Marmot Dark Mountains 2016 - 3rd Place Again for Team Spinach

Partner

None of this would have been half as much fun without the other half of Team Spinach so thank you to Emma for putting up with me. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. Proper team effort and I'm very glad to have you as a racing buddy.

Same time next year I hope?

I love it when a plan comes together

It's been that time of year again where Team Spinach dust off their night navigation skills (wander round the moors looking confusedly at a compass), start a new performance diet (we've finished all the cheese from xmas) and turn our thoughts towards the Marmot Dark Mountains event (we did it last year and didn't die).

We felt a lot happier with our navigation skills from last year so our only real preparation was loosening the legs on the KCAC Wed night social fell runs and a quick test of bearing following in the dark on Ilkley Moor. I've been doing some cycling over winter and Emma threatened to break out her Nell McAndrew exercise DVD so we were in "good" shape.

"Which way does the pointy bit go?"

This year the event was based in Mungrisdale village on the east side of the Northern Fells of the Lake District. It's a lovely little village with a nice looking pub, The Mill Inn, next to the beck. Must come back for a second visit.

Mungrisdale (C) Visit Cumbria

Get Set...

Kit check was very nearly a short affair as Emma had left her sleeping bag in the car but that was sorted out. Not as exhaustive a kit check this year; last time they wanted to see everything but I'm guessing with the much larger number of competitors this year that they just wanted to see the essentials. We got checked for sleeping bags, emergency bag, tent, torch, gloves and hats.

Busy in the village hall, everyone looks fitter than me aaaaarrrggghh!

We were furnished with some very nice veggie chilli, cheese and pitta by Heather who was doing a sterling job in the kitchen followed by a massive slab of chocolate pudding and custard. Pre-event food fit for kings!

We spent a bit of time looking at the map and trying to guess where we would get sent. Thankfully the steep bit of Bannerdale Crags and the south sides of Blencathra (including Sharp Edge) and Skiddaw were all marked as out of bounds. Of course with the live tracking it would be simple for the organisers to check if anyone had infringed an out of bounds area - only one team was disqualified for this.

C course map, lots of squiggly lines

Even though we had a couple of hours to kill before the start it went quickly, filled with cups of tea, chatting to folk and packing our bags, getting ready. Emma debated what layers to wear and opted for warm and of course ended up having to de-layer on the first long climb. So it goes: be bold, start off cold!

Go!

CP 1-3

All that map studying meant we dibbed at the start and immediately set off in the right direction! Sometimes this is the easiest bit to get wrong.

A nice easy start saw us head out along the River Glenderamackin (superb name!) on a good path, picking up the first two controls before the long steady climb up to Mungrisdale Common, the col between Blencathra and Bannerdale Crags. This last bit up to the col was quite icy underfoot, thankfully not repeated anywhere else as I'd left my Kahtoola crampons in the car as I didn't expect them to be required.

One of the fun things about this kind of event is doing admin tasks like changing layers, getting food and drink, putting things away whilst on the move. It's made much easier with two, with the other ferreting around in your pack for the elusive sandwich or glove.

We were one of the last teams to start so most of the field were ahead of us. I think we overtook about 4 teams on this stretch and we certainly feel like we made an excellent start. Competitive Emma was making plans and Competitive James was making a rare appearance.

Anyway, we made it to the col and the wind, brrr, not hanging around here for long!

Us (68) putting in a good lead on our fellow competitors

CP4-5

We came a bit unstuck coming down to find checkpoint 4, being too far left. In the end we thought we were too low, discovered we were in fact too low but found it after relocating and taking a bearing off a pair of sheepfolds.

The track up to Skiddaw House went quickly and we took the opportunity to eat. I shoved half a pork pie down my neck and a piece of cake. We'll be hearing more about the pie later.

Last year, Emma's food had got all mushed up together and had accidentally invented the fruit cake, cheese and guacamole sandwich which, she maintained was surprisingly tasty. This year she decided to cut out the squashy middleman and lump it all together at the start. The considered opinion was that it didn't work quite as well this time but it was certainly worth a try. I'm sure I saw half of it go back in the pack uneaten.

Artists impression of the contrary cakey culinary curious concoction. Crikey!

At Skiddaw house we were warmly greeted by Emma's father-in-law Colin who was manning the show there. Although it looked very inviting inside we declined to stay and chat over a cocoa, quickly dibbed and then charged off towards the next checkpoint.

CP6

In our haste, we didn't check all of our options and by the time we were attacking the direct line and thigh deep heather slopes of Great Calva we realised there was a track marked on the west side of the hill that we'd not seen. Dur... So we cut across to the main path to pick it up after a scenic 800m detour.

One advantage of such a night time event is that the terrain doesn't intimidate you as much because you can't see it. As a result there were several times where the sight of a long climb would have perhaps depressed us, instead we could just see some torches in the distance encouraging us to go for it.

Thankfully the path up was a bit better despite the mud and ice. We both broke out our respective walking pole to aid out ascent - deploy the third leg!. There was someone taking photos by the control on the summit, he looked like he was freezing his bits off!


CP7-8

After following the fence down off the top of Great Calva we picked up the faint path towards the summit of Knott which we managed to track all the way. We followed a bearing to the main path coming off Great Sca Fell, aiming off ever so slightly and picking it up where Emma had expected to from pacing (go navigation!).

I had started to feel a bit queasy over the last few checkpoints and burping unwelcome greasy pastry burps from the pie and it wasn't getting any better. I managed to keep it down but wasn't putting anything in on top of it so I was starting to run a bigger deficit than George Osborne.

I forced down a hummus and beetroot pitta and some jelly babies and willed myself over the next hill, reminding myself that it will improve and I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Things were starting to head into Type 2 fun territory.


CP9

The route to 9 was not straightforward. Contour left around the hill? Climb up right then down the river? Nope. Go big or go home we said. Straight over Brae Fell and down the other side to pick up the gully then the second stream junction. Handrailing all the way made for simpler navigation if a slightly longer route. Both the first two teams contoured round the bottom of Brae Fell, most other people just charged straight over the top. According to the splits, contouring looked about 10 minutes quicker.

The teams contouring around the Bottom of Brae Fell got a Willy Knot! Ha!

#humourfor6and36yearolds

Like most of the stream gullys on this event it was a steep sided affair involving much hopping from bank to bank, steep contouring or just very wet feet. A combination of all three was applied! I did spot a very cool old mine tunnel heading into the hill from the side of the beck but now wasn't the time for subterranean shenannigans, we had a control to find!

It wasn't long before there were three teams all gathered at this one control at the same time, exchanging a small amount of banter. Everyone had a different idea of how to get to the next point, ours involving a short scramble out of the gorge using an old tree and following a bearing to pick up the next path to lead us to...


CP10

Ah, hello weather. Where have you been?

Horizontal hail was making things hard work. I put my goggles on and things improved, but Emma, normally a glasses wearer, struggled with hers making her vision more blurry. Urgh, this was not fun, distinctly Scottish conditions!

We followed our bearing and picked up a path going the right way (or was it...) following a pair of lads along it. They stopped, looking confused and we pooled our collective brain power which, at 5:45am and with no sleep, meant we could just about use words to make sentences. Just.

They pointed out that the uphill should be on our right, not left which meant we were on the wrong side of the hill. Amateur mistake, we hadn't gone far enough and picked up a parallel path. The wind, hail and tiredness had meant we weren't paying attention to the map. So we took a bearing for the CP, aiming off to allow us to make sure we hit the path before it and off we went.

Chatting to these lads it turned out they were Neil and James from just over the hill in Ilkley. I remembered them from last year as the two who had beaten us into 3rd place. They were having a slightly harder time this year and were a bit slower.

Extremely good navigational catch by them, well done guys. We made it to the hut together and, after saying ta-ra, we slipped and glooped our way down the next path.


CP11

It was about here that it started to turn from hail to rain. Again I was thankful for my Buffalo jacket keeping me warm. The track ran steadily down, through some old mine workings in an out of bounds area to the road.

Staightforward navigation at this point, and my recent lack of long distance running was starting to tell on my knees. We paused briefly at the road, dropped some Vitamin I, forced more food down and I fertilised some heather in the good ol' fashioned bear-in-the-woods kind of way. Amusingly, the first question Emma's son asked her when she got home was "did either of you do a poo outside?" How did he know?

Thankfully, energy was slowly returning, and things were improving. We came to the ford river crossing that we'd been warned about in the pre race briefing. Thankfully the river levels had dropped so it was only knee deep instead of upper thigh deep. Nevertheless it was quite refreshing thank you very much!

Emma requested a new earworm at this point, having had Imelda Staunton singing "A Squash And A Squeeze" on a loop in head from somewhere near the start. I kicked off an acapella "Bear Necessities" from the Jungle Book and Emma remembered the second verse better than I.

I remember being quite surprised coming across a control, only to realise it was the one that we'd been heading for!

Now it was head down for the last big climb.


CP12-Finish

We wound our way slowly up a long shallow gully up in the grey light of early winter morning. Fresh snow on the ground and beads of water sparkling in our headtorch beams and the mountains looming out of the grey behind us made for a magical feeling. I love this bit, when you've been out all night and the day breaks anew. Always gives me a real boost. I still had to resort to counting my footsteps and forcing a jelly baby down every 100 paces just to keep me going.

We overtook another team at the top and somehow found our seventh wind, jogging down towards Mungrisdale and enjoying the gradely view down Bullfell Beck valley. Emma was keen to make sure we didn't go past the next control

"If I have to go back up that hill then I'm not going to be a happy bunny!"

We found the sheepfold and the control, trotting off down the track on the home stretch.

CP13 was visible from a fair way off: daylight eh, great invention! We could see the event centre but were a bit miffed as we had to run away from it for the last control, then past it again to get to the bridge before we could jog down the road for our round of applause from the marshals manning the finish.

Hurrah, we did it!


Post Race

Emma downloaded our timings from the dibber whilst I handed back our GPS tracker. I wondered if anyone had been watching our finish on that internet. Our printout showed that we were currently in 3rd out of 8 finishers but we knew that there were more teams behind us and one mixed pair ahead of us so no trophy this year.

However we were very pleased to find out that we were indeed 3rd overall on the C course this year so, whilst no trophy, we still retained our position from last year. Big smiles all round.

Thankfully we didn't suffer from any of these

I remember it taking a while to enjoy the breakfast last year but no trouble this year, I'd been looking forward to the hash browns and baked beans from about 2/3rds of the way around.

Whilst inhaling my breakfast I was chatting to a few other teams. A few guys on the C course who'd made similar mistakes to us. James from CP10 turned up so it was nice to catch up with him and see how they got on.

Two chaps on the Short Score course who had got back too late and lost all their points. Had they made it back in time, they could have won but they gambled and lost. We commiserated with them and I was reminded of a line from "If" by Rudyard Kipling

     "If you can make one heap of all your winnings
         And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,"

They were fairly upbeat about it and we changed the subject to discussing food. One had made some chocolate caramel shortbread and offered us some. We discussed the addition of sea salt to the caramel and he'd put some orange oil in there too. They headed off and we tried the goods, not bad but I thought my version I made before xmas was better - more salt Igor!. Turned out that this guy was a Great British Bake Off finalist from this year (Ian Cumming) - how about that!

Shane Ohly, the race director, did all the prize giving stuff and thanked all the marshals and volunteers - he is Mr. Positive! We trundled off home via the services for an espresso or two and back via the cheese shop to stock up on weapons grade brie for a much needed shower, gear drying and power nap!


Results

SI Entries results page is here

Live tracking including reply was here - http://live.marmot-dark-mountains.com but I expect it won't be there forever.

Strava log from the slightly grainy GPS tracker is here

23 miles / 37km
5545 feet / 1700m climbing
4383 calories

13 finishers on our course out of 23 starters,


Equipment

• My Buffalo Systems Mountain Shirt absolutely thrives in these kind of conditions. I only saw one other Buffalo wearer, we shared a knowing nod and an amused glance at all the fancy brand names, knowing in our hearts that we were the true champions. In my imagination at least.
• Ronhills with waterproof trousers and Sealskins socks looked after the bottom half and I was just the right temperature all the way round. Comfortable in fact!

Event Musings

• Don't follow other people, pay attention to what you are doing
• More frequent reference to altimeter when navigating to a point on a hill to ensure we don't drop too low. This requires frequent resetting of the reference at known altitudes throughout the event to take into account the changing barometric pressure due to the weather. This would have sped up our location of checkpoint 4 for a start.
• I didn't really look after my food intake prior to and during the event so suffered a bit
• The maps were much more robust this year. Last year's map ended up looking slightly foxed but as the late Sir Terry Pratchett would have observed "...it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well." This year's map survived being dropped in four muddy puddles, washed in a river or two and folded intentionally and unintentionally every which way. It still looks in great nick!
• A well run and friendly event

Aftermath

I feel like I've got really bad jet lag. This is how I felt at work on Monday (I wasn't actually asleep on my to do list, honest!)

Thankfully I had some steak and a beer when I got home which made everything alright again!

I earned my point.

Marmot Dark Mountains - Kit List

This post turned out to be longer than expected so I split it off. Getting your kit right for an event like this can make or break your chances and with Shane Ohly's words about "running warm" ringing in my ears and my experience of night nav being one of moving steadily not quickly I decided to pack some warm stuff.

Being a bit of a massive gear geek, I present a short list of the gear packed along with some comments and how useful it was.

I was thankful for the good weather that meant we didn't need all of the gear. If I was putting all my layers and gloves on then the weather would have been really bad!


Kit List

• Team mate: 0.5 of Team Spinach = Emma
• Haglofs Gram 25 rucksack for lugging with the shoulder-attached water bottle holder. Great pack, lightweight, stable when running, comfy and pockets where you need them. Shoulder bottle pouch useful, elastic tag needs a bigger tag for pulling on to secure bottle. Suits my long back nicely.

Shelter/Emergency
None of which was used thankfully

• PHD sleeping bag, custom length, 5°C "comfort" - light, warm, cheap, great quality
• Alpkit Airlok Xtra 8 litre drybag for the above sleeping bag
• Terra Nova 2 person bothy bag
• SOL emergency bivvy bag - 100% tested on organic Eleanors
• A borrowed lightweight 2 person tent
• A bit of OMM foam pad for a sleeping mat
• First aid kit, knife, Petzl eLite emergency torch
• Old style Primus ETA express gas stove, pan and burner only (no lid or windshield), tin foil lid and windshield, 100ml gas
• Orikaso lightweight fold flat cup
• 4 sachets of instant hot chocolate drink for emergencies

Clothing

• Rab MeCo boxers - no chafing pls
• Ronhill winter running tights - I suffer from a medium waist but large thighs so unless I tie the waist cord on these they work their way down. Mmmm, nice. My legs ran cool but was balanced by the amount of warmth I had on top (see below).
• Buffalo Mountain Shirt with Expedition hood fitted, worn next to skin. This is one of my favourite items of clothing in my wardrobe that just seems to keep you warm and dry in all manner of conditions. The Needlesports website has a great explanation of how the system works. The hood makes for a good scarf when the neck is fastened up tightly and is very warm when you batten down the hatches. Fantastic top office pocket for snacks, maps, notes, camera, gloves but makes you look like you have massive man boobs! Downsides are annoying hood velcro tabs and face flap. Most of the way round in the valleys I was running a bit too hot with vents down and no hat on.
• Rab MeCo 120 weight long sleeve base layer - spare in pack, not used
• Montane Prism jacket - spare warm layer for on top of Buffalo shirt - not used
• Montane Minimus waterproof jacket - light yet suprisingly waterproof! Not used.
• Montane Minimus waterproof trousers - warm and effective when paired up with the Ronhill tights. Nice tight fit around the calves. Not used but would have been the first extra item of clothing on.
• Decathlon thick liner socks. Comfy.
• Sealskinz mid weight waterproof socks. AMAZING. We forded several streams/rivers and I would not have been able to continue the event with wet, cold feet. Feet slightly damp at the end, probably from water coming over the tops!
• Inov-8 Roclite 295 trail/fell shoes. The 2013 model that have served me well for ages. Wide toe box for my fat feet, decent grips, very comfy and light. Low strength uppers led to two identical lace loops blowing on the descent to CP5. My previous pair did exactly the same on the Haworth Hobble a couple of years ago. Inov-8 have changed the lace loop design on newer models so I look forward to testing these out. The last pair did 600 miles so I'm not too sad about that.
• Two Inov-8 Wrags - buff equivalents. One used as a hat when on the tops. Other kept in reserve in rucksack.
• Mountain Equipment beanie hat - not used, left in rucksack.
• Sealskinz windproof gloves - used occasionally on the tops, otherwise I was using my hands to dump heat from my body
• Mountain Equipment Guide gloves, warm and waterproof with a pile lining. My normal winter climbing gloves. Not used.
• Bolle clear ski goggles, essential for walking into a strong head wind with snow/rain/hail and still being able to navigate. Used several times in Scottish winter conditions. Not used.

Lights

It's dark, you may need these.

• Princeton Tec Apex headtorch, two sets of Eneloop rechargeable batteries. 4 x AA battery powered light with enough clout for fell running downhill and wide beam/low light options for walking and map reading. A versatile torch that provided enough light for walking/navigation on its lowest setting.
• Spare torch, random eBay "2000 lumen lies" focusable LED torch. 18650 lithium batteries kindly loaned by Mark the Machine. Used once on top of The Calf in highly focused mode when looking for the checkpoint.

Food / Drink
Whatever you take on a night event has to be easily edible even when feeling like you are about to throw up. Selection is a very personal thing and only comes with experience. I normally take Lyle's golden syrup cake with me but decided to experiment.

• 750ml random brand squeezy bottle, refilled at streams. I went through two and a half bottles which means I kept on top of my hydration. Food seemed to take effect quickly which backs this up.
• Nuun tablets, grape flavour, half a tab per bottle. Yum.
• Big bag of jelly babies in rucksack waist belt pocket. Mostly gone!
• Six slices of home made pizza, pepperoni, mushroom, pepper - stomachable even when nauseated. I ate three on the way round, should have eaten at least one/two more but needed more cheese. These were a very good choice, maybe mini calzones next time for easier eating?
• Fig rolls - normally a favourite but the co-op ones were very dry and hard work. Try a different brand next time?
• "Pitch" brand chocolate brioche - tasty and easy to shove down your neck. Would use again.

Navigation

• Casio digital watch. We did some rudimentary timing but pacing and using catching features allowed us to move faster. Mostly used for figuring out our predicted finish time.
• Recta compass. I would like a compass with a stronger needle as I felt the settling time was too long on this one. Maybe an orienteering type compass with a fat needle would be good?
• Home made 1:40k romer and pacing/timing cards, laminated. Was slightly annoyed to find that the map scale wasn't 1:40k as advertised but 1:30k instead so had to make some romer marks on the back of the compass with the crayons.
• Waterproof notebook for course log. Not used.
• Blue and red Sharpie chinagraph pencils, only made occasional notes on the map
• Sony smartphone running Strava logging the route - sealed in a plastic bag and shoved in the bottom of the pack. No cheating! In flight mode my Z3 compact Strava'd the entire 10 hour run and had only used 25% of the battery. This will be good for longer events like the Fellsman.

Marmot Dark Mountains 2015 - Team Spinach take 3rd place!

In terms of the effort versus reward stakes, this was one of the best events I've ever done. I'm still buzzing quietly a couple of days after the event.

My adventure racing partner in crime and the other half of Team Spinach (Emma) suggested entering the Marmot Dark Mountains event after a bout of Xmas cabin fever and her father-in-law Colin telling her about it. Having pretty much no night navigation experience and no mountain marathon experience I naturally agreed.

"What is it about modern life that makes you think this is a good idea?" - Emma's mate Jodie

My fitness at the time was reasonable so I just needed to work on the night navigation skills (some additional Strava logs here and here) After all of these I was reasonably confident in my ability to follow a bearing over blank ground in crap visibility and to trust my stopwatch and pacing. The feeling of elation you get from seeing a cairn or path emerge out of the mist where you expect it to be is pretty special. So, armed with these new found skills we found ourselves heading up the A65 towards Tebay on Saturday tea time.

"Sod it, I'll have a side order of chips with that" - Emma carb loading at Tebay services

I have an unwritten rule that states one should always call in at Tebay services on the M6 if passing so we decided to have tea there, along with a browse of the deli counter of course. We spotted a couple of wiry fit looking types in the cafe who looked like they were killing time before heading over to the event centre. After a final visit to the shop for extra scotch eggs we headed off.

"That's fine, I've seen enough!" - Mr Kit Checker smiling on seeing the amount of food we had brought with us

Thankfully the weather forecast for the event was good. I've generally found the Norwegian Met Office forecasts to be the most useful and when combined with MWIS and MetCheck (useful cloudbase and freezing level info) you get a good picture of what's going to happen. The general forecast was clear, not too cold with cloud only on the tops for most of the evening with rain coming in on Sunday mid morning to provide incentive to finish as soon as possible. Conditions stuck to the predictions. There was a biting wind on top of The Calf and the other tops but the deep valleys were well sheltered.

We registered and headed off to the kit check area where a nice lad made sure we had the prerequisites and that our torches were working as advertised. We were given the thumbs up for some smaller sleeping mats meaning I didn't have to take my "D-of-E special" light yet bulky foam roll mat stuck on the back of the pack. I tried to set fire to his high vis jacket with my fire steel that lives with the stove (to prove it worked) but he must have been too damp to catch light. Sign form, get dibber, get changed, have a brew, dump stuff in car and wait until it gets near our start time.

"If we get lost on the way to the start line then it doesn't look good for the rest of the event..." - Me

A short walk up a track to the start gate from the event centre saw us in a short queue for our start time of 2205. You don't get the map until you dib your dibber in the dibber-dee-doo at the start and that's the first look you get at the course! I started off by dropping my, thankfully waterproof, map in a puddle... dur!

A quick bearing and we were off on the track for CP1. All it took was for the first headtorches to appear behind us further down the track for *click* Competitive Emma to appear and we were off. She's a great team mate and was really driving us forward at this point.

"Hang on, how did that happen?" - Embarrassed me after taking the wrong bearing

It wasn't long before we came unstuck. I made the mistake of not paying attention to the bearing or map and took a course that was 180 degrees out - I'd made the easy mistake of lining up the south marks on the map and not the north marks. Emma caught the mistake after the landscape stopped fitting with what the map said should be happening (we were still going uphill) and corrected it. This cost us 30 minutes and 1.2 miles of extra travel. Idiot, idiot, idiot! We agreed to check each others bearings next time and quickly got back on the right course.

We also overshot the valley for CP3 slightly but we suspected that it was the correct valley anyway so we turned round quickly. The climb out of the valley to CP4 was steep but we took it at an angle to make it easier. This was an easy CP to find as we just had to keep going up on the rough bearing until we ran out of up and there it was! A steep descent to CP5 down odd patches of snow got the quads working and my knee was working just fine. We couldn't spot the tent coming down the hill as it was hidden in a dip but the torches coming and going showed us where it was.

"C Course, C course all the way!
You're not going to win today!"
- imagining our competitors steaming past us chanting this

A welcome boost at CP5 came in the shape of Emma's father-in-law Colin who was marshalling at this, one of the two manned points on the course. I took the time to see to my shoes which had blown two of the lace loops - probably the combination of double socks, steep downhill and large Yorkshireman pushed them further than their design rating! Tightened up, slice of pizza and time to check the map. The photographers at this CP got this really awesome photo of the two of us contemplating the next leg to CP6.

© iancorless.com

Another up-down-up leg towards the summit of Green Bell and CP6. We saw some fell ponies en route, skirting round them after one decided to neigh loudly at Emma for getting too close. It was on this climb when we realised just how many pairs of lights were dotting the hillsides around us, bobbing around and blinking with the occasional sweep of light from a high powered one. I've captured our exact view using all of my artistic skills. I expect to be giving Jim'll Paint It a run for his money sometime soon. P.S. it really is more magical than this in real life!

The next leg was a long one! The intention from here was to to follow the ridge to the summit of Randygill Top (ooer, Randy Gill!) and then down to the river and the main track up The Calf and CP7.

"Great bit of team navigating there!" - Emma

I must have spaced out a bit and we reached the summit of Randygill Top and its attendant cairn much quicker than expected! As a result we dropped down to the river and started following it north (the wrong way) which I realised wasn't right when I looked at my compass. Again, tiredness being another factor working against you with night navigation. After staring at the map and eliminating all probabilities we decided that the main track must be just above us on the other side of the river. And it was. The feeling of elation from finding that path was a real high!

"I feel like we're going round in circles..." - Emma
"The compass disagrees, but I know what you mean!" - Me

Then, up the path onto the plateau of the highest peak in the Howgills called The Calf. This was a long steady pull, Emma jogging bits and walking others and me power walking all the way singing random fragments of "South Austrailia" and HMHB's "Lord Hereford's Knob" which made things more tolerable for me, if not my teammate.

"To south east Wales
I was forced to flee,
And now I have no job.
That's why tonight I'm sitting,
on top of Lord Hereford's knob"
- me, singing, badly

We followed the bearing into the fog but the almost non existent contours made us feel like we were going wrong. Torches on maximum just showed us more cloud. We stuck on the bearing and eventually found the main track from the south; we were only 100m off.

The next bit was brilliant, a fast steady descent down a good track to the next CP. We got some good speed up and were both feeling really good. Emma picked a good contour to get us round the tounge and then the stream to the CP and the foot of the last big climb of the day, 400m of up.

"Have you eaten? You were OK a minute ago." - Emma
"I had a couple of fig rolls a while ago." - Me
"You need to eat some proper food, now!" - Emma

We were level with a couple of Scottish chaps at this point who we'd seen a couple of times since CP6 but this climb was when we started to pull away from them. In fact, looking in detail at the timings the leg from 9 to 11 was where we really made up for lost time and moved up from 5th to 3rd. Strong climbing from Team Spinach! I had leaden legs up this climb however and after a brief pause to get my legs working again we decided I needed to eat. Forcing a slice of pizza and some jelly babies down my neck did the trick and I was back on it by the time we arrived at the summit and was ready to make a fast descent of the other side. It was my fault for not eating something solid sooner; this is always the challenge on these events, eating when you really don't want to!

Technique for climbing steep hills. Zig zag as steeply as you can and count 10 paces each way. Keeps you roughly on the right heading and taks your mind off things!

"I would like to take anyone who doesn't like exercise or running and make them feel what I'm feeling right now. I want to bottle this feeling." - Me

Following the valley from 10 to 11 was brilliant. Steady jogable track, a bit of a food boost, knowing that we'd done the last big climb, knowing we were on the home run, the faint prelude glow in the sky of imminent dawn, knowing that we weren't far from a cup of tea.. I'm sure I had something in my eye at this point as it started watering a bit.

The last CPs fell quickly and before long we were thumping down the track to the finish, shaking head at the feeling of having finished, the elation of having tested myself and having passed through all that hard work, seeing the finish line and splashing through the stream to dib the finish checkpoint.

Yes, yes, f***ing yes!
*does a small dance*

We gabbled at the marshals a bit and thanked them for their efforts as one of them made us the best cup of tea I've had all year for our walk back to the event centre to download and take stock of what we'd done.

"Oooh beans! Hash browns!" - my hungry stomach spying breakfast being served

We download the data from our dibbers and got our printout showing that we were currently 2nd out of 2. Or last. Or 2nd. Glass half full?

I proceeded to download a large portion of beans and hash browns to my growling stomach. It almost rejected the first mouthful but when it realised it was actually nice it stopped complaining and let me finish the rest. We chatted to a couple who were back in from the short score course about their day night and she was explaining the difficulty of running with diabetes and monitoring blood sugar levels on the go with an implant a handheld scanner that graphed blood sugar levels - clever tech!

"Well you are certainly first mixed team on the C course. There's a prize for that." - marshal running the computer
"Is the prize a Curly Wurly?" - me
"I'm sure its a better prize than that." - marshal
"But I like Curly-Wurlies..." - me

Time ticked on with no other competitors coming through the doors so we were fairly sure we weren't last, always a relief. We checked with the marshal running the computer about timings. The people in the lead had spanked us by an hour and a half so hats off to them. However given we had all started within a few minutes of each other we were expecting people back sooner.

Back for a second helping of breakfast and the invention of the double decker hash brown and beans sandwich. Then off for a shower (so hot! so nice!) and back to the hall, ostensibly to collect my T shirt before heading off for a nap only to find the prize giving has just started.

"And now the results for the C course. In 3rd place and 1st mixed team: Emma Van Der Gucht and James Pawson..." - Shane "Mr Race Director" Ohly.

WTF? 3rd place what? Daft grin, smattering of applause, handshake, photo, promise of own trophy. I've never won anything at a race before apart from a malt loaf (everyone got one). The bemused joy is there to see on my face.

© iancorless.com

"I'm feeling pretty wired right now, not much chance of sleeping. Shall we just head off?" - me, buzzing quietly

I headed outside for a splendid coffee and a nice chat with Joe Beaumont from Joey's Coffee. A nice chap with an interesting story on his road to recovery after a serious climbing accident (more serious than mine). His mini coffee van was almost as cool as his knobbly tyred Mercedes Sprinter camper van with a winch on the front.

I also chatted to the guys that beat us into 3rd place on the C course who hailed from Leeds way and have just set up a new fell running club in the area. Nice chaps, best of luck with the club.

Still high on endorphins, hash browns, hot showers and the glow of finishing we zoomed off down the M6 homeward bound - still not tired despite being awake for 26 hours. Dropped Emma off at home, went home, made cup of tea, sorted out wet kit, sat on sofa and *pop* I woke up 3 hours later, a bit disoriented and wondering where I was. I spent the afternoon with my feet up on the sofa listening to the radio and drifting in and out of awareness, surrounded by a happy glow.


Race Reports and Photos

There are loads of fab photos from the event and a mini report here from Ian Corless. He also does the Talk Ultra podcast which makes for interesting listening.

The organiser, Shane Ohly, has written a summary of the event on the Marmot Dark Mountains page.

The SI Entries timing and results data is here

I would like to say a personal thank you to the organisers, marshals, volunteers, cooks for organising such a fun event in challenging conditions and maintaining smiles and good humour throughout. One of the best organised events I've done.


Detailed Results Analysis

Strava log for the race is here

"Hello everyone, my name is James and I am a massive geek"
"Hello James"
"It has been 5 minutes since I last made a graph"
*round of applause*
- minutes from last week's Analysts Anonymous meeting

The results overview table from Si Entries is shown below. We came in 3rd place by 13 minutes, so if we hadn't have made that first navigational error of 30 minutes we would have been in second place. I'm a bit embarrassed by this as it was primarily my fault!

However, looking at the detailed results has kind of made up for these feelings. Graphing the results shows how after our disastrous start we slowly clawed our way back up the table.

The key section for us was from CP7 at the top of The Calf to CP12 where we kept taking little bites out of the people in front of us. A good line from 8 to 9, a strong climb up over the last hill and a fast descent to 10 with tired legs, watching the other head torches fade behind us. Then the fast descent down the valley, wondering where the people behind us had got to. I think our stamina, determination and good navigation on the last section is what ultimately paid off and this makes me even prouder of our result.


Lessons Learned
Some lessons have been re-learned again from previous events.

• The rewards from trying something hard and slightly scary are that much greater because of the challenge
• Even if you've messed up, keep on pushing, don't give up. To finish first, first you have to finish. We went from 7th at CP1 to 3rd at the end just by keeping moving as best we could.
• Night navigation is tricky but doable. Practice makes perfect.
• Barometric altimeters are useful but not amazingly accurate
• Long events are just as much about eating as moving. I "learn" this every time.
• Team events are fun
• Reactive lighting headlamps like the Nao are pretty damn good for events like this where you end up looking down at map (so bright!) and looking up (so dim, where's my night vision!)

Not bad for a first mountain marathon, I'd definitely do others and also do this one again. I'm still waiting for my Curly Wurly though.

Go Team Spinach  8-)

Night Navigation Practice Part 2

I headed out for a night navigation practice (Strava log) and a kit shakedown on Ilkley Moor orienteering course in prep for our upcoming entry in the Marmot Dark Mountains Marathon.

First off was trying to fit everything in to my new Haglofs Gram 25 rucksack as there's quite a comprehensive mandatory kit list of stuff to take with you for the event. It all seemed to go in OK and thankfully doesn't weigh much either. It's a nice pack and sits well on my back, in fact I hardly noticed it all the way round this evening on the tops.

Ilkley Moor makes for a great orienteering spot as it has loads of paths and features, some easy to find and some not! There's a permanent orienteering course set out with wooden posts hammered into the moss and wet at various points.

I went for a high level course starting at the Cow and Calf car park doing controls B, E, G, K, Z, Y, W and T before picking up the Millennium Way at White Wells back up through Rocky Valley and back to the car. The pace was strictly walking to try and get an idea of how accurate my pacing and timing estimates were.

I had the slight advantage of knowing where the first two controls were from going up there with the kids so I ticked them off quickly. Taking a bearing from B to E, I drifted slightly to the right - following a bearing at night with snow blowing in your face is pretty hard work.

E to G was a bit of a mess. I planned to head up the path counting paces until I got to the faint stream line to the ruined building. Then on to the depression where G was.

However, I wasn't sure I'd reached the stream so I continued further up the path (further than my pacing and timing suggested, and came across a faint stream coming in from the right. A different, unmarked stream!

As you can see from my Strava track, I got the direction and distance about right but just set off from the wrong place. This was compounded by the fact that the map I had printed out had lost the dashes on the paths meaning the paths I could have used as attack points weren't shown. Grrrrr!

Anyway as the snow was driving in my eyes at this point I stopped, put my clear ski goggles on (awesome for when the snow is driving in your face e.g. in the Cairngorms!) and sacked off G, heading west to pick up the main path network again. Navigating to K was OK, picked up the right paths and paced/timed my progress to a stream/path junction. I found the one, went on a bit further just to make sure it was correct, doubled back to the junction and then took a bearing on the control... and ended up walking straight to it, boom!

The rest of the controls were all found fairly easily. Distance measurement by pacing and timing is not at all straightforward as the terrain makes such a difference. More practice required.

I was going to make notes of predicted and actual pace/timings but I was having trouble with my chinagraph pencil refusing to write on the shiny laminated route card I'd made up once it got wet. Might need to look at getting some waterproof paper to make some note cards with.

I wore my Buffalo Mountain Shirt and it was perfect given the conditions, no need for extra layers. Any colder and I might have put my water proof trousers on over my winter running tights. For the race I'll probably stick to this system with an extra primaloft layer in the bag just in case. 

I'm fairly happy with this as a first stab at pacing/timing night nav but I'd like some more data to refine my estimations.

Geek out.