On the 12 & 13 Jun I took part in the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (www.lamm.co.uk) at Glen Fyne in Scotland.
The LAMM is a two-day mountain orienteering competition with an overnight camp at a remote location. Teams run in pairs and carry lightweight camping equipment, clothes and food to sustain themselves for 36 hours.
It was preceded by a trip out to Ghana supporting Cranfield in the delivery of the Crisis and Conflict Management Course for the Ghanaian Armed Forces Command and Staff College. During this time I worked with Steve Hotston and Edith Wilkinson who had to nurse me back to health after a bad dose of D&V. I flew back to Heathrow with Edith on the Friday, having my first meal in 36 hours on the flight, and arrived in at 1800 to get a connector to Glasgow, that turned out to be delayed. Arriving at my Glasgow airport hotel by 2330 I grabbed a few hours rest before getting up at 0530 and heading for the highlands of Scotland.
Having met up with my buddy Johnny, dropped my suit and laptop in the hire car, I pulled on the mountain gear and set off on the 2 day adventure. The scenery was breathtaking, the weather perfect and the hills very tall and steep, a map description for a grassy knoll turned out to be a 500m high hill, but we made it round day one in great order. That night we relaxed at the camp site, the midgies stayed away which was great, and we got up early the next morning ready to go. This time the rain had set in, along with the low visibility, and the midgies had woken up to our presence. Undeterred we set off on what proved to be a long slog with the need for very accurate navigation given the lack of visibility but all went well and we made it to the end, with a respectable middle of the pack finsh.
Unfortunately this was not the case for everyone and a bad accident necessitated the dispatch of the air rescue. http://www.lamm.co.uk/2010/accident.html.
Anyone interested in next year LAMM should keep an eye on the website. I am now preparing for the Mourne Mountain Marathon in September.