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The OMM Marathon
by Michael Kerr - 20:11 on 07 November 2016
it was 7 o'clock in the morning and still when Kevin and I finally got to the OMM registration. I had got up at about 4:45 and Kevin at 4:30 that morning and was still half asleep by the time we got there. After registering we set off on a 5km walk to the start line with the day only just starting to brighten up. It was a mild morning not like a usual cold October day.
We got to the start line for the 8:30 start and were given our maps for the day consisting of 13 checkpoints in total of which 11 of them we had to navigate to, with the first three being in a series and the next 4 of the six in any order before doing the last four in series again.
The hills were under a lot of clag which made navigating on the first day especially difficult with us thinking we were never going to find even the first checkpoint, In the end we only really found it because Kevin saw the outline of a knoll and then heard a beep coming from it. The next six checkpoints we found easily enough with Kevin taking a near perfect line to checkpoint 2 and we were making some good progress although I was starting to get quite tired especially after climbing a hill to find its descent was so steep you could slide down it, and therefore was finding it harder to help with the navigation.
It was checkpoint 8 when we made our first mistake, we were trying to catch up with the people in front of us going down a long muddy track when we realised we had past where we were meant to turn off. This resulted in us having to make the long slow climb back up the track and then head up to the summit of the hill to get the checkpoint losing us about 20 minutes.
We then started to make good progress again, with our hopes getting up that we could make back the time that we had lost on our mistake. We got to checkpoint 9 which was on the climb up the first hill on the Merrick hill race - although with every step took up the hill I could feel my thighs cramping and Kevin getting slight further ahead.
It was after checkpoint nine that we made our biggest mistake of the event, we tried to take a short cut but realised the checkpoint wasn't where we thought it was resulting in us having to make a steep climb up the side of crags pulling ourselves up the heather to get to the summit of the hill. At the summit we took a bearing to the checkpoint but couldn't find it so spent the next twenty minutes looking around the hillside for the checkpoint with our hopes for making the chasing start diminishing. Eventually we saw another team also going to the checkpoint so we followed them were we found the checkpoint only a few metres from where we had originally looked hidden behind a tree.
We then made a quick descent down amongst the trees onto the road were we ran in to get the last checkpoint that was hidden on the top of a knoll after realizing the one on the path wasn't our one. As we ran through the day one finishing line I felt a wave of relief at the fact that we had finished and after nearly eight hours I cloud finally sit down.
When we set up the tent I climbed in and changed out of my wet gear into some dry clothes I didn't leave the tent again for about 13 hour. Kevin collected the water we used to make some tea and hot chocolate and use for our dehydrated food which had a distinctive crunch to it.
The next day started with a bagpiper playing a wakeup call and a bowl of porridge, some hot chocolate and tea. Then came possibly the worst part of the entire event when Kevin and I had to put our soaking wet and freezing cold socks back on as well a wet base layers and shorts before finally crawling out the tent for the first time in 13 hours and felling the damage from the day before.
We set off again with a fresh map and sore legs to the first checkpoint that was on a forest track I was yearning to get back onto the rough ground just so I could walk instead of the slow painful jog along the track beside the Loch. The second checkpoint took us back up into the hills again with a steep climb up beside a stream and for some reason I was actually starting to feel better and more energetic and thinking today might not be so hard after all. This feeling ended about 3 checkpoints later after climbing to the top of a hill just to scramble back down a steep scree filled gully between two crags to get to the checkpoint hidden at the base of the crag.
Kevin navigated us to checkpoint 7 and 8 which took us up the second last big climb of the event up to the top of Lamachan hill from where we had a long run down a tussock covered descent to a marsh at the bottom of the hill that would sap you have energy with each step before having the last climb up to the top of Craignaw where there was a BBC camera man sitting filming the runners who made an attempt to run for the camera including Kevin. The next couple of checkpoints resulted in us having to run down a long forest track with my feet and legs hurting with each step and trying to think that the finish line was only a few kilometres away.
As we ran in over the muddy track to the finish line with Kevin urging me on I felt only relief that the race was over and thinking why did I ever want to do this. At the finish we were given hot dink and meal and felt our legs seize up and the half a kilometre walk to the car becoming more formidable. The feeling of why I did want to do the OMM lasted until that night when I thought about how I should have ran faster there or if I didn't walk there I could have done better and thought I will just have to do that the next time.
All in all I really enjoyed the event and got a real sense of accomplishment out of it. I think we both fared well over the event with Kevin doing allot of good navigating and me adding a few ideas and outlooks onto it as well. I enjoyed doing the event with Kevin and he told me he had enjoyed it as well so hopefully we could get to do some more mountain marathons over the coming years.
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