May 10th MOMAR Squamish

After a solid 6 months of planning for the 2nd annual Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race that I am the course designer for, I can finally say "mission complete." WOW. Last Saturday 220 racers from all over BC, the USA and as far away as Australia came to Squamish to race. The race was about 50km and was a mix of trail running, mountain biking, rappelling and orienteering. I wanted to showcase the amazing playground that I live in and I think I accomplished this!


Last year was the first year that race director Bryan Tasaka wanted to bring his first class adventure race series to the mainland. He has been running them for 8 years on Vancouver Island and they never disappoint. I created a point to point race course last year but this year decided to have the start and finish line at the new Quest University meaning that the design was more of a clover shape. Either way, I got to put racers on some of the best single track in the world!


We had over 40 volunteers out which was just awesome. Many thanks to Adrian LaSalle Lowe and Derron Johnson for doing a wicked job overseeing their sections of the course (get better Adro so we can go play soon). Bad ass mountian biker Justin Mark and his partner Jeff Reimer took 1st place overall, narrowly beating out speedsters Todd Nowack and Gary Robbins (last years winners.) It was also awesome to see one of the ladies that I coach, Eleanor Mulloy, rock it out on the course with her partner. Bart Jarmula won the men's solo category and was third overall across the line with his stellar navigation skills. Good buddy AV was up from Seattle with his team of 4 co-ed and they pulled an impressive 1st in their category (see you soon for some more riding AV). Two of my students from Quest also raced in the team of 2 co-ed and it was absolutely amazing to see them cross the finish line and complete their first adventure race. Congrats to everyone who tackled the MOMAR Squamish and to everyone who made it happen.

Rumor has it that this was the toughest MOMAR yet. Trust me, I didn't plan it to be this way but hey, if you wanna ride sweet single track, you gotta first climb up to go get it! All the beers at the after party are enjoyed just a little bit more when you suffer for them :) I'm done with planning for a few months until I start to think about MOMAR 2009. See you in Squamish next May!