Here Comes the OMM
October 22nd, 2008 by Andy NicollBeen resting up this week in prep for this weekend’s epic and enjoying as much real food and sleep as possible as I certainly won’t be getting much of either on Saturday / Sunday.
We’re going up Friday night ready for our 8.35am start Saturday morning. In the OMM you only find out where you’re going on the start line when they give you your map - then it’s a race around 6 - 8 checkpoints across 40 ish kilometers of real off piste mountain terrain to the overnight camp. We then camp and eat using the equiment / food on our backs before being given another map and heading off again Sunday morning for another 30ish k via another 6 - 8 checkpoints back to the start / finish area - all against the clock.
It’s a really interesting and tough challenge and unlike an ordinary fell race you also have to plan your equipment, food and route choices VERY carefully.
The weather forecast for the weekend around Borrowdale is for high winds and lots of rain - just what you need for camping in the lakes!! I’m not too bothered about bad weather as I’ll gear up accordingly but the only time I don’t want rain is when we’re packing up Sunday morning - there’s nothing worse then getting you and all your gear wet and cold before you even get going.
My partner Jamie is coming round tomorrow to finalise the kit / food strategy - we’ll be aiming for pack weights of around 5-6kg each on day one including tent, sleeping bags, food, cooking equipment and clothing.
The real key to success in a Mountain Marathon is good navigation skills - we made a howling mistake in 2006 which we don’t want to do again this year so we’ll be taking a little more time over the map reading to save a lot of time on the hills.
If you’re interested, full details of the event can be found here : http://www.theomm.com/event/aboutTheEvent
Full report to follow on Monday……
Tags: fell running, OMM, running