OMM, The Agony and the Ecstasy, aka The Karrimor, 28th October
Geoff Davis
The Karrimor Mountain Marathon (KIMM), or Original Mountain Marathon (OMM) as it is called now, is a two day event held over mountainous terrain. Teams of two navigate their way around a two day course as quickly as possible carrying all food, stove, tent and equipment for an overnight camp.
This year's event was held in Galloway, S.W. Scotland on 28—29th October. There are various courses and the 'B' course that my running partner Paul Hainsworth (Northumberland Fell Runners) and I did was 43km long with 3050m of climb over the two days (27 miles and 10,000' in old money).
It had been 13 years since my last Karrimor so the memories of pain and discomfort had receded somewhat. However, they quickly returned as Saturday dawned with steady rain, mist down to the campsite and the rivers in semi spate. Nonetheless we set off in good spirits and the competitive urge soon kicked in as we passed teams much younger than ourselves struggling with the navigation and the conditions. No probs finding the first checkpoint. The second took a bit longer to get to than we thought and Paul grazed the length of his shin down a rocky hole as we traversed the steep hillside.
The map showed that the route to checkpoint 3 included two river crossings (no bridges out here!). The first one went ok as we managed to stand on partly submerged rocks and only went in knee deep. The second, however, was a raging torrent and as wide as a good—sized front room. Paul went in first and although he is around 6'3" tall the water was just about at his waist. I slid into the water a bit gingerly but we supported each other as we struggled through the foam and made it to the other side unscathed.
The rain continued to fall and the mist barely lifted as we pressed on through the next two checkpoints over steep hills on mainly trackless terrain. We finally reached the point where we knew the rest of the route was mainly downhill. At this point my spirits lifted, I forgot about the weather and the heavy sack, remembered I was a fell runner and flew down the last couple of miles to the overnight camp area. We arrived here at about 4pm, after starting just after 9am, and wouldn't leave until our start time the following morning (9.40am) so we were here for some time.
We put up our (small!) tent, got out of our saturated clothes and got a brew on. The rain stopped and things started to look up as we made inroads into our three course meal — all eaten from the same plastic camping mug! We saw a few familiar faces around and chatted to club mates (from Northumberland Fell Runners) and other friends. The results after day 1 were on display and showed us to be 48th out of around 230 teams that started our course — not bad for a couple of oldies.
The long, windy night went over fairly quickly and relatively comfortably. Sunday dawned clear, dry, bright and with very little wind — ideal conditions for fell runners like me and Paul — the orienteers prefer the mist so they tell me. Our late start meant we had plenty of competitors to follow and we were soon passing them in droves particularly on the downhills. The first two checkpoints were quickly and easily found although I managed a headfirst dive at one point into the soft boggy ground. The third check point offered a choice of routes and after a slightly protracted debate we chose the wrong one!
However, nothing was going to stop us today and although we probably lost 5–10 minutes we pressed on and on hitting all the remaining checkpoints with no trouble while passing other teams all the time — great for the morale! With a mile or so to go we would have gone through a brick wall to get to the finish. We didn't have to do that but we did have to negotiate thigh deep glutinous mud before hitting the forest track to the finish at just after 2pm. We both shook hands and headed for the refreshment tent for our pastie and beans.
After a few hic-cups our correct time was finally calculated. We finished in 38th position overall in our 'B' course, were the 3rd Veterans team to finish and were 6th veterans team after the complicated handicap system was applied. We were very satisfied with this and I might not leave it another 13 years before I have another go!
