The inaugural Mayan Mountain Adventure Racing Challenge was a 4 day Adventure Race held in Belize, that also served as the championship for the North American Adventure Racing Series.
Team NYARA, reached its goal and a spot on the podium after crossing the finish line in third place.
The course was brutal and became even harder after a small tropical storm passed on Wednesday night, forcing the start to be delayed and the course altered. Fourteen teams started the race, and only three managed to clear the course and take all CPs. NYARA is happy to be one of those three teams, and together with Yogaslackers and Odyssey to make the overall podium.
Highlights of the race included CP placements on top of Mayan ruins, at the bottom of enormous waterfalls and deep in caves. The mud made certain trails almost impassable, and for miles we had to carry our bikes on our shoulders while trudging through the mud.
The race was also followed by a film crew to create a documentary that will hopefully be shown on NBC Sports. As NYARA was racing towards the top of the field, a lot of attention was directed towards our team (We actually had a film crew member following us through a night foot-O, filming us for six hours straight). It will be fun to see the final footage as I’m sure our sleep-deprived selves will be quite amusing.
A full race report will follow soon, but for now a big thank you to American Adventure Sports for putting on a great race, all the fantastic volunteers, the wonderful people of Belize and mostly all our fellow racers we shared this experience with. We don’t think we could have started the 2014 racing season in a better way.
Congrats on a great race! Hope to see you all soon!
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