{"id":2595,"date":"2012-11-01T22:37:49","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T22:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=2595"},"modified":"2022-04-11T21:33:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T20:33:28","slug":"omm-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/omm-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"OMM 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg and I did LAMM earlier in the year<\/a>, and after a fairly respectable showing in that we decided to enter the OMM<\/a>\u00a0too. This year’s event was held in the Howgills, on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Second-thoughts did cross my mind as we drove into Sedbergh through snow flurries on Friday night, but a glorious blue sky on Saturday morning soon banished any thoughts of wimping out.<\/p>\n

\"Busy

Busy at the start line. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Nevertheless, it was still incredibly cold and the biting wind was to feature throughout the day. Unlike the purely linear courses of LAMM, the C course of OMM is partly-linear but requires you to choose your own controls in the middle of the route. We started day one slightly dazed by the sheer number of people crowded on to the hills, but soon got into the swing of things.<\/p>\n

\"One

One of many climbs. \u00a9 racingsnakes.com 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

The first few linear controls were dispatched without any major problems, but then I met the sense of nagging self-doubt which was to accompany every control choice made over the weekend. A retrospective analysis of our decisions showed that we made exactly the same choices as the top team, so we can’t have been too far wrong!<\/p>\n

\"Chilly

Chilly up top – frozen tarn on the top of the Calf. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

After spending most of the morning in the Howgills, we broke east across the A683 and I experienced a major low climbing on to Wild Boar Fell. I’d run out of water and my food choices had inexplicably omitted anything salty; my VMOs cramped up and went into horrible spasm. Greg fed me crisps and I perked up as we turned right at a ruined sheepfold \u00a0– this was a \u00a0high point of the weekend, signalling as it did the end of the climbing and the start of the descent to the last control and mid-camp.<\/p>\n

\"We

We need to descend all the way to the valley floor, then climb straight back out again? Brilliant. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Mid-camp proved to be a pleasure, largely due to the vast amounts of food I’d brought with me (a valuable lesson learned from this year’s LAMM). We briefly spotted Chris, but then later failed to find the tent containing him and Lou in the really rather vast sea of canvas. They’d had a good day in the more-hardcore-than-us B class, coming in 20th, and we somehow bagged the coveted 15th place in C class.<\/p>\n

\"Lounging

Lounging in the tent in mid-camp sunshine. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Nothing

Nothing says luxury like hot chocolate and marshmallows. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

The chilly breeze held up until bed time (8PM), but had changed to rain by 3AM. Greg kindly brewed up in the drizzle first thing, and we hung around for a bit until our 9AM start time.<\/p>\n

\"Greg

Greg valiantly brews up for breakfast in the rain. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

The route for Day 2 was almost a reversal of Day 1 – we climbed back on to Wild Board Fell into the cloud, dropped out of it to cross the road, and then climbed back in to it as we returned to the Howgills proper. By this point the weather had turned really nasty, with rain being hammered hard into our faces by a freezing wind.<\/p>\n

\"The

The cloud was down nice and low over the Terra Nova showroom when we woke. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

With no easy way to link controls without dropping into valleys and climbing back out again, we settled into the day and plodded onwards. Whilst not super-quick, we maintained a decent pace, and felt very pleased with some of our nav. Heading from Arant Haw towards the finish, Greg slipped over on the steep final descent. Being already soaked to the skin, he embraced it and continued to just slide down the grassy slope to the bottom – a strategy which proved quicker and easier than my pained trot\/run.\u00a0With the end in sight, we forced a quick pace to the finish to secure 15th place on day two, and twelfth place overall in C class for the weekend.<\/p>\n

\"The

The end of our first OMM. Soggy but still smiling. \u00a9 21CPhotos<\/p><\/div>\n

We were pretty pleased with that result, and it felt like another valuable learning experience. We both managed food and drink intake better than we have before, and finally proved that our navigation is definitely up to scratch when the weather really comes in (it’s never been truly tested before). With that done, I headed off to the glamour of a hotel in Wilmslow ready for a bleary-eyed meeting the following morning, and Greg caught a lift back to Nottingham.\u00a0So generally a success, and there’s talk of taking on the Highlander<\/a> – who could resist the thought of a warm, dry tent at mid-camp?!<\/p>\n

\"Thankfully

Thankfully the hotel were blissfully unaware of this lot, and of the tents drying in the bathroom. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2012<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg and I did LAMM earlier in the year, and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[420,936,932,933,396],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-fell-running","tag-howgills","tag-omm","tag-original-mountain-marathon","tag-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}