Steven Lords Website

The KIMM this year was up in the North Eastern Lake district. We had the luxury of staying with friends on the Friday night and then an early start (2nd pair off) on the Saturday. The forecast was good for the early part of the day so we were optimistic.

We arrived at the start and the weather coming in looked terrible, it started raining whilst we waited and we donned waterproofs. The first checkpoint was a fairly none descript spur foot in amongst boggy ground. We ran pretty much straight onto it and were pretty chuffed with our start. As we progressed through the checkpoints it became clear I didn’t have my usual mountain legs. Matt was pace setting and doing alot of the navigation, it was only on the very steep uphills I felt like my usual self.

We were making steady progress hitting the checkpoints and were enjoying being out the front of the field. Heading to CP6 we messed up – had exactly the right plan, but a combination of not following a bearing tightly enough, the cloud clearly and us optimistically assuming the path we could see was ours resulted in a navigation error we reckon cost 15 minutes. It took us the next hour to re-pass a pair we’d motored by about 10 mins before the error.

This was very frustrating but it got me motivated and I felt I started running better. We really motored round the last few checkpoints and belted along the final 2k stretch along a road to finish in 5th place overnight. About 35 minutes behind the leaders but only 8 minutes adrift of 2nd place.

The overnight camp was quite an experience. Despite my race tent slapping us in the face regularly as the poles buckled in the wind, giving our butts a good kicking as the wind bashed the side and virtually lifting us off the deck in the strongest gusts it didn’t collapse, rip or let any water in. Matt re-assuringly informed me in the middle of the night that this was just the tail end of Hurrican Wilma.

Next morning the wind hadn’t abated and they’d decided to use the Bad Weather course. This really played into the leaders hands as there would be precious little time to make up the deficit.

We set off well nailing the first two checkpoints but again I felt lethargic, I didn’t have my mountain legs. CP 2 to CP 3 was classic over or round decision and for once Matt and I could not reach a concensus. We plumped for round hoping to avoid the worst of the weather. This was trackless and as we progressed it dawned on us our error, it was confirmed when we had to approach the checkpoint across a precipitously steep grassy bank and we could see several pairs running down from above. We met at the CP and found that they’d set off 20 minutes after us. We were now in a race.

Luckily I started to run better at this point. On pair went by as we headed down to a sheep fold and another pair were behind us. Now it was important to hit the checkpoints accurately as the pairs behind could just follow and correct if we made a mistake. We ran straight onto the stone circle and then headed to a re-entrant. This was well hidden but we ran straight onto it, keeping low as we left it we hoped to not give the other pairs it’s location. It appears the pair ahead cocked up here as they chased us down and passed us approaching the last checkpoint. We did hold off the pair behind to finish in 6th place, about 30 mins behind the leaders, 15 behind 2nd, for our best finish in the KIMM

This years event was based around Ennerdale with the event centre in Buttermere. Great location for such an event and I was really looking forward to it with it likely to be a mix of terrain that was new to me and terrain that I knew quite well.

Following the LAMM this year I’d finally got myself an altimeter and this was going to be the first race that I’d used on it in. The weather forecast was better than last year and like last year it seemed the weather was going to rather mirrow what we had at the LAMM. Last year that meant cold wet conditions in both events, this year it meant lovely thick cloud.

Saturday dawned with nice weather, but the rain arrived before the start and the cloud decended. The temperature was good for running and at least it was dry for marking up the map. Milly and I had a simple aim this year which was to complete the course.

We were one of the first pairs off which is great as you should get the hills to yourself for much of the day. I’d calibrated my altimeter and we headed off up and over High Stile to our first checkpoint on an ‘Eatern most Spur’. When we got to the top of High Stile I looked at the map to see how high it was ‘896m’ and recalibrated my altimeter. A couple of thoughts whizzed across my mind “Wow this alimeter is already way out, some 90m off’ and ‘Jeez, never realised High Stile was so high, this makes it one of the highest in the Lakes’ … other than that I never batted an eyelid and we headed off on a bearing, aiming off slightly to the west so when we hit 690m we would back track east and hit the checkpoint in this thick mist.

It wasn’t till we’d scrambled down below a large (approx 90m) cliff and were at 690m did I start having doubts, thinking how tough a spot this was for a checkpoint. Double checked the grid reference, double checked the height, double checked the description. All ok. Not sure what made me check the height of High Stile but when I did Millie probably heard some rather bad language. “F*** !” I’d misread the height of High Stile – on closer inspection it was 806m not 896m !! We were 90m too low – ie the checkpoint was at the top of the cliff not the bottom.

We scrambled back up. This cost us 30 minutes and worse it put us in amongst the crowds which meant we were slowed up hugely on the steep ascent to CP2. This was very frustrating as steep ascents are our strengths and we could not make as big an advantage of them.

CP4 looked like it would be tough in this thick mist. It was the NE End of a Marsh on a pretty featureless hill side. We navigated straight to our attack point and then headed off on a bearing, hit a stream which meant we should be within 100m or so of it. Could we hell find it. We spent the next hour wandering around in the mist, bumping into runners every so often ” u seen checkpoint 117 ? ” “No but I’ve seen 112″… ” u seen checkpoint 112?” “No but I’ve seen 117” – everyone seemed to have found the one they weren’t looking for. We’d not found either. Eventually by luck rather than judgement we found the damn thing. Soon after there was a brief clearing of the mist and looking across the mountain side was comical – loads of runners all over it running every which way. Looking at the top dozen on our course this had cost us 50 minutes.

We dropped out of the cloud and spent the rest of the day with views. It was tough going, tussocky under foot and another long leg and big climb before getting to the final few checkpoints. We navigated these perfectly and arrived at the overnight camp after 7.5 hours running, 20 miles, 2200m ascent and sitting in 55th place. Happy to have completed but disappointed with the position.

No need for situps at this midway camp. It was warm enough, though through the night we were hit by a couple of storms with gale force winds. My race tent is quite flimsy and there were a few occasions where I was woken because the pole by our heads had buckle and was virtually hitting me in the face.

Day 2 – decided that since we weren’t in the mix for places we would use it was a good opportunity for Millie to learn abit more about navigation. The initial climb was very steep but we soon came up onto our first CP. The cloud was high and we navigated round the course with only the odd small error. The running was much better with some good fast decents, runnably trackless sections and parts on descent tracks – all played to our strengths as road runners. We even got to descend the long and steep Dore Head Screes – great fun though running shorts are not ideal for such scree runs and I have the scars to prove it.  We hurtled into the finish ( the section from the last CP to the finish is normally very runnable so always push it not only to look good as you cross the finish line but also as it’s a good chance to get the fastest split on at least one leg – we missed that honour by a mere 11 seconds ;o() and found we’d made up 18 places on the day finishing 37th overall. We’d been out for 4.75 hours, covering 15 miles and about 1400m ascent.

For those of you thinking of doing Mountain Marathons (there are a couple of you) – this is the perfect event to pick as your first. It has lots of classes (ie numerous different length courses) and the terrain tends to be a little easier than the LAMM and the conditions / navigation less severe than the KIMM.

Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (LAMM) on Friday night. I really don’t know any of the mountains round there so wonder what it’s going to be like, didn’t cross my mind that it would be on the Isle Of Mull. Arrive Oban, Friday night, we’re all packed onto and ferry across to Mull and then after a 30 minute or so walk we arrive at the event centre at Torosay Castle. What a superb location!

I knew the course planner and had raced his courses before. His appetite whetter posted a week or so ago suggested this was going to be an orienteers course – ie need strong navigation. Not playing to Alan’s and my strength. Saturday morning dawned with low cloud which would make the navigation even tougher. We were taken by bus to the other side of the Island for our start.

At the start you are given the checkpoints you need to visit. It became apparent some careful navigation using the 1:25,000 map was going to be required. (we’d been issued with a double sided map – 1:40,000 on one side and 1:25,000 on the other).

We set off hitting the first checkpoint no problem. The second we dropped down to a landrover track and then a long climb, we were running well. As we climbed into the mist aiming for a lochan Alans altimeter conked out ;o( … thats not gonna help the navigation. After a little wandering around we found the checkpoint. The next leg was long and fast across a very boggy track to Moy castle from where we would head out to the southern end of the Island and the Laggan Deer Forest where clearly some very tricky navigation was required.

The first checkpoint looked the tougher but more by luck than anything else we found it straight away. The next checkpoint was 1km away, directly east and 10m lower. If we’d had the Altimeter we’d have contoured but as we didn’t we followed a bearing east, we should hit the stream and then just drop down to the checkpoint. Great plan, very poorly executed. In the mist we thought we’d run far enough and that perhaps we missed the top of the stream so we headed down (in hindsight we were only about 50m short of hitting the checkpoint) … a few more wanderings like this and we were lost (ie couldn’t work out precisely where we were on the map). It took us 45 mins to relocate ourselves and find the checkpoint. Massive time lost.

From here no more problems, just some hard slog to finish the route. We were out over 9 hours covering about 30 miles and 1,700m ascent.

The overnight camp was the usual fun. Systematically refuel (pot noodle, soup and cous cous, custard and chocolate digestives – simple food never tastes so good) and get some sleep. Only problem for us was Alan couldn’t find the tent pegs! I wandered the camp to see if various friends had arrived yet hoping to scrounge one or two pegs from each – non of them had arrived. We decided to use rocks. As we walked back from the river laiden with rocks we spotted the pegs on the floor! What’s the saying always come in threes? So, we’d had a broken altimeter and lost (temporarily) tent pegs – what next? The tent we have has 3 very lightweight poles – when we pull them out one is completely snapped and the other has a major fracture! Alan had spotted some duct tape lying around with which we manage a repair that gets the tent up.

Day 2 the cloud was still down but the navigation was alot simpler. We pretty much managed to navigate straight to each checkpoint. It was tough going. I felt exhausted. I think largely due to the length of the previous day. I’d planned my day 1 calorie intake based on 7 hours running and the extra 2 hours probably meant I wasn’t fully refueled for day 2. THe long leg 3 of the route through some tough terrain was a mental challenge.

We finally finished day 2 after just over 6 hours, 19 miles and 1,100m of ascent. We’d made up one place on the second day finishing 15th. It was ok, not as good as last year but respectable.

Definitely will be back for more next year.