MMM 2010 - Medieval Mud Marathon 2010

Saturday was race day. It was a very hard race so it was a big satisfaction to finish it.

I had some bad luck before the race but I was glad that I could get there. It was raining a lot before the race  so I had to buy some new tires. I bought a pair of Race Kings (2.2) which are not exactly good for mud but they are better than my old tires. When I was changing the tires the tube from my back tire had a hole. I had two spare tubes but both had holes. :(


I wanted to go to Tarnaveni and from there go to Medias the next day but it started raining and I had a flat tire. My father came after me and took me home :)


Saturday morning I bough some tubes after I got my race number and I fixed my tire. My bad luck didn't end there, I left my bottle in the car so I had to buy a new bottle.


It was very hot when the race started and a thunderstorm was coming :)


I started the race on the back of the pack but the first kilometers were in the city so I passed at least 100 people. Then on the first climb we got muddy. The mud was so bad that even if I pushed the bike it stuck to the tires and the tires were getting blocked so I had to carry the bike on my back. When I got to some grassy roads I cleaned the bike and got on it. In the forest I tried to push the bike on the leaves so the tires could spin. I had to clean the bike a few times and I was getting tired of pushing. When I finally got to the climb on the field where the road was on grass I was very happy that I could ride on the bike. People were amazed that I was still on the bike because it was a hard climb but I was just happy that I could finally stay on the bike. The mud wasn't so bad after the first climb, there were some nice road on grass and some roads  in some villages and I really liked my tires, they were great on grass and country roads and even on light mud. The Race King is a very fast tires and it gets clean very fast in light mud. But on heavy mud it's not good so I felt down in a muddy corner :(


At about the half of the race some small muscle cramps were starting to bother me so until the end of the race I had to stay focused to avoid some serious cramps. I had to clean the bike a few times but the mud wasn't so bad and I could go fast. At the last checkpoint were we could get some food and water I had some serious cramps but after a short rest and a lot of glucose I could attack the last climb. The last climb was another pushbike section but it wasn't so muddy so I only had to fight my muscle cramps. I finish the race about 10 minutes before the thunderstorm started :)


Stats(these are not exact because I carried the bike a lot):
    - time: 3:54:29
    - distance: 48,7 km
    - average speed: 12,4 km/h
    - max speed: 49 km/h

   - actual time: 4:24

   - average heart rate: 176 bpm

   - max heart rate: 201 bpm

It was a very hard race, the hardest so far but I was very happy when I crossed the finish line. I will be back with more pics.