Lowe
Alpine Mountain Marathon 2011
Elite
It appears Andy Spenceley had an open ear for
my pleas for more Munro
summit controls on the Elite, allowing us to
tick 4 Munros (2 CPs + 2
extracurricular) over the weekend... next I will
have to convince him to
get rid of some of the ridiculously steep climbs.
Saturday took us on a large circle around the
eastern side of the
competition area offering some great views over
to the sun drenched
Beinn Dearg group. The course was very interesting
involving some large
scale route choices on more or less every leg.
Ondrej, my LAMM partner
of several years, and I were plodding along fine
till CP4 where we lost
some time and with the following legs involving
unreasonable amounts of
steep grass climbing, together with the arrival
of rain, this lead to a
bit of a sense of humor failure and a slow down.
However we finished
strong on the last two controls, trying to (vaguely)
keep pace with Dan
Gay & Al Anthony who were pretty much the
first people we met on our
course all day.
As promised the overnight camp was in a remote
location with some
beautiful views. Unfortunately it was raining
most of the evening
meaning we were mainly huddled up in our tent,
which due to an
unfortunate oversight when packing was pegged
out with our pens. Luckily
the rain eventually stopped just in time to give
everyone a chance to
socialize during the lovely sunset.
Sunday took us into the central area with fewer
big route choices, but
with a course which promised some spectacular
views... plus some more
big climbs, albeit along splendid ridges. After
being told off by Andy
for nearly missing our start time, we set off
trying to chase down third
place who were only 5min ahead. We were steadily
catching them up till
CP3, where again we messed things up. This allowed
teams 5 & 6, who both
had started 5min behind, to pass. However we
managed to stay in touch
with them over the next couple of controls, which
took us over Beinn
Dearg's two subsidiary Munros, and all three
teams reached the
penultimate control together. After a brief discussion
on the subject of
honorable draws it was concluded that the SI
system probably didn't
cater for such an eventuality, cue for a mad
dash down the hill which
left us out in front finishing 4th overall, tantalizingly
close behind
3rd.
Konrad Rawlik |
Score Class
'In the blink of an eye' is a phrase often used
to describe something that happens quickly, and
that was indeed what led to my LAMM parter and
close pal Gregor Heron withdrawing from this
year's event at the last minute, due to a potentially
serious blood clot behind his retina (any excuse!).
This left me looking for a kindred spirit who
would be willing to step in at short notice and
make the most of the weekend. After a few fruitless
phone calls, the Facebook fairy stepped in and
I managed convince Stewart Barrie that this was
the ideal opportunity to test his new Balloon
Bed, which I'd talked him into buying at Jura.
It didn't take long to convince him that the
LAMM was a good idea, despite him recently competing
in some seriously hard races, never having done
an MM before and having minimal navigation skills.
However, being the team navigator my motto is
'you can't eat a wet tent' and so once again
I got away with carrying the food for the midcamp,
and Stewart agreed to carry the tent. A quick
change of name and class (from A to Score) saw
us heading up to Ullapool on Friday.
A seven hour car journey would probably put a strain
on a few marriages, but as the day progressed we gradually
discovered that we had a lot more in common than first
thought, so it was probably inevitable that, despite
best intentions, race registration at tea time blurred
into a frenzy of socialising until midnight.
Our early arrival on Friday meant an early start on
Saturday. 7:30 saw us on the start line, and my tactic
of bringing a pen that didn't write on the laminated
map worked perfectly, so I had to plan a route to midcamp
that took in interesting controls, then eliminate the
non-score ones. However, we ultimately ran a
very pleasing route which took in controls that were
not on linear courses, thus avoiding the crowds, and
arrived midcamp with a few minutes to spare and points
intact.
The atmosphere at the overnight camp was once again
fantastic, but ultimately very hard to describe. Suffice
to say there was time spent with old friends, making
new friends, eating, drinking and laughing, not least
at a salvo of dodgy ballon beds (a few in our tent!)
No bagpipes on Sunday but what a sunrise! We were off
before 7:00 and ultimately took a conservative route
back to the finish in the six hours available. We made
the finish line again with a few minutes to spare,
tired but pleased to have completed the event as best
we could with points intact and no navigation blunders.
The highlights (in no order) - a fantastic weekend
in the hills, spending time with old friends, meeting
new friends, witnessing a masterclass when Jon and
Steven passed us on Saturday at the third control,
Joanne's perma-smile on Saturday night, Andy's enthusiasm
for discussing route choice at midcamp in the pouring
rain - ultimately just a great weekend. Thanks
to all who made it possible, it was a whopper! But,
unfortunately, like all good things, the LAMM weekend
disappears in the blink of an eye for another year.
Cameron Scott |
| Steve Fallon's Flikr
photo set |
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