RESULTS ARCHIVE

12&13/06/10 - LAMM (Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon), Glen Fyne

Introduction

The Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (or LAMM) is a two day fell running and orienteering race held in the Scottish Highlands each June. Teams of two run and navigate over mountainous terrain, carrying all their gear for an overnight wild camp. LAMM has six classes of competition: Elite, A, B, C, D and Score courses. Over the two days, the elite competitors complete a course of approximately 70 km with 4000m of ascent over challenging terrain.

The event location is kept secret until 48 hours before the start, and competitors do not know where the route will take them until they cross the start line. Teams are then given a series of grid reference checkpoints which they must navigate to and choose a route between.

Friday 11th June

The waiting game begins - where will I be spending my weekend? The final announcement will be made at noon today.

As I hover over my computer glued to the LAMM website that has teased us with the minimum of information regarding the exact location for months - 1½hrs north of Glasgow & Edinburgh and 2¾-3hrs south of Inverness is all we know. The guessing has narrowed it down to Arrochar or Southern Perthshire; I know wherever it is it will be a long drive for me.

High noon arrives - its Glen Fyne (Arrochar pretty close!) quick call to my brother (Neil) to let him know and then it's time to pack (last minute as usual).

What do we need sleeping bag, liner, tent, extra clothes, cooking stove, compass (handy!), fell shoes, waterproofs, survival blanket, first aid kit, food and snacks I'll buy in Inverness on the way down? This all fits into my 25l rucksack? It did last year so it will this year?

Time for off and head straight for Tiso in Inverness where I'll get my weekend food from their choice of boil in the bag gourmet delights - for Saturday dinner chicken tikka with rice (I got a 2 person portion by mistake - honest!!) followed by treacle pudding and for breakfast an 'energy' muesli mixture. Lots of snacks - jelly babies, fruit & nut mix, mars bars, snickers (formerly known as marathon bars to us of a certain age!) and a large bar of Galaxy for an after dinner treat on Saturday night.

With the car heavily ladened with weekend goodies it was onwards then to Cairndow where the main campsite was located.

Three and a half hours later I finally arrive and meet up with Neil who had a nice little jaunt from Dunblane rather than the 'epic' journey us northerners have to endure.

We put up the tent (this is a second tent we take so we don't need to take down and pack the lightweight tent on the Saturday morning) and head over to the registration tent but more importantly the food tent!! A large baked potato with chilli and coleslaw does the trick with a lump of chocolate brownie washed down with a mug of coffee ensures I am keeping my calorie intake at a maximum for the two days ahead - it's all scientific not just eating what you want?

Back to the tent for a kit check, which is basically making sure we have everything we need.

Before I left my sister handed me a pressie for us to open on the Friday night ('it could be the last pressie you ever get off me' she said, which came as encouraging and comforting words!!) - low and behold it was a box of mini Green & Blacks chocolate bars.

So, a quick calorie intake calculation and we noticed we had made the schoolboy error of not taking on enough calories...doh!!

So on with the stove for coffee and into the chocolate bars but not to indulge but to 'fuel up' - that's what I tell myself?

After ensuring we were calorie ready for the next day we hit the sleeping bags and awaited the six o'clock alarm call from our friendly lone piper!

Saturday 12th June

The pipes the pipes are calling at six o'clock on the dot!! I hear no wind or rain on the tent and a quick bleary-eyed look out confirms the sun is shining with blue clear skies above.

Racing clothes on - feet and nipples smothered in vasaline to stop any potential blistering and chaffing, I know from last year that blisters can make for an extremely uncomfortable day in the hills.

Take on water and a banana, then its back over to the food tent and breakfast - bacon roll, flapjack and coffee - food of champions!!! Fill up the water bladder then it's off to pick up our maps and get the bus to our start destination.

Get the bus with the rest of the C course competitors and head back down the road to where I came last night.

This year the maps have been pre-printed with all the checkpoints for all the courses shown and the first thing you look at is how many checkpoints are on large summits - there's a few?

The bus comes to a halt at 'Rest & Be Thankful' (a commemorative stone erected by the soldiers who built the original military road back in 1753) and we duly depart before a steep 150m climb to our start point. At this you dib your SI card (the same way that orienteering events happen) to get a start time and you get handed your control descriptions sheet, which has, on day one eight six-figure reference numbers for you to plot out your route.

So we take our time to both plot the course and then double check that by making sure we have plotted the same checkpoints. And then we're off - the race starts in earnest.

First checkpoint 750m of hard climbing and a relatively straightforward checkpoint. Bit of thought needed for route choice to checkpoint two but decide to go downhill (running for the first time) and contour round some stone outcrops through a dip and climb up to the summit of Ben Vane (915m) and checkpoint two.

Good running and straightforward navigation to checkpoint three. The descent from checkpoint three was steep and tussocky which doesn't really make for a quick descent although we gave it a good go much to my left knee's annoyance! About ¾ of the way down the knee decided to fight back and show me who was boss - planted my foot between tussock but continued to go forward and felt severe pain to the inside of right knee... strained ligaments was my initial thought (I've already ruptured ligaments in that knee and that floored me so I knew it wasn't too bad!!!).

I nursed myself down to the track we were heading for and consulted with bro who was waiting 'patiently' at the bottom. We decided to take the easier option and follow the track through the forest and a short sharp climb to checkpoint four.

We were going well (apart from the knee) the weather was bright and hot and spirits were helped by some jelly babies and half a mars bar.

Four to five was over some flattish, peaty ground which we would have normally ran as much as possible but I suggested much to bro's annoyance that we take it easier to try and give the knee a rest.

Checkpoint five duly dibbed and a confer over checkpoint six, which was the longest distance of the day we decided to head down to the reservoir and up to the left side of a small summit (in hindsight we should have went right!). Started to go too far left in my opinion and a quick consultation with the compass showed that in his eagerness my bro had veered too much to the left, so had to rein in his enthusiasm and point him in the right direction.

Back on course and a steep descent down to a river crossing and then up to checkpoint six.

Once again the knee did not like the downhill - slowed me down considerably and decided to sit on my bum and slide down as much as I can. Caught a few sharps stones on the way down but as they say 'no pain, no gain'! Eventually got down and crossed the river and made the climb up to No 6.

Checkpoint six to seven and seven to eight (the mid camp location) were straightforward and we managed to even run a little - I noted that the knee got angry on the downhill sections.

Dibbed the finish at 6hrs 29mins around three o'clock with the sun still high in the sky - good days work and pretty chuffed with our pace considering my knee.

All those training runs up Beinn Ratha seemed to have paid off... so far.

After gathering our thoughts it was time to find a spot to pitch the tent. Spot duly found and tent erected it was time for the simplest but most pleasurable task of the day - changing into fresh dry socks! Off with the sodden shoes and socks, inspect the feet for blisters and any other damage - sore tips of toes but in pretty good shape overall. Dry the feet then take the slow simple pleasure of slipping on your clean, dry socks...ahhhh bliss!!!

Then, you get to adorn your fetching polythene 'boots' given to you at registration solely for the purpose of keeping you dry socks dry as you can then wear your sodden wet shoes - simples!

By this time it was about half three so out with the stove and a well earned mug of coffee with a snickers and jelly babies to ease the aching legs.

The sun was still shining and what happened next was something that you can only dream of once children come along - a little sleep in the afternoon and on a Saturday - I snuggled up in my sleeping while bro spread out his survival blanket and slept out in the open air.

A ten minute nap refreshed us enough to go for a wander and check if we had made the chasing start for the Sunday morning.

Last year, as LAMM virgins we had great hopes of making the chasing start (every team within 90mins of the leading pair is allocated a racing number, which is worn on the Sunday with all chasing teams going off at two minute intervals, that's when the chase begins) but failed miserably in our naivety of how tough the event actually is. This year we had an open mind with no thoughts of the chasing start - we were six minutes out, which then made us feel that if we had done this and done that we would have made it.

Nevermind we were lying 46th out of 129 teams which wasn't bad going.

Time for tea and first up chicken tikka with rice - looked pretty revolting but actually tasted quite 'authentic', chicken a bit stringy but what could you expect! Treacle pudding next and I don't know if they could have made the sauce any sweeter - I have a sweet tooth (or shall we say teeth!) but this was way too sweet for me so I left it and eat half a bar of galaxy instead.

We decided on another wander before turning in and came across a throng of competitors huddled around one of the event cars which had the radio blasting out the USA versus England game - and we all know how that turned out?? We stayed and listened for a while then went to look at the C course leader's route choice and found out that it wasn't much different from ours, so we must have been doing something right only a bit slower.

'Bed'fordshire was calling and after coffee and just a little bit more chocolate we called it a night about half nine hoping for another bright day when navigational 'skills' would not be needed.

Sunday 13th June

Half past five alarm this morning with the pipes once again blasting out.

I had been woken at about three with the sound of heavy rain on the tent but managed to get back to sleep in the hope that I was dreaming......I was not!!

Again a bleary-eyed (worse this morning as I had slept with my contact lenses in) look out of the tent in the morning confirmed that one it was raining, two it was breezy, three there was heavy hill fog at about 500m and to top it all the great Scottish midge decided to make an appearance - this is going to be fun.

Brew on and breakfast - eating everything from underneath my midge net, pack (stuff) everything away into the rucksack and make our way to the start.

The chasing start is staggered from half six and everybody else can start between seven and eight. We dibbed in just after seven got the control descriptions, plotted out the route (just on one map as the rain was too heavy) and were on our way.

The rain was the driving drizzly kind that soaked you through in minutes; in saying this I still wore my shorts as I thought it wiser to keep a dry pair of tracksters in case I got too cold.

After a short climb out off mid camp the route to checkpoint one was pretty runnable through long grass and tussocks. It also gave me a chance to try out the knee which held up pretty well.

We were now at about 550/600m and the mist was getting thicker but checkpoint two lay on the 400m contour line so we knew that one it was slightly downhill and two we should come out of the mist (albeit momentarily).

Managed checkpoint two but was now soaked through so decided to put on waterproof jacket, more as an insulation layer so hypothermia didn't have a chance to get me.

Checkpoint two to three was firstly a descent down to the dam over Lochan Shira reservoir then a short rise and a tricky location to checkpoint three.

Once again the knee went on the steep descent (knew it wouldn't last for long) down to the dam but we headed for a runnable track and then a good path across the dam and up to checkpoint three, which we eventually found after some hunting.

Checkpoint four was on the summit of Beinn Bhuidhe (948m) so we knew it was a case of head down and the long slog began. We decided to contour at 600m before climbing into the mist and up to the summit checkpoint.

The summit was busy with competitors checking the baring to checkpoint five and as I did so I suddenly felt very cold and wanted to get off as quickly but as safely as possible. The route we took off the summit was pretty treacherous, down the side of a slippy, rocky outcrop but it was nothing compared to a couple off fellow C course competitors who took another route and didn't have it so lucky. I won't go into any detail but there is a link to their report that I think it is worth a read for everyone who enjoys the hills more as a cautionary tale rather than scaremongering - http://www.lamm.co.uk/2010/accident.html.

We knew know that checkpoint four would be the last tough one of the day as five was at 400m and although it was a bit of a distance it was relatively easy going once we got down from Beinn Bhuide and all the slipping and tumbling that came with the descent.

Dibbed in at checkpoint five and instead of having a think we crashed on with a direct route towards a track that would take us virtually all the way to the finish. But between us and the track was a small outcrop of rocks (that was shown clearly on the map!!) that required us to shimmy down as far as we could and instead of going back we decided to take a leap of faith of about fifteen feet off the last rock - not the wisest or quickest route choice of the weekend but the end was in sight so what the hell?

Descending once again through reeds and bog - my knee was screaming 'you'll suffer for this, mark my words' we came to a rough track that would allow us to run downhill to the final two checkpoints.

Although checkpoint six to seven was about nearly two miles and with heavy, waterlogged shoes and a laden rucksack on your back it isn't as easy as I first thought.

We could now see the tents of the main camp which gave us a surge to 'sprint' to the last checkpoint and onto the finish line.

By this time the sun was out and after giving ourselves a massive but 'manly' hug of congratulations we decided to change into some dry clothes before settling down to our free post race meal including a wedge of tiffin and copious cups of coffee and juice.

As we watched various other competitors finish we had a great sense of achievement (compare this to last years sense of relief that it was finally all over) and we spoke about the possibility of adding the Highlander Mountain Marathon to next years calendar?

After recuperating for a while we decided to try and move our bodies over to see how it all finished in C course. Our time for the day was 4hrs 23mins, which gave us an overall placing of 34th out of 130 teams but what gave us more satisfaction was that we were the 24th fastest team on the second day and the fastest team that wasn't in the chasing start - not to say we were more than chuffed.

So after 45km, 2600m of ascent and just under eleven hours of racing over rough mountainous terrain it was 'only' another six hours drive until home and back to reality..... until next year and another secret location - hopefully a little bit closer?