The statement from Steve on the OMM forums actually says they are being reinstated without time penalties. If I'd gone the right way and was pushed down the rankings as a result I'd be justifiably annoyed!Quote:
Originally Posted by creaky
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The statement from Steve on the OMM forums actually says they are being reinstated without time penalties. If I'd gone the right way and was pushed down the rankings as a result I'd be justifiably annoyed!Quote:
Originally Posted by creaky
Definitely. I thought it was clear on the map.Quote:
Originally Posted by Toreador
I can't speak for the Elite, but we were one of many teams who didn't complete day 2 on the A. We had to stop because my partner got cramp in his calf that stopped him doing anything but a slow walk with occasional screams & collapses into the bracken/bog/rocks. But I wasn't enjoying it either, & if you look at the day2 times for the finishers you'll see that day 2 averaged slightly slower than day 1 overall. Not quite as far, but there was more climbing. And the climbs, as far as we went anyway, were brutal, both down & up. There was virtually no chance of running for the 3 hours we were still competing, unless you count desperate descents trying to stay on your feet as running. I suppose I'd have kept going to the end, but the going was grim, & would have been even without the weather.Quote:
Originally Posted by creaky
I didn't try to stay on my feet and rested by quads with some fantastic bum slides. Only hit one small rock and one descent had me whooping with thrill.
Glad we got in chasing start tho as our planned day 2 start was 9.17 and we woulf have been out in the yuk for longer and I was cold and wet enough as it was
The elite day 1 was harder, we were 1:30 quicker on day 2. I reckon a good 5-7 miles and 500-600m less ascent.. but obviously route choices vary..
Does anyone have the stats for the days. Mapping it I made our day 1 over 30 miles but we did the long sweep to the north and OoB's to get between 2 of the CP's. Must have been high 20's.
Agreed... the map overprinting clearly shows that track/road as being 'in-bounds'Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank
To those retiring, yes. I found the large box containing the words "Track/road only available for retirement. Out of bounds to competitors" was a useful tool in the decision-making process for whether we would use that route or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawriej
A few photos http://climbing.me.uk/OMM2012/index.html
Doh! Didn't notice it on the score map :$ but didn't go that way anyway. Would have been much simpler if they'd shown it as out of bounds. People retiring can go along an oob road/track if its a right of wayQuote:
Originally Posted by Hank
I'm similar.. I look at the map and don't read anything.. we went back the right way, never thought of another way, but certainly never saw the statement in question.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawriej
The howgills were a great area though, you could basically take any line, almost all routes were safe, a lot steep and tussocky..
Overall, for all the issues dealt with I thought the organisation was superb. £55 for 2 days and it felt a bargain.
Seems like TeamBath (Tom and I) were right with you guys - 190 points on Saturday after a good run and good route choice. Not so hot Sunday - we took a long eastwards leg onto Swarth Fell for 90 points but an awful long tough run back down to the road crossing, and then we struggled with the run-in back along the wall line so finished 20+ minutes late to pick up just 67 points. Still half-way through the field in the Vets handicap!Quote:
Originally Posted by creaky
Re the exit route - it was very ambiguous, I was going to go straight along the bridleway on the basis that the out of bounds areas are drawn on either side, partner convinved me that we needed to go round, and so did all other competitors around us. If we couldn't use this route, a simple sign on the gate would have made it perfectly clear.
We had the joys of the M6 and M5 all the way back to Bath.... not as bad as the journey up! And the wind chill on Friday night at about 10 as we pitched the tent was .... well, seriously chilling! Kept warm saturday until the Wild Boar Fell bogs late in the day - three hrs in sleeping bag before any life returned to the feet.
Bring on next year!
Just been looking at the stats and it seems only 69% of starters completed both days in the linear events whereas 95% completed the score events. To me that says the linear events are more demanding. I did the C course by the way which has an intriguing element of route choice and after the bashing I took I'm slightly dischuffed to be C! :wink:
Only 56% completed the Elite; 48% completed the A Course; 65% completed B and 66% completed the C. 85% completed D
91% completed long score; 96% middle score; 96% short score
Correct me if I'm wrong.
To me that says that an advantage of the score classes is that if you've had enough, you can just head straight for the finish, dib the last mandatory control, and not be disqualified (and also get a better score than those who've lost all their points by getting back 2 hours late).Quote:
Originally Posted by Guick Dotto
This sounds like a more likely explanation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Toreador
Definitely. Why retire on a day two when you can just have a steady walk back to the finish within your allotted time for the day? Maybe even treat yourself to a control or two on the way.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkL
So, yeah, I guess the score classes are less demanding in that it's easier to finish without retiring/being disqualified. But equally they can be harder to do well in. For example, look at the winning time on the B class this year. Had those guys covered that kind of distance and climb in the 5 and 4 hours they'd have had in the Short Score they'd no doubt have won it comfortably. To have beaten them on SS would've taken some doing and would've been much harder than winning the C class. Does that mean Short Score is harder than C? Not really, it just means the score classes are as hard as you choose to make them.
To win the Long Score we covered a total of 50 miles (80km) and 15,000 ft of ascent (4500m) in under 13 hours - I'll let other readers decide whether that is less demanding than the linear courses......
Perfect OMM weather - Lovely day Saturday to top up the tan. Great navigating weather on Sunday to sort the Men (and Ladies) from the Boys (and Girls).
As for the course - end of Sunday could of done with a bit more route choice on the Long Score, otherwise plenty of options. Only downside was the terrain over Baugh Fell - not going back there again in a hurry !
I think the elite was more ascent.. but regardless I don't think they mean that..Quote:
Originally Posted by Lardster
just looking at finishing rates, but as said the score events can be tailored for ability, so someone fairly unfit can do the long and just modify the route whereas the A, elite courses are set routes.. so understandably less would finish.
By their very nature score events should be easier to finish than set route events, being able to do more or less as you see fit is one of the good things about them.
Doing well at them requires additional skills that you don't need as much on linear courses - ability to gauge your speed across the ground and work out what the optimum route (score) is with your abilities. Also compared to the more popular linear courses there is a good deal more navigation as there are less people to follow, and more people doing different things.
TBF in this years elite, I have little MM experience, I was surprised how spreadout we were, we almost never followed..Quote:
Originally Posted by Lardster
Comment of the weekend came on Sunday, when at CP 1.. one of the pair got there before us and another pair and said 'me thinks someones following'..
I'm hoping he was joking.. if not he wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, we were set off minutes apart, all going from the start to CP1 which had one obvious route choice option with an obvious final attack point...
But I agree Score have a different skill set, the standard courses are just go as hard as possible and nav, route choice matters, but on the scores you have the additional factor of finishing on time.
Yeah, I naively expected to be bounding around on the springy turf of the Howgills all weekend! The other side of the road was a different planet entirely. Definitely character building, and made day 2 seem like a breeze, despite the weather.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lardster
I think the score/linear debate can be summarised as follows: The scores are easier to finish, but probably harder to do well in.
We went up Wild Boar Fell on day 1, which was really good fast going in clear conditions. But opted to head straight for the Howgills on Sunday, as almost everything over there was going to be easy to find in the clag, whereas lots of the eastern controls were on vague features in large areas of identical terrain. For once it worked out well - 12th on the day, by far our best score :-)
I think the route choice at the end was largely determined by your route choice earlier. Head north east and it was straight back at the finish; head west and hoover up most or all of the controls near the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lardster
At least, that seemed to be the case outside the top of the field. Most people headed east, we didn't and shot up the rankings as a result :D
On Medium Score we spent all Saturday west of the road in the Howgills and most of Sunday east around Wild Boar Fell and Baugh Fell. I can confirm this was a mistake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Toreador
Its an amazing geographical boundary.. lakeland fells > yorkshire dales within a km...
I didn't realise that would be covered.. kind of hoped we'd just stay in what I think of as sedbergh hills.. but good to get up wild boar fell, Saturday was nice up there, there was just very few good runnable lines..
I was surprised how easy the CP's were to find up there on Sunday, I'd said on saturday thank god the weather was clear, but I think because you knew you needed to be on your game you were much more precise.. we made a few silly errors saturday, I think being blase in good weather..
We were on LS and found plenty of good going on Day 1 out to the east on Wild Boar Fell. We crossed the road with just under 2 hours 30 remaining and swept up all the controls to the east. A big part of our decision was the gentler contours out east especially when faced at the end of a tough day. Managed 380 points and were delighted to be in 9th place. At the camp we discovered we had inadvertently left our gas canister in the car back at the event centre. Gutted! We felt we had no option but to retire so walked back to the event centre - thankfully we hitched a lift very quickly.
On the score v line comparison I'm motivated by score because as a vet pair we are still improving and getting into competitive positions though I don't believe we are covering the ground quicker than we did (this was my 9th OMM). We are certainly picking much better routes and fully optimising the time we have. We usually can decide on our route very quickly but this year on LS there were sooo many options (well done Course Planner!). We took over 15 minutes to evaluate the various possibilities before making our choice. I love this about Score - then in the results seeing the options that others selected and trying to fairly assess their choices against ours. Brilliant!! But still gutted about the gas.
As a matter of interest, what would you have done in our predicament?
Tricky one. If you could cope without any hot food or drink, then I'd have been tempted to stick it out, do day 2 anyway, and then disqualify ourselves at the finish - that way at least you get to do both days! It's a shame that you can't retire on day 1 and still be allowed to do day 2 - all the other MMs allow this - but I guess it's not practical given the size of the OMM, and there are probably issues left over from Borrowdale.Quote:
Originally Posted by philbrynmaen
Soaked the noodles, soup etc in cold water & eaten it anyway. If indigestion didn't rule day 2 out, then we'd have hoped we didn't win the class (fat chance of that) so nobody did a kit check on us. Most of the dried stuff is cooked already, so I'm pretty sure we'd have got away with with it. We'd have been gutted though! My mate wanted to set off with a part-used 100g gas canister - he'd already used it on the RAB. I told him where to stick it & we took a new one - mind you we're pretty sure we've never used half a canister in a MM.Quote:
Originally Posted by philbrynmaen
AGREE about the gas Andy- we have about 20 part used ones but it is rare that i will risk one even though having weighed it I know it should be enough.
I'm always amazed how some people use so little gas. We normally take 125g, and use at least 2/3 of it. On the RAB we could only find 100, and only had enough left for a single brew when we got back. And we don't normally have more than about 4 pots of tea, plus 2 or 3 pots for our meals.
Sounds like the tea's the difference. We use the gas only to rehydrate noodles, soup, porridge &, god help us, Complan. I've no idea what Complan tastes like, & I've no intention of finding out. Loads of calories though, I am reliably informed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Toreador
I think Complan is for old people. I'm not sure what age this starts at. Maybe Moley if he is measuring moisture, he's ready for Complan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Splatcher
We made sure we had enough fuel left (but used meths) - but all our food (pre-dried gunk/yuk) would have worked with cold water if needed (would have taken longer to 'cook/hydrate). no hot drinks for us, some recovery shakes then sleep! We didn't get until late though.I fretted big time about drinks etc...but oh, no, i was away with the fairies! I a still coming to terms with the side effects of the OMM!
Running on the fells without a cupper afterwards, absolutely unthinkable for me. :angry: I will carry a full canister of gas to have the tea afterwards, if the weight of the extra gas was a problem I will just have to lose a pound off the waist line.:rolleyes:
ATB
Tahr
We have a brew when we arrive, 2 lots of noodles, custard and then 1 or 2 more brews that eve and 1 brew at breakfast- and always have gas spare, although it was tighter when the 100g gas was easier to get than the 125g. On the RAB when I was solo I left the stove burning lots to warm up the tent and still had spare!
We finished tired and cold but in good shape. But as soon as we discovered no gas we simply did not think it possible to recover sufficiently without taking on-board hot food and drink. We briefly considered asking around in case anyone had spares or to see if any teams were dropping out. However we were also sure that we had, albeit inadvertently, gained an advantage by not carrying a gas canister. We reported in to Jen who was sympathetic with our position and made it clear that we could continue but could not be competitive. Thanks to neighbouring tents who offered us a brew and encouragement to stay-in. It just didn't seem an option at the time on that cold afternoon. So our first DNF in 9 years and a school-boy error that won't happen again!
TBH Phil unless you were in the prizes I don't think it would have mattered a jot.. certainly I wouldn't have been bothered if you'd have finished 11th and me 12th..
Very honest of you but next time I'd be less honourable and just beg..
So need a 'like button' on all this...I'm too simple :) At the end of the day, in my eyes, it was great, it hurt, I loved it, lets do it all again :) I'm so sad, two weeks still smiling!
Fair play Phil for your honesty :) I must say, the OMM and I'm sure other MM available proves a good example of the human spirit! Makes me turn much more from a 'racer' to a 'competitor'.
We used 130g from a big 250 canister (actually 220g net weight) We had 6 hot drinks and 3 hot meals each! I weighed the canister before and after. So works out 15g per boil. Why carry 370g ( gross weight)? Well I don't, I'm carrying 900g of tent fabric (inner and fly together to save faff- its an original Laser) so my mate gets to carry the stove and a plentiful supply of gas. I suppose now, having worked out gas use, a 125g would be fine, and could manage with 100g (if carefull to turn off gas as soon as it boils). Having said that my local shop doesn't sell 125g, just the Coleman's 250 and 100 for almost the same price! So as long as I'm carrying the tent I'll have as many brews as I want thanks!- Also bloody tent is heavier on day 2 whilst gas is lighter!Quote:
Originally Posted by Toreador
Looks like you've found your niche H. I agree with everyting you say. So much easier doing the medium score though. The Lamb , The Saunders etc next year then?Quote:
Originally Posted by HelenSkelton