Map of the Month: Oct 08 - Original Mountain Marathon Elite Day 1 Course Map

This year’s annual Original Mountain Marathon (the OMM), which was based in Borrowdale in the Lake District, managed to hit worldwide news headlines due to the extreme weather and the fact that the event had to be cancelled half way through. This month’s map is the one that my partner (Tom Owens) and I were given at precisely our start time: 9am on Saturday, October 25th.

The map was specially produced by the small Scottish cartographic company, Harvey Maps. They specialise in walking and orienteering maps and would have based this map on their existing coverage of the Lake District with additional surveying done on the ground specifically for the event. The map is similar to a traditional Harveys walking map with extra symbols added for the event. These symbols are not as complex as orienteering symbols, but still require some knowledge to recognise without having to use the legend. As the map is an essential tool in both the successful completion and also the safety of competitors it is critical that they are accurate and up-to-date.

The aim of a mountain marathon is to run from the start to finish via a series of checkpoints taking any route you choose. All the necessary safety and overnight kit is carried throughout the race. Having camped overnight, you then get up the next morning and run another course, back to where you started on the first day. It is basically a large orienteering event over mountains with participants competing in pairs. Generally the navigation and map reading is not as difficult as an orienteering event although if the mist comes down it can be as challenging as being in the middle of a thick forest.

With bad weather forecasted we were already told to use the bad weather course thus reducing the distances we had to run. This meant missing out checkpoints 2, 6 and 7 – basically the ones that were higher thus avoiding the high level routes in the bad weather. As we ran off from the start it took a while to get our bearings and work out exactly what checkpoints we were going to. Many teams were crouched behind the dry stoned walls as they were planning their routes. Runners do different routes - about half do set routes of varying distances and the other half try to visit as many controls as possible in a set time. Being fell runners more than orienteers, we were doing the elite (longest and hardest) set course, which normally totals around 80 km for the two days.

As can be seen on the first day map above, the start of the elite was a steep climb straight up Allen Crags. It was not long before a couple of the faster teams starting only a few minutes behind caught up with us. Our progress was not helped by Tom's map being blown away and having to run 50 metres back downhill to retrieve it. The map is not that large but as the wind was so strong one of the added challenges was holding onto it. One of those faster teams (Tim Higginbottom and Chris Near) have won every mountain marathon this year and were in no mood for hanging around and as the weather got worse, their speed seemed to increase! In worsening weather and with lack of local knowledge we took the decision to ‘hang onto them’ for as long as possible. They stopped for a quick break after checkpoint number four (3rd one we went to) and we ended up on our own. By then we were passing lots of elite teams (who had set out earlier) on the run through Wasdale and up Great Gable. Then, suddenly out of the mist in front of us appeared Tim and Chris. They must have taken some sneaky line somewhere which we didn’t spot on the map.

The last hour of running was an exciting mixture of high winds, horizontal rain, streams that had now become raging torrents and the race against Tim and Chris. Fortunately the map we were using was laminated so despite the torrential rain and deep river crossings it survived the ordeal. The huge downfall of rain was causing some problems with map reading, as what were stream and marsh areas on the map were fast becoming lakes. We managed to take a good route around one of the newly formed lakes and then a good line off the final mountain and were the first elite team back at the overnight camp. Tim and Chris still recorded an overall faster time than ourselves as they had started after us, and would have set off on day two just over a minute ahead. As we were soon to find out, all the racing had been in vain, as the flooding and the weather got worse, the event was cancelled.

For the actual route we took, go to the excellent RouteGadget program which animates the course teams took to each checkpoint. There is something hugely satisfying about finding a checkpoint in the middle of nowhere by just using your map and compass. If you do not read the map closely enough and miss the point it can lead to several precious minutes of frustration at trying to find the checkpoint.

Now that the media frenzy has died down the event will be recalled for many years in fellrunning folklore and one that proves you need an accurate map to survive on the hills. All that’s left now, is to go back and run around the second day’s course, once they send out our map that we would have received on the Sunday morning.

Map reproduced with kind permission of Harveys Maps.