The RAB Mountain Marathon this year was in the Howgills, probably my favourite area for running – steep-sided grass-covered hills, long flat valleys, and runnable almost everywhere. Since I'm now officially an old git, Carmen and I were in the Mixed Veterans class for the first time; Alan K has been an old git for several years, and was in the Male Veterans class again, running solo.
The event format is the same for all classes – you have a fixed time (6 hours on day 1, 5 on day 2 – the Elite have an extra hour each day) to accumulate as many points as possible, with controls worth between 5 and 40 points depending on difficulty and distance.
Saturday's weather was glorious. Mist in the valley bottoms to start the day, and clear blue skies above, sunny and warm but not too hot. Carmen and I spent a while working out a route, and decided to miss out a few low scorers near the start, to maximise the chances of having enough time to get to some of the more distant controls. And for once, it worked out well, and we managed to get one of the two 40-point controls and a couple of 30s, with enough spare time for a detour near the end to pick up an extra 15. We even managed to run for much of the day, normally we end up walking most of the time.
We finished the day with 7.5 minutes to spare, and 235 points – 3rd place in our class! (out of 27 starters). Only 5 points behind 2nd place, and another 5 behind 1st, and with a cushion of only 15 points above 4th, so it was all to play for. Alan meanwhile was 41st out of 83, much better than he'd expected.
The Saturday night camp was in a beautiful location, by the Cross Keys Temperance Inn near Cautley Spout. Those without scruples who'd brought some money with them queued for burger and chips at the inn, while those of us without scruples but less money made do with ice creams and/or coke before cracking open the pot noodles.
The next day also started with mist in the valleys, unfortunately we were in the valley, so it was chilly and damp. It soon cleared to give another dry day, but much cloudier than Saturday.
We tried to put the other teams out of our minds, and concentrated on finding another good route. We chose a high-risk option, heading away from the finish for the first couple of hours to collect a few high scorers, and hoping we'd be quick enough to get back within the 5 hours allowed. The outcome was still in doubt as we turned back south towards Sedbergh, and remained in doubt almost to the end, it was not until we left the penultimate control that we knew we'd finish in time and could start to relax. In the end, we had 12.5 minutes to spare.
190 points for the day, 425 overall. There followed a nervous wait for the final results…
And we'd finally done it! The overnight 1-2-3-4 had stayed the same, with 1 and 2 scoring 200, and 4 scoring 180 – our first (and probably last) mountain marathon podium finish! I'd like to thank my parents, Carmen's parents, my brother, his wife, their cats, the fishmonger in Wetherby <bursts into tears>…
Alan also had a good day, despite finishing 9 minutes late, and much to his surprise moved up to 35th, a good result.
Vital statistics:
Day 1. 33.5km, 1350m ascent, 5 hours 52 minutes 14 seconds
Day 2. 28km, 1100m ascent, 4 hours 47 minutes 31 seconds
Saturday's route
Sunday's route