original mountain marathon: perthshire

i have a love/hate relationship with the omm. there's a subtle undertone of masochism about it. held the last weekend in october the weather is very likely to be wet and wild, the clocks go back gifting you an extra hour in a small damp tent and the size of the event means there are long muddy queues for everything*. the fact that this year's base camp was stationed at an old prisoner of war camp only added to atmosphere. with this in mind fast forward to saturday early afternoon or death march as i like to call it.

grim faced, head down, rain finding its way in between the layers, almost every step is at least ankle deep in cold boggy water. i am struggling to find anything enjoyable about the experience. jane is doing a brilliant job at navigating, visibility is as low as my morale. apparently we're in the hills of perthshire, we could have been anywhere. anywhere that's cold and wet and soggy under foot. it wasn't until i started chatting to another team that i realised quite how grumpy i was feeling. they were both smiles and laughter. it was their first mountain marathon. they'll learn**.

strangely we didn't seem to be climbing much, or descending much for that matter. just monotonous grassy knolls with the odd waist high burn crossing and bog extraction to keep things interesting. did i mention it was raining and the water cold? i began to worry about having enough food, jane began to worry about reaching the mid camp before dark. we both silently began to worry about actually finishing the bloody thing. not quite survival mode but it was jelly babies every fifteen minutes. a real effort made to see the funny side.

eventually we made it to the mid camp. pitching up in the gloaming, some 7 and half hours after setting off. at this point jane got cold. very cold. unable to stop shivering. two sleeping bags and many, many hot drinks later hypothermia is staved off. we settle down to an evening of david sedaris and rehydrated noodles. it's still raining by the way. every time i leave the tent i'm unable to remember which tiny green shape is ours. wandering around in the dark calling jane's name, waiting for her to signal me towards my bed. the third time this happened i could hear other folk laughing at me. i would have been laughing too, except i was wearing jane's only dry piece of clothing and it was getting wet. a late night toilet trip reveals that somehow we've made it into the chasing start, being less than 1.5hrs behind the lead female team. ours spirits are lifted but it may have been the whisky. exhausted and physically drained sleep came easily.

woken by bagpipes at dawn, feeling almost refreshed but concerned about what we were going to wear. everything was still sodden but it had actually stopped raining. after much faff we made it to the start. just. my turn to navigate, fortunately the cloud was low rather than down. no cockups, a few big ups and a few craggy views snatched. day2 was shaping up to be a real mountain marathon of a day.

i think it started to rain again, it was certainly a little windy. routes to check points were now 2 person wide sloppy trods. half an hour wouldn't go by without one of us falling over. concepts of dry and upright were being altered, the boundaries of pleasure being pushed. another 7 hour + day on the hill, did we bite off more than we can chew? i'm not sure. scores on the doors, 60/96, out of 120 odd starters and 5th female team in b class. over recovery peri-peri chicken jane was already talking of 'next year'. personally i think she is confusing a sense of satisfaction with a sense of fun!***


*considering the number of teams involved the organisation is impressive.
** sadly they retired after day1. i recon they'll be back!
*** jane has proof read this for me, her first comment "but it makes it sound like you didn't enjoy it"!!!! exactly. but i loved the nandos in sterling.

me, enjoying my hobby.