Typical weather and plenty of Carnethy faces at the OMM this weekend. A local start in Tweedsmuir ensured plenty of heather bashing and swamp-like “running” to the overnight camp at the head of Manor Water. Iain Whiteside and Andy Fallas got the prize for top Carnethies this year, finishing 4th in the Elite despite a brief bout of blindness on the second day for Andy. They were chased all the way by Konrad and Jasmin in 6th and first mixed pair.
Lisa Gamble-Boyd opted to run with Andrea Priestley instead of her husband in the A class on what appeared a very difficult course that involved little or no runnable ground over the two days and Cali and partner Iain Jackson had a great run in the medium score doing the orienteering equivalent of a negative split by scoring more points on the second day than the first!
I think I may even have briefly seen Tim Darlow though that could have been a hallucination.
John Ryan and I were left to struggle round the Elite course in the wake of the proper elite teams after mistakenly finishing second in the A class last year. This was further hindered by the organisers choosing to start the slowest runners last each day meaning we were left chasing checkpoint closures and the ever increasing gloaming well after the front runners were enjoying the comforts of the overnight camp and the event centre. Still we survived and I may even have enjoyed parts of it despite the weather and the heather. Sausage casserole was the order of the day at the event centre on the Sunday evening and very good it was too. I’ll be back next year even if it is just for that!
Results https://www.theomm.com/omm-2015-tweedsmuir-scottish-borders/
Courses and routes http://www.omm.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/
Alex McVey