November 24, 2006 – Marg Fedyna lives for adventure. “I work to fund this, and not the other way around,” she said, referring to her tendency towards seasonal employment to pay for trips all over the world to compete in adventure races and mountain bike endurance events, such as La Ruta de los Conquistadores, the infamous three-day mountain bike race across Costa Rica, which she just won.

Fedyna, 42, of Edmonton, Alberta, was the fastest woman to ride, carry and push her bike nearly 300 kilometres through mud, rivers, tropical forests and over volcanoes from Costa Rica’s Pacfic Coast to the Caribbean November 3-5. “It was tough in a good way,” she said. “I really enjoyed it.”

It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy an experience involving 3 a.m. wake-up calls, 5 a.m. starts, 4,500 metres of vertical climbing in a single stage, slogging uphill through mud for hours, nearly being swept away by swollen rivers, carrying a bike across dizzyingly high and decaying trestle bridges, and the threat of crocodiles. Fedyna is that type of person.

“For years I’ve been putting it off,” she said of competing at La Ruta, which will celebrate 15 years in 2007 with the addition of a fourth stage. “I was kinda scared to go.” However, Fedyna’s decision not to defend her 24 Hour World Solo Championship title this fall left her with time to prepare for the legendary race that roughly traces the footsteps of the Spanish Conquistadors.

The first thing Fedyna did to prepare was research. She searched the internet for information, spoke to people who had experienced it and came up with a plan to tame the elements. With achievements like completing EcoChallenge Patagonia, racing the length of New Zealand in 28 days, and winning the TransRockies mixed title despite a crash that knocked her out and left her with facial fractures, Fedyna had a definite advantage.

“The first day was more like an adventure race than a mountain bike race,” she said. Half the field didn’t make the 12-hour time cut on the 96-kilometre stage that gained nearly 4.5 vertical kilometers, much of it on unrideable muddy tracks. Fedyna dealt with the challenge by conserving energy and not letting herself get frustrated, despite suffering a mechanical only an hour into the race – her first ever in competition. Later that day, she experienced the toughest moment of the race. She had been riding four hours and felt like she only had two hours of energy left. Her GPS said she was only halfway through the stage. “It was an eye-opener,” she said. Fedyna mentally refocused and adjusted the pace, and still landed in first place.

The long climbs were Fedyna’s favourite parts of the route, because they played to her strengths. The petite endurance racer took full advantage of her strength-to-weight ratio, controversially using a hardtail with rim brakes. “I’m a weight weenie,” she confessed. Her light rig wasn’t her biggest advantage, however. Her secret was the five-week period she spent in Europe this summer, racing UCI World Cup Marathons and both the road and mountain bike TransAlp. During those weeks, she logged 45,000 vertical climbing metres. “I really know the training and racing I did in Europe this year helped me a lot,” she said.

Being active all her life, Fedyna has built up years of endurance. She started cycling in 1994 on the road after being forced to quit running due to injuries. The transition to cycling was hard, she said. “Everyone tries to drop you, and why are the races so long?” Funnily enough, when she was running, she specialized in 800- and 1,500-metre events. It wasn’t until she tried cycling that she realized ultra-endurance was her true strength.

In the World Cup Marathon events she tackled this year, Fedyna had a hard time staying with the lead women at the start. However, I started “picking off one woman after another at the end,” she said. “This is where age kicks in.” Fedyna placed sixth overall in the World Cup Marathon Series, and despite being at an age where most female endurance athletes are seriously considering retirement, Fedyna isn’t showing any signs of stopping. “Have you heard of Seven?” she asked, referring to a new seven-day mountain bike race from Vancouver Island to Whistler, B.C. that is planned to launch next year. “I’m intrigued.”

She’s still trying to hammer out her final plans for next season. There are too many choices, she said. “I would love to do the UCI Marathon World Championships,” an opportunity she missed this year, because during the qualifier, the Canadian National XC MTB Championships, Fedyna was in Europe for the TransAlp. She placed second in the eight-day off-road stage race across the Alps in the mixed team competition. However, missing the qualification for the World Marathon Championships was a big disappointment for Fedyna, considering she was on form to do very well.

For 2007, Fedyna would like to regain her 24 Hour World Solo title. She skipped it this year to rest her wrists, which she injured when she won last year in Whistler. “I really overused my wrist tendons. I couldn’t unscrew a bottle cap or turn a doorknob for three months,” she said. “That race is just abusive.” She normally capped off her season with the 24 Hour World Championships in September, knowing she would have fall and winter to recover.

Fedyna wasn’t always so sure she’d go back to La Ruta. “When I was a third of the way in [day one], slogging through the red clay mud hike-a-bike section, I said to myself ‘I won’t come back for this.’ It is definitely day two and day three that helped bring her back to saying ‘I’ll come back!'” Now, with a free entry to next year’s La Ruta – a perk from her win – she’ll have another abusive race to prepare for next fall.