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This year the KIMM become the 'OMM' or Original Mountain Marathon. The event is the same but the sponsors have changed from Karrimor (bust) to Vango (still going and Orange. We gather in the Galloway Forest Park in South West Scotland on Friday night and on Saturday morning are hiking up the hills for a 3km walk to the start.
We may be in the lowlands of Scotland but flat it aint. The terrain is hilly and forested and the going underfoot varies from tusky heather to bog and hillsides of felled trees. This brings down our estimates of average speed per hour from 6kph to more like 3 or 4 kph. Some forest trails in the second half of day one promise faster progress but another big hill climb means that it is not going to be an easy run to the finish.
The start is wet and as we line up with the other entrants we get snapped by one of the event photographers (above).
Day 1 is pretty foggy but when we do drop out of the clouds we get some fine views of the countryside.
Wet weather and some challenging hills mean that the camera goes away after a couple of hours. We also are too ambitious in our choice of route and end up losing the points in penalties that we gained climbing a very steep hill when we arrive at the finish 17 minutes late despite having run flat out for the final few kilometres.
In camp we quickly recover. Amazing what some dry clothes and hot soup will do. Steve and Mark look the happy campers as they tuck into their dried rations. Reconstituted chicken curry... yummy?!
We have scored 92 points so far having covered 30km and 1342m of ascent. Miles behind the leaders but not too disgraceful. See the profile of our route below.
Click here for day 2 action.
