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Had a lovely time in Muskoka at our dear friends James and Dwayne’s cottage. Dorked around with my camera, ate exceedingly well and found a new love for losing a lot in Settlers of Cataan. Sara proved much better at that than I.

Also did a nightmarish bike race up at Haliburton Forest. It was a preposterous mudbath. I reckon i walked 40% of those 35km, I came in 3rd in my category at just over 4.5 hours. I did 65k at Ganaraska in the same time last year. The guy in 4th came in at something around 5:15. People doing the full marathon were clocking times in the 6.5 – 7.5 hour range. As there weren’t a lot of people, you’d be alone for hours at a time, which was especially problematic for the two racers that found bears in their way.

The mud was deep enough at times that you could get off your bike and it would stay upright. On one such occurrence, I amused myself by shouting ” AAAAARRTTAAAAAAAX” but I don’t think the guy behind me got the reference and just thought I was nuts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y688upqmRXo There were no rideable sections of single track longer than 100m.

There was about1000m of climbing in that 34k, much of it unrideable. One section had a grade of 48%. All of that whining is really to say it was not a lot of fun. Especially getting a flat 2k from the end, right as the thunderstorm really picked up.

Where people were reasonably upset is that there were no sweep riders, which is problematic on such a long, lonely, arduous course, apparently filled with bears.

Entertaining reads of other peoples experiences:

http://theveganvagabond.blogspot.com/2010/08/haliburton-marathon.html
http://trevorsracelife.blogspot.com/2010/08/shit-happens.html
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=639476&page=2 1/2 way down.

I’m on the fence about whether or not to do their last event at Mansfield. At the moment, I’m a bit irked with that organization.

XC racing is fun, right guys?

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Muskoka Stars and Haliburton Mud