Well, I lived through the 2006 MOMAR, and shaved just over an hour off my previous time.
It was a blast. And to think I almost did not want to go! I had hurt my IT band on my right knee in the final Gutbuster of the season, so I did not get nearly as much training in as I would have liked to, but then I remembered that I had set a goal to run all the MOMAR races and all the Gutbuster races for this year, and for me, the Cumberland 2006 MOMAR was the most important. My goal was to better my time from the 2005 Cumberland MOMAR, where our team finished in 8:03 – dead last. And I figured that even if my aerobic capacity was not as good as it had been during the summer, I was going to go and just get out there and finish.
I managed to get a surf ski from Ocean River Kayak Club, and this was a slightly new experience for me as I am used to Whitewater, Sea and K-1 Kayaks, but not so used to a surf ski.
On the upside, at the race start, the surf ski was fast, and had fantastic secondary stability. However, I have years of training bracing with the balls of my feet to help stabilize a kayak, in this surf ski, moving the balls of your feet causes the surf ski to steer! That, and the steering on the Speedster Surf Ski was very sensitive indeed, a slight touch on the pedals and you were suddenly turning rapidly.
I tried drafting other kayaks, but found that since the steering was so sensitive, I actually had an easier time paddling without drafting any kayaks. At the turn across Comox lake a big wind had come up, and waves were coming in broadside, and at that point I was really glad I did not have a K-1 to paddle, as the waves were coming over the surf ski, and I was soaking wet. Had I been in a K-1, it would have been swamped, or flipped at the very least! However, I had to brace far more than I would have liked, and I kept slowing down. That bothered me because kayaking was the one thing that I could train in while my knee was healing. However, I remembered something Sheri mentioned about the race, that the Kayak section is not all important for time. And she is right. Norm who regularly finishes first in the races does not come in first on the paddles, but he still wins, so that is something to think about.
Coming in to checkpoint 2, My hands hurt due to missing skin from the paddle, but other than that the Tylenol I took before the race was doing its job. I got off and running for the trekking section with the new map that was given to us, and instead of running pell-mell as we had the year prior, I set off at a slow jogging pace so I could keep moving, but also read the map at the same time. This, as it turned out was a very wise decision indeed. In previous MOMAR races I had made the serious mistake, and seen others make the mistake of trying to get each checkpoint as fast as possible, with less regard for navigation. In this Cumberland MOMAR, I knew my aerobic capacity was down, so I knew that it was silly to try to run as fast as I could. So, instead, whenever I came to a route decision, I would stop, look at the map, and then make my route choice.
What a difference. I now know that for the next MOMAR’s I run whenever I find a route choice, I am going to stop, read the map, make a decision, and THEN move on. I only made 1 route error, and I discovered it in about 2 min after the wrong turn. Sure beats 45 min of running full out to find Checkpoint 10 like at the Duncan MOMAR. By stopping to check your route you save energy, and a huge amount of time by just using your energy to think as opposed to running.
I elected to do the hardest checkpoints first as I really like technical running downhill, and I wanted to get the difficult running/hiking out of the way first. That was also a good choice, because when I had finished the higher altitude checkpoints, and was looking for the lower ones, I was tired at the lower checkpoints, but on level ground, so it was much easier to deal with them in that fashion.
(More coming to this post, but I am currently a ball of pain.) 
It turned out to be a good choice to run uphill first, that way, it was out of the way. After striking a terrible “rockstar” pose at one of the checkpoints (it was one of the mystery events) it was time to start heading down. I made a slight route error, in that I did not go down on the trail that I wanted, but they both ended at the same place. The one I had taken was just a little longer, but I was already on it, so going back was pointless.
The Rockstar pose:
