Training Log Archive: AliMas

LAMM 2018

I'm finding it difficult to think of words to describe the suffering but since my brain is slowly coming out of potato state with the memory of torture still fresh enough to accurately describe the levels of pain, now is probably and good time to get something down or I never will. Apologies for the length.

Overall, our nav on both days was good, I don't think we lost much more than a minute on any control from execution problems. Couple of routes/lines could of been better, particularly the monster long leg on Day 1 looking at it now straight was the best but at the time we'd had enough of climbing and weren't to know that the low line would be quite so rough.

Now onto the real problems. At 3 hours in on Day 1 we got to the boat leg across a loch, which was relief as I am a particularly poor swimmer and there was no prior knowledge of a boat. Before and during the crossing I'd say I was having a good time which is a lot more positive than what I'm about to say about the following hours of the race. After the boat, on the way up to control 8, was the first indication of the sour turn which was coming, we were both struggling but Tim in particular was hating the heat and we needed a drink. At the time it didn't seem like a massive issue, we were always going to go through bad phases. Unfortunately, the line we took to the next control presented us with dry stream after dry stream, this was making us sad. Eventually, we found a bog stream we considered just about worthy but the dehydration damage was already done. We got going again briefly but the momentum was gone and all that was left was misery. The climb at the end of the long leg was a never ending wall and somewhere around here Tims dehydration got to the stage where he was struggling to eat, drink and was retching quite frequently. Throw cramp into the mixer for Tim on the very steep and craggy descent off the whopper hill at the end of the long leg and it was all a bit worrying. Nonetheless, we got round the rest of the course bleeding time to everyone but still finished with a respectable enough result all things considered.

I can't complain about the overnight at all really, it was all very good and the beach was beautiful, definitely can't deny that. After drinking water and eating crisps, we lied down for a long time, put up the tent, ate lots of slightly below average scran, chatted to friends about the horrible times during the day and got to bed by 8PM.

For some reason I had high hopes for Day 2 and was expecting it to be a lot shorter than Day 1 which I thought would suit me and Tim well. However, if Day 1’s suffering bored you then I'd quit now as Day 2 is a similar tale. We started hard, most likely too hard, with the idea of putting our chasers hopes of catching us to bed. The screws were loosening after about 4.5 hours and when Tim's energy levels noticeably dropped a little I took his bag to see if we could keep up some tempo. It had been nagging me all day, but about here it fully dawned on me what an absolute tool I'd been. I'd been all for packing light and this included food. I can't quite work out if we made some sort of packing/eating error but what mattered was we hadn’t prepared for two monster days like we were having and we were going to run out of food very far from the finish. We made it to control 7, at the top of the hill, still doing okay but on the following leg the wheels very much came off. When I looked back to Tim it was apparent we had a big problem. He had been taken to the god-forsaken land of bonk city, we had no food for a resurrection and I was also feeling shafted, just brilliant. For me the following three hours were almost certainly some of the most miserable of my life so it makes me shiver to think what Tim was going through. The thought of retiring crossed my mind but as it happened we were on our way back to the finish anyway and somehow the chance of a podium was still alive. It was mostly a walk back from here with the occasional shuffle jog where possible until the final control where we found a final shred of energy.

At long last we made it to the finish where we met our good friend Sasha who looked after us. Despite being told by a lady that we had actually finished outside course closing times and we should hurry up to download or people would be out looking for us, it bizarrely turned out we'd come 3rd and had timed it just right for getting onto the podium. What a rollercoaster.

Hope I haven't put anyone off doing a mountain marathon here, eventually they become a sadistic type of fun and I'm sure at some point I'll look back at this race as a valuable experience. Perhaps, we'll even be a bit more prepared for the next one.

C • Consider 6

Easy in Tarbert with Timothy.

Easy by some reservoir with Timothy, a good day.

Misty Seat with Purko, Tim and Tam.