OMM Central Highlands

Huw and Simon R travelled to the Breadalbane area of the Scottish Highlands to compete in this year's Original Mountain Marathon, the longest established of these two-day events. The event HQ was at Cultybraggan PoW Camp, where they put the most incurable Nazis, and was as grim as it sounds (the catering hadn't evolved). But the surrounding mountains were superb and ideal for a mountain marathon - wild with very few paths. Rough conditions, particularly on day one, made it a fine test with the usual fun of tricky navigation, neck-deep river crossings (not an exaggeration - we had to swim!) and general hill craft. Around 3000 competitors - a mix of fell runners, orienteers, climbers and all-rounders - all in teams of two, spread across 7 different courses. We competed in the B class, around 50k/3200m of climbing, and finished 19th overall, 2nd Veteran team. A great event - with Simon discovering that Huw just gets faster the longer an event lasts, and as this lasted for more than 12 hours we finished in a flat-out Usain Bolt style sprint for the line.