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Someone rightly suggested that the name of the Medias Medieval Marathon<\/a> should be changed to Mudieval<\/em>. Except for snow, there was something for everyone: mud, sun, heavy winds, scary clouds, torrential rain and hailstone… Our friend and fellow mountain biker, Mihai Constantenec, tells his story of that day of extremes:<\/p>\n I finally manage to squeeze in somewhere in the back of the start line. Oh well… it wouldn\u2019t be the first time. And here we go, I start overtaking many of the guys, but when I reach the mud, there are still many more before me. Not a surprise. So, I pick up the bike and start to run, hoping my biking shoes will find some grip in the slime. The effort takes its toll on me, but I finally reach the observatory and hop on the bike again. It goes pretty well, not too much mud. And then downhill…. speed! Ooops, it\u2019s not going as well as I expected, I start skidding and decide to slow down a little, or I might eat some mud. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n From here on end I keep on going – the marathon is 80 km long – I do pretty well on the climbs and relish in the descents. I overtake and am at the same time overtaken. Finally, in one of the check points I find out I\u2019m the 18th<\/sup>. Many participants fall victims to the mud, but I survive, till finally the bad luck catches up with me too, and I find out I\u2019ve got a flat tire. I take a deep breath and start to fix it. Contestants pass by, but I still think I can regain the lost time. Finally, I\u2019m almost finished. And then, the valve breaks. I too start to deflate. More cyclists pass by, most of them are sympathetic. I do a patch up job, just to keep me to the finish line and decide to get going. Not so soon, though, one of the breaks comes loose so I need to tighten it back. I get on the bike eventually and hope the snake bite will elude me.<\/em><\/p>\n I get back in the saddle, re-find my rhythm, and my muscles start to respond once more. I get to another check point and find out I\u2019m number 41 now. So, I push myself harder and I get into the flow. I feel good and really enjoy the ride. Still a lot to go, up and down, up and down, while dark clouds start to hover above us. We finally reach the Medias Citadel. Only now I notice it started to rain. Quite heavily. Then there\u2019s lighting and I begin to contemplate my after life. Anyways, the rain washes away the mud and things get actually better. I don\u2019t even bother to put on my rain cover, I just enjoy the sensation. Finally, the last climb, on the bike and off it. I have muscle cramps, the rain is pouring down on me, but I keep at it and finally reach the last descent. Everything is going just right. Speed, adrenaline, speed… I see the finish line and finally I cross it, the 23rd<\/sup>. There was mud, bad weather, hunger, muscle cramps and stomach pains, bike troubles \u2013 but in the end all I was left with was the joy of the ride.<\/em><\/p>\n And here are some photos from our local correspondent, Christi<\/a>:<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Someone rightly suggested that the name of the Medias Medieval Marathon should be changed to Mudieval. Except for snow, there was something for everyone: mud, sun, heavy winds, scary clouds, torrential rain and hailstone… Our friend and fellow mountain biker, Mihai Constantenec, tells his story of that day of extremes: I finally manage to squeeze… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[181,34,36,35,27],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-competitions","tag-competitions","tag-maraton","tag-medias","tag-medieval","tag-mtb"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtbtours.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}