This years Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon was held in Kintail, in the North West of Scotland, a location that contains some of the most challenging and breathtaking terrain anyone could wish to visit. To be able to race over the type of terrain is a privilege.
Courtesy of: Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon
I have been racing in Mountain Marathons on and off for some ten years, in various classes, with various levels of preparation and training, and various success. This year my partner and I's aim was a Top 3 finish in the A-Class of two headline mountain marathons, the LAMM and the OMM.
It was always going to be a tough call, in hard training over the winter for a potential Bob Graham Round attempt this year I ruptured a tendon in my knee, forcing a 3 month lay-off and up until 8 weeks ago i could barely run 5km let alone race competitively in a mountain marathon such was the pain. So this weekend was always going to be a challenge.
We knew how fast we needed to go, we knew some of our competitors and how fast they could go. Conditions were actually very good, cool but bright, very little heavy cloud on the mountains and little wind other than up high. And it started so well, a steady start and we hit the first checkpoint bang on, the second was a steady run through glacial hummocks and small lochains, again bang on. The third, we opened up and ripped through the field visible to us, passing four teams on our way to the fastest checkpoint time overall that day, momentarily things seemed to be going so well. But after that things started to go wrong.
As we pulled up and across the next hillside, I noticed my running partner falling back, only slightly at first, but it became greater despite slowing myself to try and give him a pyscological tow. As we neared checkpoint four, I could see he was in a bad way, devoid of strength in his legs and beginning to sufer from cramp. I could sense any lead ebbing away, at this level, minutes really do matter. And so it was a slow and frustrtating haul to the fifth checkpoint. We were now losing time at a colossal rate. I sat on a rock on the lofty summit of checkpoint 5, contemplating the amazing views north towards Torridon and south across the snow-capped peaks of Kintail and our iminent retirement.
When Keith finally arrived, he was no better, he looked drained as well as gutted. He knew how high the stakes were and how fine the margin for error was this year. Simply completing the course was not what we came to do this year, nor was a mid-table finish and with no sign of energy and strength returning to Keith's body, we knew we had no option but to retire and resigned ourselves to walking back to the overnight camp, a walk of only about 5 km, but one which felt like the longest walk I have ever endured.
So were we right to retire? Yes, unequivocally so. Looking back at the results, we were within 3 minutes of the overall lead at checkpoint 3. We lost five minutes or so on the fourth checkpoint over the eventual winning team and a whopping 15 minutes on checkpoint five. If we had continued at that slowing rate, we would have been lucky to finish inside the top ten that day, dont get me wrong, in all other circumstances that would be a fantastic result, for many simply completing a mountain marathon let alone compete in an A-Class is a tremendous achievement and as such many teams would be blown away to achieve that kind of result , but that was not what we wanted or expected and when you raise the stakes that high you have a lot further to fall when it does not work out.
