One weekend running around in foul weather wasn't enough, so at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, Carmen and I headed off to Edale for the Dark & White Mini Mountain Marathon – a 3 hour score event. As forecast, the cloud was low, it was drizzling, and it was windy – ideal conditions in fact.
After a 5 minute warm up running through the village and fields, and it was steeply uphill to the first control, on the lower slopes of Kinder, where we reached the cloud base. An easy run on paths for a mile or so, then it was north west into the uncharted peat fields, heading for a control on the far side of the plateau. My navigation was spot on as usual, so we only wasted 15 minutes trying to work out where on earth we were once we reached the edge. Luckily, I guessed right, and we soon found the control.
Down the other side towards Snake Pass, steep heather slopes finally giving way to a good path. After following this to the next side valley, we gave up hope of another 30-pointer further down, and it was back up and over the top, this time without going wrong. A control near Nether Edge, then down towards civilisation, and a mad dash along public footpaths to pick up an extra control, arriving back in Edale with 90 seconds to spare.
150 points, which was enough to put us in 1st place out of 11 teams in the mixed pairs class, three cheers for us! The leader in the men's class somehow managed 268 points or so, which can't have been far off every control.
Somewhat disappointingly, there were no TV crews waiting at the finish, despite the biblical weather, and the fact that at that time almost half the competitors were unaccounted for.
The next event in the Dark and White league is on 7th December, somewhere in the northern Peak District.
Careful now! You could have turned Edale into a morgue!