Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon 2008

The excitement of the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon always starts on the Thursday before when the secret location is revealed. This year we would be starting from Glenfinnan, between Fort William and Mallaig, the home of the famous viaduct from the Harry Potter films. I teamed up with Stewart, a fell runner from mid Wales to have a crack at the A class: 50+km and 4000m of climb over two days, all in the usual mountain marathon style of carrying food, tent, clothing, sleeping bag, and everything else you need for a night out in the hills.

Saturday morning saw us assembling just before 9 at Glenfinnan railway station, to collect our maps and catch the train one stop west to Lochailort. We still didn’t know where we were going, but at least we could study the map as we sat on the train, and the early cloud was burning off and being replaced by a glorious sunny day. At Lochailort we had to queue up to start at minute intervals, then finally we were off up the hill on the first big climb.

The first two legs went well, and we passed a number of teams. The third leg was a long one, across a deep valley and up onto the hill opposite. We had two choices, either a long climb up a valley, plus an extra up and down at the end, or a longer route around the side of Loch Beoraid followed by a steep climb up. The map showed a path along the Loch, so we opted for that even though it was quite a bit further. Unfortunately, the path turned out to be pretty insignificant, and we lost about 15 minutes on the leaders as six weeks of good weather had made the valley route dry and easy to run. The following leg was fairly straightforward, but by now the hot sun was taking its toll, and Stewart was finding it tough, particularly as we were crossing big bouldery moraine with lots of up and down.

Leg 5 was our second mistake, although at least this time almost everyone made the same one. Again it was a route choice problem, with a big descent followed by either a run around the coast of Loch Morar and then a long gradual climb up a valley, or 550m of extra climb to go over the top. We chose the coast route, but the descent was terrible—what the map marked as a very steep slope was actually a mass of crags with no certain way through them. We probably spent half an hour on it, eventually finding a deer track that skirted between the crags, with only the occasional bit of climbing involved. Looking up from the bottom, it looked impassable.

The rest of day one was a blur for me. Stewart had struggled earlier, but now I was suffering as he pulled ahead and I just about managed to hang on to his heels up the valley, over the pass at the top, and down into Glen Dessary. One last 300m climb did me in completely, and I staggered the last few kilometres into the finish at Strathan, on the shores of Loch Arkaig. I was just hoping Stewart wasn’t too frustrated with my slowing pace.

The overnight camp was squeezed onto a microlight airstrip, so tents were packed together on every available flat space. Apparently it was the largest gathering in the Glen since Bonny Prince Charlie! The evening was spent trying to get my legs to stop cramping, eating and drinking, and telling lies about how much I’d enjoyed the day. We had finished in fourth place, half an hour behind the leaders, and ten minutes behind third, but with a 20 minute cushion on the team behind.

The traditional LAMM bagpiper woke us up at 5:30am Sunday morning to the largest gathering of midges since Bonny Prince Charlie. The tent was black with midge corpses, and and bare flesh immediately turned grey as the midges descended on it. We packed up, ate breakfast and prepared for the chasing start—the leaders were off at 6:30, and as we were 30 minutes back, we started just after 7. After marking up our maps, it was straight across the River Pean and a 300m climb to a
control on a stream bend. After wasting 5 minutes running up and down the wrong stream we eventually found it, and were away across the valley and up another big climb to a spur. This was a good leg for us as we found a good route that brought us through the crags and straight onto the control, but we still hadn’t caught sight of any teams ahead on our course.

The next two legs were long traverses, always in the same direction, with a fair bit of up and down as well, but shortly before the fourth control we caught sight of not one but two teams just ahead of us. This seemed to spur Stewart on as he set off on the next leg at great speed. Unfortunately, it was straight up Streap, a lovely hill that would be very popular if it was 6m taller so it qualified as a Munro. Control 4 was at 430m, and control 5, less than a kilometer away, was at the summit, at 909m! The climb seemed to go on forever, but we managed to catch one team ahead of us half way up, and that helped motivate us, although we didn’t make any time up on the other team we’d seen. From the top we had a gorgeous ridge run over another three summits and then finally down to a lovely view of the viaduct and our tents, waiting for us at the finish. The team we’d passed caught us again on one descent, but we managed to pull away on the next climb, and despite me struggling to keep up with Stewart on the last long descent, we managed to hang on to third place overall.

I’m sure I’ll be claimimg it was a fantastic weekend once my blisters heal and my muscles stop aching. Running with Stewart was a great challenge, and third place seems like an achievement to be proud of. I just need to get fitter to keep up with him! The best thing is that we don’t have to move up to elite next year—only the top two teams have to do that!