Well I want to start by saying I am really impressed that I am typing this as my forearms are broken... When I say broken I mean "I couldn't hold my beer last night at the after party broken." Typing hurts...
So where do I begin.. Friday night maybe? The check-in at the Riding Fool was just as I remembered it, super friendly and sauna hot in the registration room. They did have meatballs and licorice for us to eat though so we quickly forgot the sweat dripping down our backs. We heard from our super top secret friends that there was a flagged trekking trail after the kayak leg so we thought it might be a good idea to take a drive down to Comox Lake.
We walked into the kayak companies setting up the kayaks and chatted them up a bit. We don't kayak... I did get on a quick little ride this summer once for like 15 minutes between our team mates and the kids. A dude named Mike was there from the Alberni Outpost and we asked him for some quick tips to help our chances a little. Not only did Mike give us some tips he pulled out the paddles and gave us newbies a lesson on paddling. It was so awesome and greatly appreciated. Consider this a shout out to you!! You rock!
We seen the pink flagging and went to sleep thinking we had a bit of a competitive advantage tomorrow.... Stupid Edmontonians....
We woke up painfully early and packed our bags. The weather was supposed to be all over the place... Typical BC island weather. We shoved our bagels in our mouths and made the drive down the mountain to Cumberland.
The bike drop area was pretty cool. Tons of bikes and again super friendly volunteers volunteering to take pictures and wish us well. It was pretty chilly so we made the drive to the lake and start line. We were a little unorganized to say the least. We couldn't remember who we rented our kayaks from and walked aimlessly around trying to find ours.
Amanda: "What's the name of the company Boris?"
Boris: "Sea Legs or something like that."
Amanda: "Are you sure it's not Seaward?... They have a lot of kayaks...."
Boris: "Umm. I think that's the brand name of the kayaks,"
Amanda: "Oh...."
We found our Sea Legs kayaks. Then kayak man eye-balled Justin and Boris and gave us our kayaks. There are very few occasions in life where I want a mini-man... This was one of them. He gave us the ginormous kayak. Stupid husband. It was like a tug boat for crying out loud. We got our paddles... Which didn't have the ability to off-set like Mike had showed us, and they cinched us up in our life jackets. Here we go...
We parked our bags and shoes on shore and carried our tug boats to the water. Boris and Elise had a smaller kayak but it certainly wasn't no Nacho Libre kayak like last time... Maybe we had a fighting chance at keeping up with them...
It was so windy on the lake! Our kayak kept going sideways and I kept getting splashed by the waves. We lost Elise and Boris before the race even started. Ready! Set, GO! We were off! I paddled my butt off and tried really hard not to coach or comment to my dear husband on his technique. I finally kindly asked him to move inland a bit as I was getting drenched by the giant waves. Well that was it, by the time we made it to the first buoy we were debating heatedly why we were paddling and going nowhere fast... People started staring at us awkwardly. At one point Justin offered kindly to switch places with me and let me drive... That was when I came to the conclusion:
1. I buy my own bloody kayak and take some bloody lessons or
2. Never race a kayak again.
We defeatedly watched our friends get further and further away and just trudged on. 1-2-3-4 trying to keep a rythym. When the person manning the first buoy said we deserved a heroes medal for the the kayak we were racing I knew we were doomed. We just trudged along and with every paddle and blister made it closer to the finish. I knew this would be a hard section for us but like child birth, I forgot just how painful it would be.
I thought we were the only ones who "loved" the kayak section this much but apparently our team mates had discussions on why his wife was paddling like a princess :) He even wondered out loud if she was fake paddling.... But he said it with a happy tone and a big loving smile.... Apparently our team name next year is going to be The Beast, The Machine, and the Princess Paddlers... Not sure if I'm a fan of that one.
Ok... Sand off the feet shoes on, and "Checkpoint 1" complete. We were off and running. Thank God because that was my favourite part.. Until I wiped out hard core on a wet log and had random strangers turn around asking me if I was OK. I jumped up and ordered my team to laugh at me if I'm going to wipe out that stupidly. We left the beach with "Checkpoint 2" complete and followed the pink flagged trail. One word... WOW. It was the most beautiful trail I have ever run. It was tough, and steep, and unreal. We climbed and climbed and climbed some more.... We found "Checkpoint 3" in the crazy Ewok forest and made some friends. We saw two Ewok tribes, one with clown hair and the other with tinfoil helmets. From that point on we were on our own navigation skills. No more pink flags. I'm not sure if it was the beer from the Check-In the night before or if I was just drunk on the excitement of it all but I randomly bailed a few more times before making it out of that forest.
We popped out of the Ewok forest and onto a logging road to hang a larry and find "Checkpoint 4"!! We were on fire. It took us 3.5 hours to find Checkpoint 4 2 years ago!! We had a little cheer, took some photos and started booking it to Checkpoint 5. We were running so fast we blew right by the trail head to Miners trail. Thankfully a super helpful couple "Team 205" yelled at us to come back... THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!. We headed up Miners at Mach 1... Then we slowed to a fast walk... Then we started crawlking up the trail. During this time Team 205 shared with us the super motivating stories of where she dry heaved on the trail last year, where she puked, and the final point of a full on cry while she Hiked-A-Bike up that trail the year before.
Miners is where the first member of our team had a bit of a melt down. Justin started his "I hate running" pout. I should know better than to encourage... It didn't end well and I just let him have his moment. The unfortunate thing about the moment this time was that we lost the other two members of our team...
I should back pedal a little bit here and let you know about our team check. To make sure we were all together we would yell Marco Polo... Well after we finished "Checkpoint 1" they announced us as the team from Edmonton, BC. We decided to change our team call from Marco Polo to EDMONTON!!..... ALBERTA!! just in case those BCers got confused about what province Edmonton's in.
After Justin's moment we continued up the hill and tried our team call. After 10 Edmonton calls we heard no Alberta reply.. WTF!?!? We lost half our team!!... and our map!! We figured they'd notice soon enough we were missing and wait for us. Well we made it out of Miners and BAM! There was Checkpoint 5 and a smiling Boris and Elise. It was a beautiful lake and I gave the hubby a big hug, so proud that he made it through that climb... and his moment.
Well he was full of renewed ambition and started booking it down to Checkpoint 6. Boris kept trying to take pictures of buckets of blood and crap and Justin was running down the mountain like a cheetah chasing his dinner... AKA... headed towards his mountain bike. I was doing everything to keep up with Justin and he ran across the bridge that had so much give that he was nearly catapulted off. Of course Justin and I had to stop and have some fun with that.
Justin: "Hey Boris!"
Boris: "What?"
Justin: "You gotta run across that bridge as FAAAAAST as you can!!"
Weren't lucky enough to see him fly off the bridge but Elise and Boris tried to get some funny bouncy pictures on it.... That is definitely why we didn't get 1st place.... I am sure of it.
We got Checkpoint 6 and ran down the Off Broadway trail... I must say I really do love running downhill. I'm happy, my team mates are happy, and its easy. We got Checkpoint 7 and busted it down the logging road to Checkpoint 8. The men were so busy stopping and analyzing every trailhead along the road... So annoying... Us ladies at one point just stopped to turn around and wait for Sherlock Holmes and Watson to figure it out. The most ironic thing was we must have looked ultra pathetic because everyone who ran/rode by us felt the need to tell us where the trailhead was. So when the men finally caught up we were able to say look geniuses lets go!!
Yay!! We made it to Checkpoint 8 and then into town at Checkpoint 9, the bike transition. Let the fun begin... for some of us anyways. We had a quick snack and headed back to the great outdoor wilderness.... And to the beginning of modern day hell............
We pedalled hard and smack into team mate meltdown #2. Elise is more subtle than us Fex's. She just made a quiet comment about not being able to keep up and having to walk the hill. There was something said about our 29" wheels being faster I think. Either way soon after Checkpoint 10 we were all on even ground.... Let the HIKE-A-BIKE begin.
We really did start the stretch between Checkpoint 10 and Checkpoint 11 ON our bikes but quite quickly ended up walking beside the bloody things. We walked... and walked... and walked and OH we can pedal... 25' later we walked again... and walked... and every corner we turned it was more uphill. I had a bit of a meltdown somewhere on this road... By road I mean crazy overgrown creek bed with plenty of fallen logs and other crap on it. I started cursing randomly something along the lines of:
"YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!!"
Then we made it to the Wookie's arsehole... oops I mean the Wookie Toothpick trail. I felt like I was in the Northern Alberta muskeg. That bloody trail was unrideable. Not for lack of trying. I wiped out I don't know how many times on this trail. I got stabbed in the kidney by an old stump and 2 minutes later went flying over the handlebars as my front tire droped in some sloppy hole. Luckily I am well trained and was able to do the classic suspend in mid air Matrix move and land on my feet. That was the only graceful wipeout of the day. We at least had the company of Team 205 and the Amish Circus up there. They made the torture a bit more bearable.
We finally... after hours of climbing made it to Checkpoint 11. I'm sure I wasn't the only to feel the need to comment on that stretch of the race... I can only imagine the looks on all the racers faces coming up to that Checkpoint. Poor volunteers... It was longest HIKE-A-BIKE stretch I have ever done. When the race said there was mountain biking I assumed it meant that it involved riding the bike and not walking it. But all was well we made it through the hard stuff right?! It was going to be some fun riding now!!
Down the road we went to CheckPoint 12.... and BAM!! We hung a right to........ ANOTHER CUSSING CLIMB?!?!? I think at this point I was ready to murder someone. I felt better knowing that some teams weren't even going up the hill. They claimed defeat... Not us though!! We trucked up there one foot in front of the other. Ride - Walk - Ride - Walk... and after walking past all the parked bikes on the road made it to Checkpoint 12!!! My husband didn't get off his bike. He was hell bent on pedalling right to the Checkpoint. What makes this so awesome is that he had a classic "Forget to unclip his shoes from his bike" wipeout in front of absolutely everyone. I think it was because he was so distracted by the case of beer he saw up there. Our Euphoria was short lived as we missed the cutoff and were unable to do the second trekking stage. We all had a moment of silent grief... and silently wondered what the volunteers would do if we just took off up there. Then with resignation hopped back on our bikes and carried on. We are all serious sore losers...
I think the fastest point of our race was getting to Checkpoint 18... We did have to laugh at Checkpoint 18 being the buffet Checkpoint. The pathetic thing was we were so bloody exhausted that we had trouble enjoying this final part of the race. We did enjoy the snacks and water as we had run dry before Checkpoint 12 and were pretty thirsty. The chocolate bars were really yummy too.
Then we got on our bikes and started riding again. Say What?!? We finally got to ride the "EPIC TRAILS"? We were so bloody tired by then that it was not nearly as EPIC as it should have been. We got Checkpoint 19, and 20 without issue but we did have to stop a few times. Once Boris's leg was seizing. I'm sure he had a moment... He'll never admit it though ;) Us girls meanwhile, were riding down the hills kami kaze hoping not to Endo because our legs were spasming trying to get our arses back behind the seat. I'm not a strong rider by any means and was falling over on pebbles and twigs on the Crafty Butcher... yes the Crafty Butcher. I had a little cry there because my riding performance was so pathetic and I was soooo sick of eating dirt. We were just all so done. Except Boris... He was still super happy.... I think he is an alien from another planet like the movie "The Host" or something. We reached Checkpoint 21 and rode the final stretch back into Cumberland.
We hit Main St, parked our bikes and ran together through the finish line. Yes ran. It's hard to believe we still had it in us. I loved having the finish line in town this year. It was super cool to see all the people watching the finishers run though. I had to choke back a few tears once we crossed... I was not going to be the weak one on the team. I'm way to hardcore for that but I was so happy it was done.
We hung out at the finish line for awhile and got to listen to other people's tales... And we started feeling better about ourselves. I don't know if it was because other people struggled as much as we did, or if it was because we were eating Nutella sandwiches and licorice. Either way life started looking up again. We eventually waddled our way to the car to get to the hot tub and soak or pains away.
I don't think I had ever been challenged quite like that (from what I read the MTB climb was 12 km with an elevation gain of 500m). I will hang that bloody medal on my mantle to remind me of the HIKE-A-BIKE event that Momar hosts on Vancouver Island in September. In all seriousness I just have to say though that Momar is one of the best and most challenging races I have done. The volunteers are amazing, the participants are so encouraging, and the scenery is gorgeous. Thanks to everyone who puts in all the effort to make it the stellar event that it is.
I also have to give a shout out to my team. You guys make the experience. I had so much fun this year and know it was because of the team mates I got to share it with. We make quite the gang!! Thanks for doing this with me.
Momar Take 3... Here we come!
