Training Log Archive: Bash

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Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (LAMM)
Glen Fyne, Scotland
Warning: long report!

Richard and I did the Björkliden Arctic Mountain Marathon in Sweden last year. That was our first experience with this race format where teams of two navigate a point-to-point course on foot through mountainous terrain over 5-10 hours on Day 1 of a 2-day event. The final checkpoint is a remote site where all competitors spend the night. Teams must carry camping gear including tent, stove, sleeping bags, meals, etc. Top teams have 4-5 kg packs, carrying very little water and using specialized gear like balloon-based sleeping pads. On the second morning, racers receive a map with another point-to-point course that takes them to the finish line. In addition to the usual challenges of a long navigation event, the mountain environment injects some extra elements - cliffs, swollen rivers, loose rock, steep slopes, fog and weather extremes. Racers also need to carry enough gear to stay warm and fed for 12-16 hours while they're stopped.

Mountain marathons originated in the U.K. and last year's British BAMM winners recommended LAMM to us because of its consistently good course setting and long June daylight hours.

We expected Richard's gimpy knee to feel better by now but, sadly, it didn't, so we couldn't "race" LAMM. Still, it was an excellent adventure built into a vacation. After much angst we selected the B course from the range of Elite, A, B, C, D, and Score-O. Almost 75% of teams race C, D, or Score-O, including some very fit, experienced people. Fewer than 10% of teams do Elite or A. None of the courses is easy; in fact, the highest altitude control was on the D course.

There was free camping at the event centre. Organizers recommended a second tent for this base camp which enabled racers to pack their nice, dry tents for the race. We only had one tent and it looked like rain, so we splurged on another night in the converted church in Inveraray.



Day 1

Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny with an excellent forecast. We'd been assigned an "assembly time" of 7:40 a.m. They don't tell you exactly what will happen; this year we were put on buses to the appropriate start location, which was different by course.



We were handed our race maps as we approached the bus waiting area. There were circles marking all the controls for all the courses, but we still had no idea which controls were ours, where the start was or where the camp was. At 66 cm X 77 cm, this 1:40,000 laminated map was big and unwieldy but it was high quality and great to use.



We were bused to Inveruglas on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, then immediately took the high road.



At the start line, teams were sent out at intervals. There were lots of shorts and capris on the B course. It was chilly so we knew that our competitors weren't planning to limp along with trekking poles!



After punching the start control, we were handed control descriptions - 8 controls on our course plus the finish. Each control had a UTM and we used it to mark the course on our map. Most people knelt on the ground for several minutes to do map work on the clock.



You can see Richard's SportIdent card strapped to his wrist with a non-removable band.



Like last year in Sweden, each racer carried an SI card for the entire weekend and it was cut off at the finish line. Both teammates had to punch each control. I like this system a lot better than the honour system, which unfortunately doesn't work very well for some teams.

We were still all together as we headed up (up, up) to the 1st control. As the day went on, teams spread out.



In other events where we've used maps with similar scale and detail, the controls have normally been placed on big, obvious features with the flags hung high. The emphasis has been on route choice, not on fine navigation within the control circle. At LAMM, it's both. Some of the controls were placed on more subtle features although they were accurately placed and supported by the map. The flags, often faded, were on the ground held down with rocks. I suppose that's because there are no trees and it would be difficult to use control stands in rocky terrain. The flags were sometimes hard to see even when we were close by, so as we approached, we watched for smiling racers leaving the control. For some reason, a few people liked to sit by the control flags to plan their route to the next control, which was occasionally helpful as we approached. Can you see control #1 in this photo?



After #1, we continued up a beautiful ridge as Loch Lomond receded in the distance.



Spectacular scenery! There was only one place in this area where I worried about slipping and plunging down a mountain side. (Which seems to happen a little too often in Scotland, according to the newspapers.)









Richard had a new toy for this race, which concerned me, since there is nothing more distracting to a boy than a new toy. It was a UV water purifier. 45 seconds to do a bottle. No waiting. Very cool. So cool that he marched 5 minutes up the steep slope toward this lake (actually a "lochan") before he realized that his map was still lying beside the stream at the bottom of the hill. :-(



Here's a rare moment of running. Unfortunately, Richard's good knee started to hurt along with the bad one as a result of the steep descents, so we reverted to hiking.



Here's a cool stream junction control. It was so subtle that we saw a team 50 meters away who didn't realize that the control was down here.



Soon after, Richard's knees both began to protest loudly so we took our time coming up the long valley to the finish line. These photos show only part of the camp from the high point where we put our tent. By the end, there were about 500 racer tents plus big tents for organizers and the mountain rescue team.





Before we cooled down, we got our tent set up and put our cozy layers on.



Boiled some water on our Heineken can stove and had dinner in a foil bag.



A close-up of Richard's feet. Note the essential piece of gear for a mountain marathon - the thing we didn't know to bring to BAMM. Plastic bags for your feet so you can wear your dry Sunday socks in your wet Saturday shoes. Simple and brilliant! We got plastic foot bags with a sponsor's name as race swag.



We chatted with people in the tents around us, some of whom raised their eyebrows to hear that we'd tried the B course on our first go. Since we placed 66th of 84 teams today, I can see why!

I guiltily confessed to having brought a luxury item to while away the long evening - an iPod loaded with podcasts. The other racers laughed - turns out most of them had brought iPods too. One guy was getting updates on the England/U.S.A. World Cup soccer game on his iPhone as we talked. Down at the main tents, people were gathered around a car radio listening to the same game and cheering. Others were looking at the Saturday maps with the course setter's preferred route marked on each one. Results were posted and continually updated as latecomers drifted in. The atmosphere was social as people compared stories of their day.



We fell asleep easily and were too warm - quite different from Sweden.

Day 2

It rained hard in the night. Around 5:50 a.m., a bagpiper began marching among the tents to deliver a wake-up call over the next 15 minutes. Fantastic!



We made a quick breakfast including surprisingly good Starbucks instant coffee. The clouds were sitting low on the hills. I was definitely going to need my compass today! (And my coffee.)





There was a chasing start for teams within 90 minutes of the leaders but the rest of us could start any time between 7-8 a.m. Once again, we were handed control descriptions with UTMs after we had punched the start control, then we had to figure out where we were going.



At first, we mostly had light rain.



Then visibility got very limited. At times, we could be 100 meters away from a mountain and not know it. Compass, compass, compass.



We passed over a hydro dam.



You can imagine how easy it was to see this flag on a foggy day.



Must. Trust. Compass.



Shortly after this, we needed to put on more layers. Even the racers in short shorts started to dress like they were in the mountains. Some of them, anyway.



I'm happy in this photo because the clouds have lifted enough at a pass to confirm that the terrain ahead looks correct. Also, my new waterproof Sealskinz toque is working very well, even though it makes me look like a Dr. Seuss character.



This ridge was stunningly beautiful in a misty, Lord of the Rings sort of way.









The last part of today's course was a steep, slippery descent - first toward a control at a stream junction, then down to sea level to the finish line. I felt soooo sorry for Richard, who had been eating ibuprofen like it was candy.





And we made it! Not exactly a stellar performance but that wasn't the point, given Richard's injury. We were 66th on both days and 66th overall of 84 teams on the B course. We finished in 150% of the winner's time, which is the unofficial guideline for whether you should be on the B course. It's a *very* good thing we dropped down from the A - yikes. The B course had low numbers of women and rookies (I am both!), and the courses above us had even fewer. There were a bunch of drop-outs and mispunches in today's bad weather, and most people were doing a shorter course than ours. So we're trying not to be too embarrassed about placing 66th! :-)



Our SPOT GPS tracker worked on Day 2 but not on Day 1.

Lots of other info and photos, including maps showing the courses, are on the LAMM website.

I chatted with Andy Symonds, a runner on the Salomon U.K. team who spent some time at Salomon HQ with Phil Villeneuve in France this year. He was one of the BAMM winners who suggested that we do the LAMM. This year he won the Elite category of LAMM for the 2nd year in a row. Must be all that great Salomon gear! :-)

This was great fun and the story may not be over. We talked to a top racer on the A course and he said we also have to try the Highlander Mountain Marathon in Scotland. It's in April when it can be much colder, so organizers provide a hot meal at the mid-camp. The coolest thing is, they hold a ceilidh at night! (Check out Pete and Leanne's wedding photos to see a ceilidh in action.) So we may need to go back again some time soon. Maybe with a few more Canadian friends?

Moving info up here for people who like watching races. They're making updates to the race website already so maybe it will be interesting over the weekend.

LAMM website with some updates during the event:

Our SPOT GPS tracker (which has some test data from other outings). I'm hoping to transmit on Sat/Sun but the unit is being temperamental. Fyi, it's 5 hours later here and we hope to be done by 11 a.m. EST on Sunday. We're starting at 7:40 a.m. on Saturday, i.e. 2:40 a.m. at home.

Saturday - 25 km, 1700 m elevation
Sunday - 23 km, 950 m elevation

Spent the day hanging around Inveraray, the longtime stomping grounds of the Campbell clan. Checked out our castle and it's looking great.



Both 'Bent and I noticed an uncanny resemblance to my Dad and grandfather in portraits of the Dukes of Argyll from 200-300 years ago. Who knows? I'm 7th generation Canadian so I'm certainly not a close relative of the current Duke. He sounds like an interesting character with multiple wins at the World Elephant Polo Championships.

The Campbells have a nice forest out back.



Every family has its black sheep.



Our digs are pretty nice here because we arrived in town on a busy weekend. We're in the honeymoon suite in a converted church overlooking Loch Fyne. Tomorrow night we'll be sleeping on boggy ground at 400 m wearing all our layers (after the mandatory tick check) and waiting for the chilly drizzle to begin. Both types of accommodation have their merits!



We went to register for LAMM and it gave me the usual butterflies. Here's how it works. We'll be handed a map as we walk to the starting line. It's huge - 66 cm X 77 cm - and laminated because we paid for that option. Otherwise, you'd need to get it into a map case.

All controls for all courses are marked on it with red circles (i.e. a master map) but there will be no indication of which controls belong to our course. As soon as the clock starts, we will be handed a control description sheet with the UTMs for our controls. We need to figure out which controls on the map belong to our course and which sequence to visit them in. I'm assuming that both days' courses will be on the map so it will be pretty busy. The map is posted on the race website now without any controls.

Pack weighs 8.6 kg, about 1.1 kg more than last year but I think I've got 1L more of H2O at this point. Should be interesting... report will come in a few days.

Headed south from Inverness after breakfast without knowing where we would end up tonight. There was something very cool and totally random about going online at noon to find out where we would be spending the rest of our Scottish vacation. And it was good news. My one regret on this trip was that I didn't make time to go to Inveraray to see the ancestral lands of the Campbells - and that's where our race is going to be! That has to be a good sign, doesn't it? We'll be starting in Glen Fyne at the northern tip of Loch Fyne (which is an ocean fiord, not a lake). Here's what it looks like from the road. We're not allowed to go in there until tomorrow at 3 p.m.



We saw some very steep, rocky terrain along the road - probably only for the Elites and A course racers though! Wishful thinking.

Another good omen for the Tree Huggers (hopefully) is this feature on the estate where the race is being held.



Here's Inveraray where it's great to be a Campbell - the opposite of the "No Campbells" sign in Glencoe. Barb Bryant will *really* be wishing she was here now. :-)



The only bad news about the race location was that it was *way* further west than the hints had indicated so we had a long drive across the country to get here. We're on the west coast directly west of Loch Lomond. However, as tourists, it wasn't exactly a hardship to drive a long way. And we visited Blair Castle enroute which was really nice. Tomorrow we'll visit Inveraray Castle to make sure my relatives are doing a good job taking care of the place. It's easy to taper around here. Much too easy!

Big day tomorrow. At 12 noon, the organizers of the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon will announce the location of the race. We only know it's within 90 minutes to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh, so tomorrow morning we will start driving generally south from Inverness, then at noon we'll need to find Internet access to learn where we're driving in the afternoon. Registration is Friday afternoon but we'd like to find a B&B nearby, and hundreds of other racers will be on the phone and online looking for accommodation.

'Bent's knee continues to bug him - he's got an MRI right after we get home. We've dropped to the B course in hopes of not aggravating it too much. They offer Elite, A, B, C, D and Score-O courses. This year the B course covers about 48 km over mountainous terrain during the 2-day race, and all racers camp at a remote site on Sat. night. We carry lightweight camping gear and we don't learn the campsite location until we get our map on the way to the starting line in the morning. We're told that it's an "unusual" site this year - quite high, rugged and boggy.

After carrying my bike helmet all over Scotland, I needed to use it at least once. When it was pouring at breakfast (we've been lucky - we'd expected drizzly weather most of the time), we decided to explore some lower altitude trails in Rothiemurchus Forest outside Aviemore in Cairngorms National Park.

The forested areas reminded us of Canada.





We rode to a couple of very Canadian-looking lochs on well-maintained double track. About half our distance was on a rougher ATV-style trail with lots of puddles and a few stream crossings of different depths. It was awesome - like a really fun adventure race bike ride with lots of water and very little mud. That part of the ride took us above the treeline into sub-arctic vegetation as we headed up the long valley of Glen Eichan, which ends at beautiful Loch Eichan set in a crag surrounded by towering cliffs.

We're told that Scotland is the best country in the world for mountain biking - lots of trails and a culture that supports the sport better than many places. If you brought your own bike here, there would be lots of places to ride. Since we need to rent, it narrows down our choices, but Rothiemurchus was perfect for today's misty weather anyway.

I was reminded of how important clipless pedals are! And when my feet got bounced off the pedals occasionally, I missed my woman-specific gel bike seat. It's been awhile since I've ridden hardtail with front suspension and it took awhile to remember to stand up sometimes. The one thing I didn't mind was having only 8 gears in an internal hub (a lesser Rohloff-style). At least that didn't hurt - ow!!

Bothy Bikes was a very friendly bike shop by the trailhead; we chatted with staff for half an hour after our return. Did some shopping too - the range of Sealskinz products here is huge compared to back home.

No energy for whittling down the pics tonight, so here's a whole bunch. It looks weird to see 'Bent on a non-'Bent bike.

Took about 3 hours to drive clear across the country from Portree on the Isle of Skye to Inverness on the east coast. I don't do much road riding at home but I think you'd have to be insane to ride main roads in Scotland. (We met a local mountain biker at dinner who agreed with this assessment.) This pic shows a good quality major road - so narrow that it's scary to pass an approaching truck in our little VW Golf. The highway has shoulders 10 cm wide (better than many roads) and consists pretty much exclusively of blind corners. Oh yeah, and the speed limit between towns ranges from 80-100 kph.



Drove along Loch Ness today. It's a beautiful lake but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.



And then to Inverness. As Urthbuoy might say, I "pooches the nave" after dinner. Not that we went the wrong way but when I suggested the nice trail route along the River Ness and the Caledonian Canal, I failed to look at the scale of the town map. It was a lovely 6 km hike back to our B&B in increasingly dim light after taking only 10 minutes to get *to* the restaurant! Had banoffee pie for the first time.