LAMM 2009

We are just back from an excellent weekend competing in the LAMM in Kintail, Scotland. Despite a severe weather warning sent out by email to all competitors before the event, the weather over the weekend in Kintail was actually very good for a mountain marathon - good visibility and a breeze in mid-camp keeping the midges away.

Dave (my husband) and i were competing in the Elite class for the first time. In fact it was just two years ago we tried our first mountain marathon - entering the C class in the LAMM. We have really got in to the MMs and fell running & last year i completed LAMM 'A' class with Mandy (also Team Vasque), so we decided that it was time to step up to the challenge of the Elite course. There were 538 starters this year, including a new score class.

Looking slightly nervous before the start on Saturday -- yes i was wearing my Vasque team kit under my waterproof -- fortunately hardly needed to wear my waterproof all weekend once we had set off!

We set off at 8am (first pair -- obviously got there too keenly on Friday!) from a short walk away from the event centre. Unsurprising straight up a big hill! We then did some contouring around the Five Sisters and after that got overtaken by 5 or 6 of the fast elite pairs racing down our first big descent. A few of our controls were shared with C class, so there were some other pairs around, but generally very quiet. A big climb about 5 hours in was very tough, but we felt it saved us some contouring so the best route for us. The rest of the day seemed to disappear quickly -- hills interspersed with fresh Scottish stream water to wash down various combinations of Cliff Shot Blocks, banana sandwiches, Cliff bars and dried fruit. Dave was doing a great job on the navigation and we found all the controls on Sat without much difficulty (aided by great clear weather). Mid-camp is always a welcome site (although i am never so keen on how far down it is to get to it) - managed a good pace downhill to finish day one in 8 hours 57 minutes. I was pretty exhausted, but fortunately Dave had the energy to find us a great camping spot with mountain and lake view and after lying down and eating i felt ready to get to sleep at 9pm. Nice atmosphere at camp and seemed everyone had had a good day.Photo from LAMM website

Traditional LAMM wake-up call bagpipes at 5am were quite welcome - time to get the kettle on and some tea & porridge. We were over 50 minutes behind the first mixed pair and then had 30 minutes lead on the 3rd mixed pair, so we needed to have a good steady day out, but knew catching the first mixed pair was unlikely -- and they stormed past us on the first hill looking really strong. After starting out in the same direction as the B course, the rest of the day we were mainly on our own, meeting up with some of the other Elite pairs later in the day. The climbs were nearly as tough as day 1, although there did seem to be less rocky/tussocky contouring so that was good. We wished we had sneaked in a light-weight camera really as there were stunning views, including a great view of deer silhouetted in front of big mountains. Views of the Cullin, Torridon & some even said the Ben -- and many more mountains. We were cross we did miss one of the checkpoints and wasted 15 minutes or so -- although we were then together with the other mixed pairs so helped spur us on on the last hill for a good racing finish - we finished Day 2 in 7 hours 22 minutes. (Course statistics was 35km and 2500m on Day 1 and 26km and 2000m on Day 2).

We were very pleased we completed our first ever Elite MM - coming in 11th out of the 15 pairs and second mixed pair. We had missed the prize giving by the time we finished, but there was still a nice atmosphere at the Event centre with teams still finishing and a lot of tired but pleased looking people sat in the grass in the sun. A really great weekend- thanks to all those who give up their time making this event happen.