barb of Coast Mountain Sports
• Blog Report from Erik MacKinnon

I just arrived home from the final MOMAR of the season. I’m too exhausted to write up the wrap report or get the results formatted and posted.  However, the great Tony Austin, did send me a few great photos so I’ll leave it at that until tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone from coming out and celebrating the end of our 10th season!!!

The race started with a kayak stage on Comox Lake. Team Helly Hansen VI I & II battle it out.

The fastest racer on the water was John Markez with a split time of 49:50.

Jeremy Grasby heading out of the CP 7 transition gives John Markez a high-five.

Kevin Hodder from Whistler rides Bucket of Blood.

Victorious Secrets Cute C's Dayna Egyed and Penny Rundle from Surrey work the Urban Nav Stage. Nice job on the custom made jerseys!

Curtis Sanders and Tanya Berg of team T-Dot on the techinical trail Off-Broadway

The winner, Jeremy Grasby from Cumberland, crosses the finish line in 4:28:30!

Results to be posted by Monday noon.

The spirit was high at the MOMAR Squamish and it was great to see so many racers all dressed up in themed costumes to match their team names.  Team Get Your Mind Off My Mountains and Team S.W.A.T. shared the Spirit Award which was sponsored by Ahnu Footwear.  They all win a pair of Ahnu Terra Linda XTR trail runners. Thanks to everyone who got into the spirit!

Christine Baghdassarian and Melissa Doyle were the S.W.A.T Girls and they rocked the spirit and had many votes for best spirit. Photo by Amber Thom.

Eileen Bistrisky and Tiah Goldstein of Team Get Your Mind Off My Mountains won because they sang ABBA songs (loudly) all race long! Photo by Mark Teasdale.

A very honerable mention goes to the Ladies of Suburban Rush for dressing up like very unattractive ladies. Jordy does has some pretty nice legs though… Photo by Amber Thom

A new set of photos are now available. Check out the gallery taken by volunteer Larissa Buijs from the start of the race at Alice Lake, along the first trek, and on Rob’s Corners (near CP#2).

This photos is a along the powerlines with the mountains in the back. I’m not sure if the smiling racer is Meggan Oliver or Angela Knightley from the Decrepit Sloths.

Thanks Larissa!

Reporters and Race Bloogers have been busy over the past few days!  Check out all that has been written:

• Article in the Squamish Chief Newspaper
• Article in the Whistler Question Newspaper
• Article in the Revelstoke Times Newspaper
• Blog Race Report by Gary Robbins – 2nd Overall
• Blog Race Report by Sarah Seads – 1st Solo Female
• Blog Race Report by Team Helly Hansen Vancouver Island – 1st Team and 5th Overall
• Sleepmonsters.ca report on two newbie MOMAR racers

There is also a great photo gallery posted by Mark Teasdale. Check it out.  I’ll be posting up more galleries from the party, rappel site, CP 2, and the finish line.

It was nothing but blue skies for the first race of the 2009 MOMAR season!  A record turnout of 241 registered racers signed up for either the 30km Sport Course or the 50km Enduro course designed by Jen Segger.  This was our third year in Squamish and to celebrate we added a checkpoint at the top Stawamus Chief.  I would like to thank all the Squamish community and landholders for supporting our event. More kudos go out to all of the racers, volunteers, and sponsors!!!

Congratulations to Bart Jarmula from Revelstoke for his first overall win of the MOMAR!

For full race results, click here.

Here are some photos from the day…

REGISTRATION AT THE HOWE SOUND INN & BREWING CO.

Volunteer, Yun Cheung-Ford, gives out a MOMAR T-Shirt. Everyone loved the design that Roddy Tasaka from Surface Collective created  (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

The Helly Hansen Gift Bags filled with goodies from our sponsors (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Registration lines flowed steady all night long. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Team Live to Tell Rob Macleod, Graham Schulz, Malcolm Schulz, and Chris Bishop from Squamish show off their pipes. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Volunteers, Laura Comuzzi and Yun Cheng-Ford take a Breather from their duties to peruse the latest edition of Breathe Magazine (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Pam Skeans and Shannon Collier from Squamish. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

RACE MORNING AT ALICE LAKE PROVINCIAL PARK

No apparent pre-race jitters for solo racer Bart Jarmula with Team Sleepmonsters.ca, Erica Gray and Heather Fraser, (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Coast Mountain Sports looks over the first of two maps that they would recieve on the day.  (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

The Victorious Secrets featuring Caroline Mackay, Alison Sum, Rosanna Sheppard, and Antonia Grady sex it up at the MOMAR. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

AND THEY’RE OFF

Enduro course start (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Live to Tell (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Sarah Seads rips down the road past Quest University (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Gary Robbins with a view of Howe Sound in the background. (photo by Amber Thom)

Mountain Devils (Lesley-Ann Marriott & Terry Stuart) summit the Stawamus Chief and arrive at CP 11 and then off to the rappel site. (photo by Amber Thom)

The father and son duo made up of Roger and Aaron Walmsley raced as team Generation Gap. Aaron was our youngest racer at 15 years old. (photo by Amber Thom)

Bart Jarmula from Revelstoke. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Team Helly Hansen Vancouver Island’s Justin Mark falls in the glacier fed river while wife and teammate Carey Sather looks on. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Meanwhile, teammate Jeff Reimer rides the river in style. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

THE FINISH LINE IN DOWNTOWN SQUAMISH

DONE! Happy times for Michelle Maislen from Washington State.  (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Garibaldi Highlands’ Kim Stegeman and Kate Drew celebrate their MOMAR finish. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

The Ladies of Suburban Rush and the Gentlemen of Suburban Rush at the finish line. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

Canadian adventure racing legend and seven time Eco-Challenge competitor, Bob Faulkner, crosses the finish line. (Photo by Mark Teasdale)

THE AWARDS CEREMONY AT QUEST UNIVERSITY

The top three in the solo male category: Gary Robbins (2rd), Bart Jarmula (1st), and Shane Ruljancich (3rd). Winners took home a Helly Hansen and Smartwool prize package, second place won Ryders sunglasses, and third won a wall tattoo from Surface Collective.  (photo by Amber Thom)

The top three in the Sport team of two female (photo by Amber Thom)

And the party! DJ Q-Pid played great tunes all night long and these were the last ones on the dance floor. (photo by Amber Thom)

Congratulations to Team MOMAR’s Gary Robbins for his first place win at this past weekend’s Dirty Duo 50km Ultra.  Gary raced neckand neck with Aaron Heidt and squeaked the win out by a mear 14 seconds.  A great play by play account with photos is now posted on his blog. Check it out.

The above map is the Dirty Duo course route for the 50km ultra taken from Gary’s watch.

Shawnigan Course Designer, Jason Sandquist, was down in Costa Rica for the four day La Ruta mountain bike race. Here is a short post race summary.

Hey Bryan,

La Ruta killed me.  I am sitting here with a separated AC joint in my shoulder because of that race.  Day one was going great until at 5hrs I pulled the Glute Mead muscle that I injured in my 24 solo in Moab 4 weeks earlier.  Sharp pain went through my legs and I lost power.  At 7hrs in I bought a Pepsi from a road-side vendor and laid in a ditch eating everything that I had left in my pockets figuring that I had about an our to go.  A Costa Rican was also wasted and doing the same thing.  He said that we had 2.5 hours to go.  What the hell?  Make it 3 as I got misdirected and spent some time on a private tour of a coffee plantation.

Day two and I was still hammered from Day 1.  Day two was smoking hot.  I survived it on fumes which would be the way that the rest of my days would go.

Day 3 and we had to climb for 35km up to the summit of the Irazu Volcano.  Very cool.  The descent was like riding in a dry riverbed, if river beds could have lava rock in them.  I got to the final kilometre and dropped my guard and stuffed a ditch.  I was sure that I had broken my collarbone and I was missing allot of flesh from the lava rock.  Turns out I had separated my shoulder.

Day 4 and I had to try to finish so I started at the back of the pack.  I couldn’t lift my arm at all and I was in a ton of pain all day.  We hit a section of railway tracks that absolutely killed.  It was 45 C, my arm was still gushing from my wounds and my shoulder was separated.  This sucked.  I was never so happy to see the finish.  I have ridden once since.

I know why they call this the hardest mountain bike in the world.  On paper it doesn’t sound so bad.  Race it and you will understand.  I have always wanted to do it.  If I didn’t finish I would have had to go back.  No way do I ever want to repeat the first three days again.

Jen’s support crew is doing an awesome job of emailing me reports from the field:

here we are, back on line, it was 30 hours without any signal, rolling around very remote areas, wich are awesome! so, the team is at the moment arriving in Viçosa do Ceara, coming from trekking, and switching to biking. it is going to be a big trek, including climbing, ascent, descent! they are considering to do this piece in 10 hours time, since they already payed 5 from their 8 mandatory hours! on the last PC, about 5 hours ago, according to myself, Jen was the best shape in the team, she is handling very well the local hotness! Good girl! now, dart nuun are at 8th position, checked on the last PC, 5 hours ago! that’s gonna be all for now, coming back from the next PC, if the signal helps! 8-)))))))))

They have been racing for over 53 hours now.  The race organizers estimated the winning time to be around 65 hours, but i’m not sure how close the top teams are to that.

Rob Howard from Sleepmonster.com wrote:

Dart Nuun were another team who found the ride hard, but the US team are still racing and are in the top 10. They said the ride was so sandy it was hard to make progress and wasn’t an enjoyable experience! (It was because of the sand that SOLE were stripping down their bikes as much as possible and rigging a new towing system to cope with it.)

Be sure to head over to Sleepmonsters.com and read the full race report.

Here’s a message from Fred who is part of Jen’s support crew:

So, yesterday, the team left the starting point at 15:30h, and ran for 5 hours approximately on the dunes, close to open sea, arriving in Tutoia for the first transition, where they got the kayaks and left to Parnaiba, racing for approximately 18h, with maybe, and only maybe, 1 or 2 hours of mandatory sleep.

The team was feeling pretty well on the transition, and they were in very good shape after running on the dunes! They spent around 10 minutes to drink and eat, then left for kayaking cruise on open sea, and mangroves!

They are now sitting in 12th spot but according to the SPOT map, they seem to be very close to the leaders, Team Nike.

In the ultra running world, the big race is the Western States and runners need to qualify to be accepted entry.  Competing at this race has been Gary Robbins’ main focus and this past weekend he suffered through the Mountain Masochist 50 mile trail run with hopes of qualifying.  After 7+ hours of running Robbins took home and impressive 2nd place and with that he secures a spot in Western States! Yeehaw!!!

Gary will be off to California at the end of June ’09 to compete in the 100 mile race against the best ultra runners in the world.  He has just posted a quickrecap of his race on his blog with a more detailed report to follow.  Way to go Gary!!! You rock!

Congratulations to Ryan and Nicole Worsfold from Brentwood Bay, BC, who were the lucky winners of the trip for two to Hawaii.  The prize package sponsored by Schick Xtreme3 and the Make-A-Wish Foundation includes flights via WestJet, seven nights of accommodation and an adventure package of their choice.  Have FUN!!!

Schick Xtreme3 reps, Francis and Greg, were on hand at the Cumberland awards ceremony to present the prize to Ryan and Nicole.

The 25th edition of the Schick Xtreme3 Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race took place on July 26th in the Cowichan Valley were the series began nine years ago. It’s pretty cool for me to reminisce about all of the amazing memories that have taken place during each MOMAR weekend. From the adventure filled courses to the incredible racers and volunteers to the epic after-parties, the MOMAR has been an amazing experience and I can tell you a million great stories that are both family friendly to those not so family friendly… Going into race weekend, I didn’t really think much about the fact that this was our 25th race but sitting here now and thinking back on it all I can do nothing but smile, laugh, and sigh (from all the crazy hours). Anyway, I’ll save the trip down memory lane for the day when the MOMAR reaches 100 and your children’s children are doing the race!

Speaking of children being inspired and racing the MOMAR, this race we had 14 year old, Aaron Whalmsley race with his dad Roger in the Short Course. Roger has done numerous MOMARs usually racing with Where’s My Sherpa but at this race he convinced his son to enter as a father and son duo. Their team name was “Generation Gap” but the only gap they had was between them and the 2nd place team.

This MOMAR featured both a short 30km course and the regular 50km course. Each course started with a kayak on Shawnigan Lake (5km/10km) followed by a mountain bike stage (20km/30km) with two water challenges, and finished with a orienteering stage on Cobble Hill Mountain. In the regular course, it was Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR’s Todd Nowack winning his 5th Overall Title. Team PIT came in second followed by solo racer Roger McLeod. Sarah Seads from ELM Health won another solo female title (Sarah, how many is that now?). Jen Segger and Norm Hann were the top coed team of 2 and Team Berg Bikes, Lisa Hughes-Fisher and Nina Brown, were the fastest all female duo. The Mill Bay / Shawnigan Lake based Team Longevity were the top team of four.

The kayak stage saw Team Helly Hansen / Yogaslackers (Marshall House & Lina Augaitis), and Team Helly Hansen Vancouver Island (Justin Mark & Jeff Reimer) open up a massive gap between them and the next chase group. Both teams have been paddling a lot and with their speedy boats (double surfski and K2), they rocked the paddle. Lina and Marshall hit the beach first but Jeff and Justin were the first to punch CP 1.

One of the big changes to this year’s course design was in the mountain bike stage. Jason Sandquist took racers out the Burnt Bridge trails which were used in the last two years of the BC Bike Race. The single-track riding in pretty wicked and the loose sand really keeps you on your toes. Team Helly Hansen Vancouver Island was first into this stage and were arguably two of the strongest riders in the race. They knew that they needed a big time gap on Nowack heading into the Orienteering stage in order to have a chance at winning their second consecutive title. But multiple flats early in the stage cost them a significant amount of time and Nowack along with Frontrunners‘ owner, Normon Thibault passed them and took them out out contention.

An urgent call on the radio notified us that some idiot had removed the flagging before CP 12 and all the way to the Quarry. Jason was in the River and I was at the Quarry so we both ran and re-flagged it but not before the top 10 teams. Nowack said he didn’t mind this because he had his fancy map holder on his bike and it was easy to navigate through. Thibault stayed with him but lost his lead as a result. However, Team Warmland Dental/SOL and Team Cowichan Bay Kayaks missed a key turn and ended riding down a big hill before realizing their mistake and had to climb back up.

Course highlights were definitely the two water challenges. The first challenge required racers to run upstream to get a CP and then back downstream to get the other CP. The CP downstream required racers to jump into the deep pools of the Koksilah River and swim across the 10m span.

The other water challenge was the Pool Noodle Swim on Quarry Lake. Teams swam a 200m circuit with the pool noodles to collect two checkpoints. This man-made lake has an almost tropical green colour and is nice and warm. Both dips in the water do a great job of keep the racers cool (and clean). The pool noodles worked out much better than last year’s ‘choose your own inflatable’ but we missed seeing the Orca whale, crabs, and ducks…

The Orienteering Stage was last and the Carl Coger designed course gave many of the navigationally challenged racers a tough time. Although some say this year’s O course was easier than last year, it still had a few CPs that were the turning points for some racers. Thibault, entered the O course in first place but one CP gave some serious trouble and cost him a podium finish.

Nowack crossed the finish line in 4:26:37 and teams continued to finish right up until the eight hour cutoff. The finish area had a great vibe with MC Dave Norona and John Crosby entertaining racers all day long. The refreshment table was loaded with food, Edge drink, and there was even a big cooler filled with beer from Lighthouse Brewing Co. A big thanks to the students from the West Coast College of Massage Therepists for coming out and giving the racers a massage when they finished.

Full race results can be found on the Race Results page.

I have just re-posted the final results from this weekend’s MOMAR. I made a mistake in the mountain bike split times. Go to the Results Page to view the new version.

I’m just compiling a bunch of photos and crafting a post race report. I’ll hopefully have it up in the next few days.

Big THANKS to all the volunteers, racers, and sponsors for supporting the MOMAR!