Highlander Mountain Marathon

Last weekend saw team Tyne and Weary heading north to compete in the A Class at the Highlander Mountain Marathon (HMM).

The HMM is a very friendly and compact two day mountain marathon, offering a Score course and linear courses from D to A Class. The novelty of the warmth and the exciting atmosphere generated within the marquee at the overnight camp, which hosts a live Ceilidh, hot food, quality ales and burgers, make this MM unique and even more appealing.

At the beginning of the year Adam and I had high hopes of a strong performance in this event, however my ankle injury set back in March meant that pushing the pace was not an option. Rather than withdrawing from the event the weekend was taken at a steadier pace to test my ankles recovery and maintain some strength in my legs. Tripple Echo Productions were filming the event for the adventure show so there is a chance that we may make another TV appearance...

On Saturday the weather was very kind if not cold – the patchy cloud sat above the summits for the majority of the day, only dropping with the occasional heavy hail shower, resulting in relatively easy navigation and some impressive views.

Starting from the car park at Incheril where most Munro baggers would start and finish a day’s walk up Slioch, the course planner (Alec Keith?) had put together a fantastic course for us with some interesting route choice over very mixed terrain and some incredible mountain scenery. With my ankle heavily strapped and a steady dose of Vitamin I, I was able to run much more of the course than anticipated, although contouring and steep down hills were very painful if taken at anything more than a tentative jog.

The traverse and descent from the Beinn Tharsuinn Chaol ridge was a highlight of Day 1 and catching the rib back across Loch Maree to the mid camp was a fun end to the day’s work.

Mid camp was the usual buzz of excitement as the SPORTident results kept updating and teams shared their tales of route choice the day’s adventures. Despite being conservative due to my ankle we were surprised to have finished Day 1 in 5th place only 30min behind the leaders.

The disqualification of the favourites Sam Hesling and Andy Fallas, who had destroyed the course but visited an incorrect control, had thrown the A class wide open: Three teams now had a fighting chance of winning the Sword, Mark and Jacqui Higginbottom’s consistent navigation and pace had earned them first place on Day 1, but would it be sufficient to hold off the chasing teams? Duncan Steen and Robin Sanderson, good friends of ours, were 14mins behind in third with Andy Burton and Tim Martin just 5 minutes behind in second.

With our tent pitched and the first few courses of warm food cooked up we joined the fun in the marquee. The Ceilidh, a venison burger and a pint of yellow hammer meant evening soon turned to darkness and we headed in for the night. My wife Rosie had joined the Hands on Events team to help with the marshalling for the weekend and it had been great to see her and our dog Riley at mid camp.

Day 2 dawned cold and wet. Following freezing overnight temperatures we were keen to get running and after our Breakfast of Power (© Duncan Steen) and packing away a wet tent following a heavy sleaty shower we were soon marking up the map. We rushed out of mid camp to attack Day 2, hoping to maintain our position in the top 5 and push a little harder than on Day 1.

Our performance on Day 2 consisted of strong running, hampered by poor route choice and an early navigational mistake, which saw a determined Duncan and Robin catch us by the first checkpoint. A very strong leg 2 brought us back into 3rd place but a poor choice of route meant that having reached the end of the snow lined and very rocky Beinn Eighe ridge, our checkpoint was some 250m below us. Negotiating our way around some serious crags down steep snow covered slabs was not a fun place to be - understandably we forgot about the race and carefully dropped and cut down on the safest line we could find to the checkpoint, where we effectively rejoined the race now some 40minutes down.

Adam and I ran hard over the last four checkpoints to the finish and were pleased that our strong running had balanced out the mistakes to maintain our 5th place overall.

Despite a very determined run by Duncan and Robin bringing them first home on Day 2, by over 11 minutes, consistently good pace and route choice by Mark and Jacqui Higginbottom saw them hang onto the lead and take home the coveted sword as their trophy.

In summary: a great weekend in some awesome hills, which has given me confidence that my ankle is healing well. Thanks to all the team at Hands on Events for putting together another fantastic event, we will be back next year for sure and recommend the event to all.