Mike’s MOMAR 2009 – The Race and the Results

~Mike Romaniuk, on the Secret Thoughts of Men

This blog post is the last of a four part series. If you missed the first ones, you can read my first post here and  follow the links to back to this final post.

I wrote this article below directly following the 2009 Cumberland Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race (MOMAR), but it won’t be published for a few days as we’re waiting for our race results.

Well, it’s done.  We finished!

Highlights of the course today:

• 50km total length (though our actual route was closer to 52km… checkpoint 3 was a bit hidden and we missed it…)
• 2 ascents up a mountain (once on foot, once on bike)
• 1 kayak stage, 2 biking stages and 3 trekking stages
• Biking included a long Cross Country Section & some fantastic Single Track
• Trekking included a large self-navigation section, an urban run through the town of Cumberland and a 30-45 minute orienteering section

Final thoughts on the race:

My body has lost the capability to regulate its own heat.  I’ve consumed almost 1 gallon of liquid (mainly water) over the last 6 hours and 32 minutes.  I’ve eaten less than 25% of the calories that I just finished burning.

I am tired.

I have a few scrapes, a few bruises and I’ve injured my right ankle.  I hit hard a couple of times crashing on my mountain bike and on foot.  After a bike crash just past Checkpoint 6, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to actually have children again.

I stink.

Synergy between teammates is extremely important – and unfortunately today we lacked it.  There were no fights, no bad feelings – but our skills and last year of training didn’t work together as well as it should of.  Oops.

Our team goal was to move from “Page 3” of the results (our position last year) to “Page 1” this year.  Neither of us thinks we made our goal.  Our prediction is a solid second page placing.  Because every team takes a slightly different (sometimes massively different) route, we have no real idea what our stats or ranking are until the race results come out – hopefully Monday.

But despite it all I’m overjoyed and insanely happy.  It may not sound it but I am.  Today was a fantastic day, with a fantastic course, fantastic competitors and fantastic weather.  I couldn’t have asked for better and we did well.

I am happy.

Update: We had a great day and a fantastic race but I’m sad to report that we didn’t achieve our goal of being listed on the first page of the results.  As much as that sucks, I am proud of what we did and have no regrets.