Highlander Mountain Marathon 2011
A Mountain Marathon is a two day event in which teams of two navigate round various checkpoints over mountainous terrain. You don’t find out exactly where it is or where you have to go until you start, unless they print the village name on the free T-shirt that they give you the day before!
The Highlander this year was based around Dundonnell, the first day basically involved a 26km run round An Teallach, around some lochs and over some smaller hills. Since it was my first MM we entered C class, one of the easier categories. My team mate (my brother Mark) would like me to point out that he normally competes in a higher class and has signed himself up for the elite class for the upcoming Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon whereas I’ll still be competing in C class. Anyway, after a tough (1 uphill section too many for me!) but enjoyable first day we arrived at the overnight camp to a virtually empty field to find ourselves in 4th place.
I should at this point add that the Highlander isn’t like normal MMs. Although you still have to carry your tent, food and stove etc…this one has a marquee at the overnight camp serving food, drinks…BEER…it even has a ceilidh in the evening for those not too tired to dance.
We’d earned ourselves a place in the chasing start for the second day which meant we could have a leisurely morning and didn’t set off until 8am (although we still got woken up at 6 by U2 being played over the PA system – surely no-one would choose to wake up to U2!). Unfortunately, because the organisers wanted everyone to finish the course by 2pm the chasing start was reversed so the people we were chasing for 3rd place actually started after us…confused? me too.
Day two went without a hitch for us – I had a dodgy ankle but a handful of painkillers sorted that out and kept the worst of the pain at bay, oh, and Mark got a bit excited when he overtook the ginger girl from Trail magazine and she said he was very fast. Our spirits were lifted slightly when we saw a mountain legend (I won’t mention your name Steve) from a higher class looking for his checkpoint in the wrong place…shows even the best can get it slightly wrong. Anyway, a slightly shorter day for the second day and we managed to finish 3rd on the day but still finished 4th overall – we missed out on 3rd place by less than two minutes! To finish off the weekend we jetted back to Ullapool across Loch Broom by speed boat..what a great way to finish off the event!
A good weekend but it was nice to be back in the 4 star comfort of Invergarry Lodge after a cold night in a tent with my lightweight Tesco sleeping bag.
–Matt
4:20 pm on April 18th, 2011
AWESOME!!!! Well done Team Invergarry Lodge!! Hey hey!! Can’t possibly imagine that much running combined with hills and tesco sleeping bags and U2 all in the space of a couple of days….. liking the speed boating tho and fantastic photos!! Great result too, i think mountain marathons are your thing…. thankfully yours not mine!!!
6:50 pm on April 19th, 2011
Good work Matt. You have equalled the PBFRC record on your first attempt! I’ll expect to see you and Rick on the podium at the LAMM.
I have just unpacked and found out I carried 5 safety pins, a cigarette lighter, an 8 foot metal tent pole and 9 tent pegs through customs. Good to see Inverness Airport Security are on the ball.
Mark