30th October
Carnethies at the OMM 2011 |
Well done to Jasmin Paris and Konrad Rawlik
who were 1st mixed team (12th over all) in the
Elite OMM.
Other Carnethy runners were Kim Threadgill (with
Alistair Morris) who were 3rd mixed (15th over
all) and Adrian Davis (with Alec Keith) who were
8th. Alec Erskine ended up in
14th place in the C-class running with Ian
Hamilton.
Kate Darlow (running with Sarah Warren), showed
supurb navigation skills to come 3rd female team
in D class. Despite the weather, both enjoyed
their run.
Results |
| Ian Jackson's
report |
The OMM (previously KIMM) was back in Scotland
this weekend for the first time since 2007
and I was back for my 18th start in the event.
The event centre was Cultybraggan Camp, just
south of Comrie from where we were bussed to
the competion area to the north, which included
Ben Chonzie and Creag Uchdag. We were promised
tougher terrain than recent years and sure
enough there was tussocky heather, heathery
tussocks, peat hags, extensive marshes and
the potential for big climbs.
Partnering Hugh Willison, we did our usual meader
through the Medium Score class. The navigation
was no problem, we hit every control spot on
even through the low cloud and pretty much constant
rain on Saturday.
The ageing legs were more of a problem which
meant we opted out of a 300m+ climb for extra
points at the end of the day, but which wouldsurely
have put us into time penalty. As it was we were
in 118th place of 218 at the end of day 1. The
overnight camp site on the shore of Loch Lednock
was the best OMM/KIMM site for years. Only the
Short and Medium Score teams were there, so there
was plenty of space and dry pitches were easy
to find. The only downside was the constant loud
hum from the hydro station. The rain cleared
overnight and Sunday was dry, if still overcast.
The straight-line distance from the camp to the
finish was close to the 5 hour limit at our mountain
marathon amble speed but a steep climb out of
the camp and resumption of heather and tussocks
made picking up the pace difficult. We collected
controls along the slopes above Loch Lednock
before we were saved by use of tracks and road
winding between the out-of-bounds to get us to
the finish area above Comrie in plenty of time.
Many teams had severe time penalties so our conservative
approach had some benefits, but we still dropped
slightly to 129th of 206 finishers.
Huge respect to Jasmin, Konrad, Kim and Adrian
for covering over 65Km and 4200m climb on such
tough terrain in the Elite class. |
| John Mitchell
and Angus Davidson's report |
It all started in amusing fashion on Friday
night when the team parked next to us reversed
over their carton of milk spraying us, the
car and the tent with all its creamy contents.
No worries – there will be plenty of rain on
Saturday to wash it off!
This time we had a shot at the A class rather
than the C of previous years. Navigation in the
mist was challenging and the wind and rain was
almost constant. After 6 hours we still had many
miles left to cover and food was getting low.
On the way to checkpoint 7, we followed a number
of other A class teams up the wrong stream. We
were then left trying to find a small 30m hill
top among a sea of peat hags in the mist, on
what was supposed to be a plateau. We are still
kicking ourselves about this as I remember doubting
the route but thought surely all the other teams
can’t be wrong! This leg took us two and a half
hours but we later discovered that other teams
never found the 7th checkpoint and dropped out.
Indeed, the overall dropout rate for the A class
was nearly a third. Day one had taken over 9
hours but somehow we were in 22nd position and
the evening’s chicken curry tasted particularly
fine. Better weather on day 2 and we started
quickly to make up some positions. My dreaded
IT band started to become painful on the descents
but we were going along ok until another navigation
error cost us further time. We had managed to
make up more positions however, and are pleased
with our final position of 16th out of 32 finishers.
Overall it was a very enjoyable albeit slightly
humbling weekend. The location was beautiful
with interesting terrain and lots of wildlife
(plenty of deer and giant monster mountain hares).
Lessons learnt: improve navigation, go your own
route and don’t follow the wrong crowd, take
more flap jack and be careful with those milk
cartons. |
| Alec Erskine's report |
Just to add to your list of Carnethy OMM finishers,
I ended up in 14th place in the C-class running with
Ian Hamilton.
It was a pretty tough event for me, not having had
much training and with the weather and the going very
tough. Luckily Ian's pinpoint navigation made
us a lot of time and even though we were slowing drastically
for the last hour or so, we were pleasantly surprised
to make the top 15. The lesson for me is not
to be too stingy on spare clothes - the second day
is a lot easier after a comfortable night. |
| Kim Threadgall's report |
The last time I did
a mountain marathon was the OMM 2006 which
was a completely different experience to
this year’s race. At that
point I had started doing a few adventure races
but I was mainly a road runner and squash player
so it was an epic event for me.
At that point I entered
the B Class with my friend Fiona Williams
and between us we had very limited experience
of navigating and I remember us being absolutely
delighted with our result having made it
to the campsite before the cut off point,
it was such an adventure, crossing through
rivers and getting lost in the mist…. fast
forward 5 years and it was time to do it
again.
This time I paired
up with FGS team mate Alistair Morris. Although we have been in the
same team for a couple of years it was to be
our first race together. We agreed to
do the OMM and he said that we should enter
the elite class. I agreed (not really
thinking anything about it) but then I started
to tell people what I was doing and more often
than not was met with gasps of surprise/shock/horror
even?
Okay so out of all the classes the elite category
is supposed to be the toughest but as Ali was
taking on the navigation I decided that it
would be fine and as Alistair said ‘the whole
race is a rest…we walk up the hills and run
down the hills – easy!’.
Saturday morning arrived
and as is always the case on the OMM weekend
it was raining….and it basically stayed like
that until Sunday morning. However, when you do the OMM
it is generally accepted that the weather will
be poor. We had a start time of 8.05
am and off we went in to the hills!
Alistair led the way
and I basically just followed him all weekend….we
ran and walked over every type of terrain
imaginable, tussocks, heather, rivers, bogs,
the odd path and lots of mud. We climbed
up and ran down some big and small hills
and we contoured around so many hills that
my feet were hurting by the end of the weekend
but the variety of the course kept it interesting
at all times.
Alistair is a very
good navigator and a faster runner than me
so I can’t remember actually getting much
of a rest at any point! When
the mist was low he enjoyed it almost as much
as when it was clear and as soon as we hit
the check points he was already telling me
where to go next. I feel very privileged
to have raced with such good navigators over
the last few years who make it look so easy!
7 hours and 44 minutes
later we arrived at the campsite and I must
admit we were both pretty cold by this point. The rain hadn’t
stopped all day and our clothes couldn’t have
been any wetter. We pitched the tent
straight away and got changed in to warm clothes
before tucking in to some soup. After
lying down for an hour we then made our main
meal, walked about for a bit to look at the
results and then went back to the tent. We
basically stayed there for the rest of the
night as it was the warmest place to be! Ali
pulled out some whisky which I had a couple
of sips of while we blew up 14 balloons to
make up our balloon beds..…
I should say at this
point the objective of the weekend is to
be completely self reliant so you don’t arrive
at campsite and expect to be given lots of
hot food and showers while you relax and
rub your legs down for the next days run. The aim is to get around the
course as fast as possible and if you carry
everything but the kitchen sink with you it
will slow you down too much. At night
time we slept in the running kit we would be
wearing the following day and apart from food,
stove, tent and sleeping bags we carried nothing
else apart from the usual mandatory kit such
as survival blankets, whistle etc.
It also means that if something happens to
you when you are out on the course you should
be able to look after yourself until the organisers
realise you need help which at the latest is
5pm the following day!
Sunday morning arrived
and thankfully it was a much drier day. It was similar to yesterday
in terms of terrain but it was slightly shorter
so it took us 6 hours and 27 minutes and as
a result our total time was 14 hours and 12
minutes. We finished 3rd in the mixed
pairs category and 17th overall in the elite
class out of 45 teams who started. The
overall winning team won it in 10 hours 56
minutes and were only 13 seconds ahead of the
second place finishers…first mixed team took
13 hours and 6 minutes.
It was a great weekend,
we both had a great time and were pleased
with our result. I
really can’t wait to do another mountain marathon…a
summer marathon would be nice but as this is
Scotland it doesn’t exactly guarantee nicer
weather!
|
| Jasmin
Paris and Konrad Rawlik's
report -Elite Class |
It was with excitement and on my part a little trepidation that we arrived
at the 2011 OMM
base camp, in Cultybraggan military barracks near Crieff on Friday evening.
Somehow
Konrad had convinced me several months earlier to run the elite class
with him [Konrad: more
impressively I had managed to convince myself that doing the OMM would
be a good idea]
, and I had no idea what to expect, having run only two ‘pleasant weather’
B class mountain
marathons in the past….
Our cunning
plan of making the short drive across in the morning, after a good
nights sleep
in our beds at home, was thwarted by an unreasonably early start time
and waking to the
sound of rain hammering on the tent roof on Saturday morning was a
portent of what was
to come. The day hardly dawned at all; at best the sky went from black
to dark grey. After
an invigorating walk up to the start - following the adventure route
through the undergrowth,
rather then the more sensible option along the forest road every subsequent
bus load
seems to have been directed on - and some confusion at the start due
to the lack of initial
synchronisation between different marshall’s watches, we were eventually
send off. We were
the first Elite team to start, with the Fjellstads - Jo & Wendy
from Norway - who Sam Hestling
and internet sources had designated (mixed) race favorites, starting
2 minutes behind us.
It quickly became apparent that the ground we would cover was fairly
rough with a lot of
heather and the, for an OMM obligatory, bog in it’s various incarnations
- from obviously
deep to deceptivly shallow, with large & small
tussocks and of muddy-water to watery-mud
consistency, it was all there, plus some thick fields of reeds which
were a novelty. Still, we
were rewarded with some cracking mountain descents over springy turf,
and when we came
across small trods, they always were a joy.
The Eilte course
headed out from the start near St. Fillian towards Killin, before a
long pull
eastwards to the overnight camp in Glen Almond. Before the event it
had been made clear
by me that Konrad was to have main responsibility for navigation, a
decision which, as
everyone who knew Konrad made clear to me, was likely to result in
taking a more scenic
tour of the competition area then strictly necessary. However we managed
to get off to a
good start over the first couple of controls before some poor route
choices started creeping
in, leading to the sudden mid-leg appearance of the Scandinavians.
Wendy and Jo proved
to be very consistent, running in tight formation - necessitated by
the use of a bungee - they
moved with great efficiency at a constant pace, picking good lines
and they obviously were
an experienced team. We on the other hand, had shunned the bungee [Konrad:
I wanted
to avoid the humiliation of being dragged along] and our performance
was slightly more
erratic, with both of us having poor patches, which luckily were quickly
overcome with some
homemade Flapjack. Overall we ran relatively close together until the
final checkpoints, when
we managed to sprint away, limiting our deficit for day one to 1 minute
31 seconds.
The weather
limited social interaction at the midway camp, but the conversations
coming from
surrounding tents offered ample entertainment for the afternoon, while
the disqualification and
subsequent reinstatement, albeit with time penalty, of the leading
Elite team provided some
drama. Dinner consisted of smash with stock cubes, gruyere cheese and
dried sausage,
followed by custard and Konrad’s magic homemade flapjack [Konrad: n.b.
not my words]
. Eventually I [Konrad: i.e. one of us] wrapped up in a warm sleeping
bag [Konrad: a luxury
apparently offset by running in shorts on both days, although this
doesn’t seem to stack up as
I was in shorts as well] and we fell asleep accompanied by the occasional
sound of a popping
balloon bed, and woke to the sound of bagpipes welcoming in the next
day.
Although we
had missed the main chasing start by 9 minutes, separate chasing starts
for
the mixed and female teams had been added this year, which made for
an exciting initial
ten minutes as we raced to catch-up the deficit from the previous day,
not to mention the
privilege of (very temporarily) running alongside the top Elite pairs.
We gradually pulled ahead
of Wendy and Jo, and ran alone for the remainder of the day. Again
any major navigational
errors managed to be avoided [Konrad: sometimes more through luck then
design] and
although the course led us frustratingly close to the summit of Ben
Chonzie, we avoided the
temptation of bagging this Munro and pushed on, enjoying a steep descent
to the checkpoint
below. Given the intermittent thick mist of the day, we had no idea
as we ran through the final
checkpoints whether we were still the leading mixed team. The marshals
at the finish were
similarly uncertain, and it wasn’t until our competition appeared some
21 minutes later that
the question was answered.
Overall an excellent weekend, almost entirely fun (99%), very well
organised, involving lots of
wilderness and a very pleasant atmosphere all round. I have to admit
though – my feet and
legs hurt on Monday! |
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