Fell/Trail Running

[blueloon]

When I did the Mourne Mountain Marathon there were 3 classes in the race with three courses which shared a couple of markers and overlapped. While there were plenty of competitors in the event you didn't know who was on each course. The elite race had less than 20 teams back then with a staggered start on the first day, the second day had a mass start. I usually trusted my navigation so following someone never used to come into it but I usually wanted bad weather to make it more of a challenge. The MMM is in late September so we were usually in poor weather.

Yeah I had a few mates who did the MMM back in the day. The KIMM was/is last weekend in October the weekend the clocks change so you had an extra hour of sleep if you could. The maps back then were always specially drawn for the event , 1: 40000, so navigation was interesting , first day staggered starts 2nd chasing/ mass start . I think I weighed around 9 stones back then and was generally the fittest of all my partners but stick a 14-16 llbs pack on my back and we were levelled out.
It’s quite funny these days, my kids do these obstacle races/ Tough Mudders etc paying about £50 or more to do things which back then were quite cheap and pretty challenging. Yet our local cross country league is mainly hardy souls who’ve been running through mud, splashing through rivers etc for years, thankfully it hasn’t been marketed as “ Super Tough X-tra muddy Forest Adventure” or race entries would treble!

 

[Caolam]

Yeah I had a few mates who did the MMM back in the day. The KIMM was/is last weekend in October the weekend the clocks change so you had an extra hour of sleep if you could. The maps back then were always specially drawn for the event , 1: 40000, so navigation was interesting , first day staggered starts 2nd chasing/ mass start . I think I weighed around 9 stones back then and was generally the fittest of all my partners but stick a 14-16 llbs pack on my back and we were levelled out.
It’s quite funny these days, my kids do these obstacle races/ Tough Mudders etc paying about £50 or more to do things which back then were quite cheap and pretty challenging. Yet our local cross country league is mainly hardy souls who’ve been running through mud, splashing through rivers etc for years, thankfully it hasn’t been marketed as “ Super Tough X-tra muddy Forest Adventure” or race entries would treble!

The Mourne Mountain Adventure map was 1:25000 so navigation was a bit easier for us, our trouble was that we were locals and thought we knew the mountains better than we did. The course setters would always have a couple of difficult markers, I remember one being in a stream tucked under an over hanging bank.