From John Hayes…
This year’s OMM was held in the Lakes in the little known area between Shap Abbey and Haweswater / the High Street range. It was classic OMM terrain: Bogs, tussocks, crags, steep climbs, treacherous descents, tricky contours etc. The OMM team are an impressive lot. Whatever the weather (and this year it was very cold), they cheer you out on Saturday morning and cheer you back on Sunday afternoon. At the overnight campsite, a bagpiper wakes you at 6am, and the starter marshals wear crazy fancy dress. For the rest of the event, it is entirely down to you to navigate well and pack enough clothing and food to survive the night squashed into a tiny tent with your running partner. I ran with Sarah’s brother Martyn. We usually mess things up at some point, but not this year. We were delighted to come 16th out of 232 in the Medium Score (and 6th vets). We put this down to our use of a trusty bit of string to measure out the optimum route on the map each day (and also to avoid being late back – not a good thing in a score event as you lose points!)
Another tip off: OMM are about to launch a range of fell shoes (with huge lugs!) and trail shoes. The prototypes were on display and they looked good to me.