STOMP! BC XC Marathon Provincial Championships

Our trip to Kamloops for the BC XCM Championships started with a visit from one of our title sponsors and dear friend, CEO of Canadarail.ca, Martin Flanagan.  Martin met up with us in Invermere and hooked us up with our sweet new jerseys.  It's always nice to see Martin and his awesome wife Heather (who was unfortunately stuck up at Panorama the day we passed through).  Their endless positive energy and kindness always warms our hearts and makes us smile.

After our stop in Invermere, we carried on to Kamloops.  We camped out near the course on Thursday, but stayed at an airbnb house Friday - Sunday.  The race was being held at Stake Lake Nordic Centre about 15 minutes south of Kamloops.  It had rained a ton over the past few weeks, so the course was SLOPPY in spots and damn near unrideable in other places.  The course crew and volunteers worked incredibly hard to try to divert some of the water and make bypasses where needed.  It was pretty warm and windy on race day so it was dried up quite a bit by the 2nd lap.

Talk about a marathon mountain bike race; The STOMP Classic had it all! From power-to-the-pedals on fire roads, twisty old-school singletrack, seriously steep and sweet rock slabs, punchy climbs, grinning ear to ear fast descents, classic mountain bike muck and a whole lot of AWESOME :-). A perfect venue, rad sponsors, a great, professionally marked course, sweet give-aways/prizes and an incredible crew of staff and volunteers made for an excellent event all around. 

Jena's take: I came down with a minor cold the day before leaving to Kamloops. However, I knew that when it was going to be time to race, that I was completely capable of persevering through the classic minor cold symptom's of soar throat, slight congestion and typical aches and pains (with a side of brain and body fatigue). I was motivated to race this course, as it certainly catered to my strengths; shorter punchy climbs, quick technical descents, and pedaling unrelentingly through twisty old-school style singletrack. Growing up riding mountain bikes in the New England region of America, as well as having a successful elite cyclocross racing background, I was very excited to have many sections that were full of thick, deep mud! Overall, I was happy with my race performance mentally and physically. I am of course proud to now obtain the title of "2018 Elite Women's BC XC Marathon Mountain Bike Champion." 

Dylan's take:
Loved it.  This was MY KINDA course! The mud, rocks, wet roots, steep slabs and just old school, grind ya down style course reminded me of how things used to be when I started racing in the late 90's in Minnesota.  Deciding which category to race in has been a constant struggle for me over the past few years and this race was no exception.  Elite/Open or Masters? Every race I have to decide because I'm somewhere in the middle.  At this race, the BC XCM championships, I decided to race in the masters class (after racing Elite at both Nimby and Sp'akw'us).  Same course, same start time, just a different field of competitors.   

I had a great race from start to finish and ended up winning the masters title and would've ended up 5th in the Elite men!  I took the lessons I learned from the previous XCMs and applied them at Stomp.  It was really nice to finally have a day where both Jena and I both stood atop the podium with new jerseys on!  
Our coach, Eric (https://www.catalystsportlab.com/) had both of us very prepared for this race and it payed off.  Thanks coach!