2014 Rab Mountain Marathon

This year’s Rab Mountain Marathon was in the East of the Lake District, in the bit between Kendal and Shap that’s not that often visited. That bit of the Lakes seems to like to borrow placenames from more famous bits, so the event centre was in Borrowdale, there’s a Lord’s Seat and Wasdale made up one boundary of the map. As has been the case (I think) for every Rab I’ve done, the weather was pretty good, with glimpses of sunshine, but cloud down on the tops at times.

This year I was running in the Long Score as a solo again, determined to improve on last year. That gave me seven hours on day one, and six on day two. Unfortunately, it also meant there was nobody to take pictures!

The first day start was in Crookdale, and I planned out a longish but hopefully high-scoring route. I headed up the valley at first and onto high ground to the North of the start. There the controls were in the cloud and I had a couple of small misses with visibility less than 10m. Eventually, after a brief view of the Day 1 finish, I dropped down into Long Sleddale for a 4km road run down the valley before climbing back onto the fells above Staveley, almost in sight of Sterling Central, where I’d spent the night before (thanks!). Then back North, through Kentmere and over the hill into Troutbeck and up the old Roman Road that leads from Ambleside to Penrith over High Street. This easy going didn’t last long and was followed by a very steep climb up Ill Bell, by which time I was feeling pretty tired. From there, things looked familiar as I traced the Kentmere Horseshoe path and managed to get running again, before dropping down to a 40 point control above Small Water. From there I had a little under an hour to climb over Gatesgarth Pass and down to the camp site in Long Sleddale. Unfortunately, a cramp attack on the climb, and a complete lack of energy meant that I couldn’t make it to the finish on time, and I ended up with 7 points deducted for being late. Not too bad, except that I’d also had to abandon a 15 point control that was not far from the path on the descent.

Happily, despite the points I’d dropped, I was in third place overnight, just behind Adam and Andrew, who I’ve raced against many times, and Stewart, my partner from the LAMM a few years before, who had a ten point lead at the front, and it looked like had chosen a route with a lot less distance, but perhaps more big climbs. The campsite was one we’ve used before, at the top end of Long Sleddale in a beautiful spot.

Day 2 involved more clusters of controls, and it was pretty clear that the route was to travel South down the West side of Long Sleddale before crossing the valley and collecting a few points on the East side and around the finish in Borrowdale. The only question was whether to do a biggish climb at the start to get a couple of controls in the North East, or whether to do a bigger loop around the top of Borrowdale at the end. I elected to do the latter, but most of the top runners seemed to opt for the former, so again that may have been a mistake. The advantage of my route was the opportunity to pick up extra points near the finish if time was available, but in the end I couldn’t do the route fast enough, and got in with just a minute to spare and a ten point control close to the end that I couldn’t get to.

I lost one place on Day 2, to end up 4th overall, but 3rd solo runner. I’m pretty happy with that – I don’t think I could have done any more (I was totally exhausted at the end of both days), and given the limited opportunities this year for long days in the mountains, I’m pretty pleased to still be competitive with the top runners. As for the event, this year’s courses were excellent – I still don’t know what the best route was on day 1, and the contrast between the big climbs and long legs on Day 1, and the shorter more technical stuff on Day 2 was good. The event centre and camp site were well organised, and I particularly like the new policy of giving seperate prizes for solo and team runners.