A
RACER'S STORY:
by Tom Jareki, Team Experince
Cycles
Like
other adventure races a Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race involves paddling, mt
biking and running on marked course, sometimes featuring an orienteering section,
and using a map to navigate (this race featured an unmarked course and required
a bit more attention paid to the map, but no bushwhacking or orienteering). However,
unlike most adventure races that I have done MOMAR is a sprint, with a 40-50 km
course and a finishing time in the 4-8 hour range. It is a way higher intensity
than I'm used to, and you may remember my comments about vomiting during the paddle
section in the last MOMAR I did in March. That was my first MOMAR experience and
it was much faster and harder physically than I really expected, but much simpler
navigation than my usual races.
This was my second MOMAR and
I was better prepared for the intensity and nutritional requirements. I was racing
in the team of two male category with John Barron as Experience Cycling, wearing
red and white shirts from our sponsor. We ended up finishing 3rd overall and 2nd
in our category - a good result with the 150 or so racers out there. We led for
about half the race, mostly thanks to a smart move in the first transition that
passed two teams and a navigation mistake by the remaining two teams ahead of
us (Dave Norona racing solo and Sean Lunny and Denis Fontaine racing as a team
of two male, who ended up finishing first and second ahead of us), but weren't
quite able to match their pace for the rest of the race and settled for third.
We had a whole bunch of solos and teams of two close behind us the whole way and
the pressure was unrelenting. Awesome fun!
Each MOMAR features
a number of checkpoints that you have to get to in ascending order, and some checkpoints
feature a mystery event. The MOMAR Ucluelet race had four mystery events as well
as general team spirit award: guess the number of fish hatchlings in the tanks
of a fish hatchery, build a functional piece of furniture using at least four
pieces of driftwood, demonstrate a team cheer and pose, and balance on logs only
while traveling from one end of a 100 m beach to the other. MOMAR makes these
exciting as there are great prizes for the winners. These added a fun and variety
to what otherwise was, in our case at least, a five hour suffer-fest. You have
to remind yourself that the other racers must be feeling as bad as you are; at
least you hope they are!
The weather was a bit ugly but actually
quite pleasant for racing as we didn't have over-heating problems. On Saturday
morning we woke up to a strong, gusty southerly wind with light rain and low cloud/fog.
The ocean swell was absolutely booming against the sea coast and it was tough
to get up when our alarms went off at 5:30 am because of the dark and the sound
of rushing water in the gutters. The pancakes with maple syrup and strawberry
pop tarts for breakfast sure made us feel better.
The race
started at 9 am with over 100 kayaks lined up across Ucluelet harbour waiting
for Bryan to call the start. I believe the mayor of Ucluelet sounded the starting
horn. Instant chaos, and lots of spray in our faces as we started upwind into
a sharp wind chop towards the first turning mark at the mouth of the harbour.
Turning around the top mark it and now making our way downwind to the head of
the inlet and our bikes it was cool to see all the colourful boats against the
grey water, dark land and low cloud. We also noticed a couple of sea lions breaching
in front of us. The paddle ended at a gravel beach with absolutely noxious black,
sucking mud. Ugghh - the race directions had a warning about losing your shoes!
The
second leg was on our bikes, following a combination of paved and gravel roads
15 km via the fish hatchery (of the hatchling count: actual total 143,370; John's
guess of 100,000 was not too bad) to the far checkpoint where we were required
to grab a hammer and some nails each and build a functional bench. This was shown
on Global TV on Sunday evening. The riding was super fast and wet, with a fine,
sandy grit bogging down our drive trains badly enough that we had to stop twice
to re-oil our chains. We lost our lead on the second half of this leg as we struggled
up the hills with chainsuck. The leg finished steeply uphill where we dropped
our bikes and started the first trekking leg. This was a 550 vertical metre climb
up at first an insane mountain bike trail, then an access road that led to the
radar installation at the top of Mt Ozzard. There is a good picture of the view
from up there on the MOMAR web site for the Ucleelet race - all we saw was scudding
clouds and rain. The return leg was down, down, down on the road, which I can
certainly feel in my legs this week.
We had a fast change
of shoes and back onto our bikes for what at that point was thankfully mostly
downhill and level bike leg back to our kayaks. One thing really shone through
for both of us that day: wear glasses when biking to prevent blinding mud clots
in your eyes. The yellow lenses on a miserable day do wonders for your mood as
well.
We dumped our bikes and carried our monster kayak (a
Libra XT that was the size of a whale and took a heck of a lot of work to get
going fast - next time we reserve our kayak earlier) back into the water via the
black ooze - no shoes lost but it sure didn't smell good. The second paddle was
about a third as far as the first one back to the next transition check point
located on shore near where we started the race earlier. Since we were at the
head of the inlet we were much more protected from the wind and waves and the
water was almost smooth. After nearly 4 hours of full-on racing we were starting
to feel pretty tired and the paddle felt super hard. It was with great relief
that we reached the beach and got out of our kayak for the last time.
We
received the map for the last leg, which was a 5 km or so running leg. Running,
ha, more like staggering after getting out of the kayak and getting our running
shoes on. The route to the final 3 check points took us across the narrow peninsula
that Ucluelet is situated on and right to the exposed Pacific coast. The town
has built a recreational trail along the coast named the Wild Pacific Trail and
our first 2 checkpoints were located near the trail on the coast. Wow, absolutely
spectacular, especially with the big surf and blowing clouds - totally west coast
with the dripping vegetation, overflowing green salal, huge ferns, stunted cedars
and arbutus, and moss everywhere. Our last checkpoint before the finish was on
board the Canadian Princess Resort, and old ocean going ship converted into a
fishing resort. The checkpoint clue, over which we agonized for the previous 10
minutes, was 'Julie McCoy would like it here'. Who the heck is Julie McCoy? Luckily
the checkpoint control was visible from distance, since we did not know that she
was the actress who played the stewardess on the Love Boat TV show.
We
were within site of the finish and gained new energy as we ran the final few metres
over the mud flats to the Tauca Lea Resort and finish line. The announcer over
the PA system tried to entice us to take a swim because Norona had but we weren't
falling for that - everyone knows that Dave would do anything anyway. The feeling
at the finish line was sweet, partly exultation and partly relief. Bryan puts
on a great refueling station at the end of his race with bagels, dips, chips,
cookies (I think I may have snagged the last of the Fudgeos, sorry everyone) and
fruit. Now that the pressure was off it was fun to watch following teams crossing
the mud flats, including a few intrepid swimmers, and arrive at the finish. There's
just nothing like the euphoria of completing a super fun race and it's a lot of
fun sharing others' finishes.
Bryan and his crew put on a
fabulous race, with over 70 volunteers and seamless organization. The pre-race
banquet is excellent and featured a delicious bbq salmon and spaghetti with sauce
as well as an entertaining panel discussion by Dave Norona, Ina Ervin, Sean Lunny
and Denis Fontaine (all first in their respective categories in the race). The
post-race food was delicious and I sure wish that other race organizers would
serve food even half as good. All in all, an excellent adventure and I have definitely
become a fan of the Mind Over Mountain races.
-- Tom Jareki
