At the weekend I completed the OMM which is a 36 hour endurance orienteering race that this year was on Dartmoor. My team mate Seb and I met at the less than auspicious Travel Lodge at the Exeter M5 services on Friday night and tucked into the largest piles of stodge that the on site Harry Ramsdens had to offer. The Fat Duck it wasn't, but it did the trick e.g. prevented either of us from sleeping as we could feel our arteries groaning with the pressure!
The OMM has been running for 15 + years. There are about 2000 entrants competing in various categories from Elite to the Short Score. We had entered the Long Score which is 7 hours on day one, a specified overnight camping ground and 6 hours on day 2. At the start you get given a map of Dartmoor, with the overnight camp half way up - and several check points dotted all over the national park that have points allocated to them, the harder they are to reach, the higher the points. You carry a minimum amount of compulsory kit (tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear food etc) and try to go as light as possible (except Seb brought a travel pillow!). The forecast was for rain and high winds. Perfect.
So we started with an hour long bus ride from Okehampton army camp (the finish) to the south of Dartmoor. Our start time was a little after 8.00. 2 x laminated A1 size maps were provided and we were off! We ran on the flat and down hill, and reached many high scoring points and as the weather was good, it was all very enjoyable if very hard work. We got to the overnight camp in good time and had just enough time to put the tent up before the heavens opened. And they really did. What we had not prepared for was the lack of things to do in the evening. Keeping as much mud out of the tent, and keep as dry as possible we boiled our water, had our soup, re hydrated our freeze dried chille and then.... well that was it really. It was hosing it down outside and dark so we were both in our sleeping bags and try to sleep by 7.30!
All night the rain continued and the wind was considerable. Inside the little 2 man tent it was dry and comfortable enough - and quite exciting with a storm raging outside! DAY 2 - Quite a lot different. Tent was wet and therefore heavy, it was raining and looking at the map it was 25km without picking up any "points". It was going to be a long day.
To get North to Okehampton we had to cross 3 streams. Because of the deluge, these streams were now torrents. They were all about waste deep and bloody cold! The method to cross these are sideways, crab like holding on to each other and only moving if the other has firm footing! We made it in one piece!
We finished later than our allot ed time at about 2.30pm. After checking in, collecting our results and have the hot soup we got back to the car and changed into dry clothes for the first time in 2 days. It took until Bristol to fully warm up!
All in all it was great, hard work but worthwhile. The main lesson learn was to take lighter gear as some of the competitors had bags half the size of mine. The other runners were supremely athletic and talented. It takes something to run over the moors in the rain and mud non stop for 6 hours whilst map reading. Next year!
I should also mention that its a dangerous game! Quite a few people dropped out including friends Nick and Bruce B-H who had to retire after Nick ripped his calf muscle whilst daintily leaping over streams!
Next blog to follow soon - I have chosen McMillan as my charity for the race, more on that later. Now I better do some work.
