This, my first LAMM, was held in a large area of wilderness on the west of Scotland, centred on Glen Fyne and including the Arrochar ALps to the South and the big Tyndrum munros of Ben Lui and Ben Oss to the north. Except for the Arrochar area, which I knew from the Arrochar Alps hill race, this was all unfamiliar territory to me - and what better way to explore it than racing between 16 disparate checkpoints with everything you need for the weekend crammed into a 15 litre Inov-8 Race Elite racing rucksack.
My racing partner for the weekend was my older brother Andy, who won the event last year with Inov-8 sponsored Jethro Lennox.
To perform well in two day mountain marathons like this requires a combination of racing speed, endurance, route choice, navigation, and an uncompromising willingness forgo all luxuries and keep the weight in rucksack to an absolute minimum.
The event centre was at the head of Loch Fyne, near the village of Cairndow, which is famous for Loch Fyne Oysters. However for the race start at 8am on Saturday morning we were required to meet at a bus park and were then taken to our race start - we didn't know where this would be until we got there (it turned out to be the village of Arrochar, about 20 minutes drive away). Day 1 took us up and over several mountains (but not to the top as that would make the nav. far too easy!) and involved 36km of running with 2400m climbing. This was mostly in glorious sunshine so the compass mainly got a little rest. The midway camp - for all 800 competitors and 800,000 midges - was right at the head of Loch Fyne. At this point we were in first place and had a 58 minute lead on the Swedish Pair BjöRn Rydvall and Mattias NyströM. Day 2 began with porridge at 5:15 am and a 6:30am chasing start (i.e. the Swedes started 58 minutes after us at 7:28). The weather was a different matter with low mist and rain forcing us to pay much more attention to the compass. We ran 29km and climbes 1600m. Sadly we lost a little time through 2 navigational errors but still managed to make it home with a 58 minute lead over Dan Gay and Al Anthony, who with a great performance on Sunday managed to pull themselves up from 4th place to second.
So the LAMM Elite trophy now sits happily in my flat in Edinburgh and I hope to be back to make a bid to retain it next year.
I did the race in Inov-8 Mudclaw 330s.
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