OMM in Borrowdale!

[invalidpassword]

I awoke this morning in my lovely warm bed, not in the least bit worried about all of those lost/rescued charity runners. Turned on my radio waiting for a list of the death toll and heard the radio presenter say that,

"it must have been particularly difficult for those who were out on the mountain because they had had to stop out for an extra hour BECAUSE THE CLOCKS HAD GONE BACK!"

I jest you not. They then had a member of the public, in the studio, as their witness to the foolhardiness of all of those charity runners. He had been up to Honister to get "a piece of slate" for his garden. Spent "two hours up there" and "me and me son got really wet looking at the stones".

It was pure theatre.

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" somebody said that once. Good effort OMM.

[invalidpassword]

By the way, it was radio Cumbria..... Planks!

[Phil_N]

I awoke this morning in my lovely warm bed, not in the least bit worried about all of those lost/rescued charity runners. Turned on my radio waiting for a list of the death toll and heard the radio presenter say that,

"it must have been particularly difficult for those who were out on the mountain because they had had to stop out for an extra hour BECAUSE THE CLOCKS HAD GONE BACK!"

I jest you not. They then had a member of the public, in the studio, as their witness to the foolhardiness of all of those charity runners. He had been up to Honister to get "a piece of slate" for his garden. Spent "two hours up there" and "me and me son got really wet looking at the stones".

It was pure theatre.

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" somebody said that once. Good effort OMM.

I heard the same interview. At the time I thought great here we go again they are interviewing somone who has got nothing to do with the race and probably has no idea whats involved.

[Phil Winskill]

Just back from an awesome 24 hours at the OMM! Loved it!

Maybe I've missed the official reasoning for it being called off, but I would hope it was the fact the overnight camp was waterlogged.

Yes, the streams/rivers were full, but we crossed all of them by climbing higher. Yes, the weather was bad, but the 2007 OMM Durisdeer had worse weather in my opinion.

Walking back over from Buttermere to Borrowdale provided a lot of entertainment, excitement and adrenaline. Some fantastic waterfalls and rivers. I have never seen so much water coming down the hillsides...

I want to reserve judgment until I hear more from the organisers, but I can't help but feel that for whatever reason they cancelled, (weather, flooding, swollen rivers etc.) they could have done so on Friday morning for the same reason.

....and where be the results of Day 1, please?! They seem to have been forgotten in the hullabaloo that has ensued.

Mike Parsons told us that the event was cancelled due to the overnight camp issues.

Time to discuss the race:

Ben - presume you were on Elite, how long did you roughly take then? We were out for 4: 25. Jethro Lennox and Tom Owens, 3:59, Chris Near and Tim H , 3:57 maybe. Jethro and Tom clung to Chris and Tim (much to their annoyance apparently).

Do you know what other teams took?

[crumblydown]

Irrespective of blame, responsibility and 'experience' there are 1700 runners 'missing' which unfortunately means that the emergency services have a duty of care to find them. The drain on resources, both centrally funded, and more importantly, voluntary rescue organisations, might be something that has longer term ramifications on the region and the future of the OMM.

With 35years experience in the emergency services I can honestly say that I would much rather be out helping fell runners off a mountain on a Saturday night/Sunday morning and wouldn't consider them a drain on resources, more a genuine emergency and people in need of help, that's my job. As oppose to picking up p***heads who either want to puke on you, punch you and generally abuse you- now they're a drain on resources and believe me there's a sight more of them every weekend than fell runners stranded on the mountains.

Hope everyone is now safe and dry, sure there'll be tales to tell!

[Alphin]

2008 OMM t-shirts "MM"


Glad everyone is safe and well

[saz]

the Noor - agree re the weather was worse last year at times. We took 7hrs for the elite, but then we moved up from the A to make sure we got a good day of it rather than do the shorter A....

[Horse]

Map of the elite day 1 attached. As you can see they made the bad weather course even shorter by missing out 3 rather than the planned 2 checkpoints. This meant a surprisingly short run it took us 3:59. Managed to put our tent up before event was canceled and was somewhat relieved not to have to spend 18 hours in what would have become a very wet tent. Shame not to run day 2 but right decision made. Certainly an epic weekend and glad to hear everyone is safely back now.

[Horse]

Jethro and Tom clung to Chris and Tim (much to their annoyance apparently).

OK we stayed with them until checkpoint 4 then they stopped for a long toilet stop - cunning way to drop someone. We were then on our own until just before checkpoint 8 before we caught up with them on the climb up Great Gable. After that we were racing them all the way to the finish with both teams getting ahead of each other at different points. We ended up taking a better line across the raging torrent and finished a couple of minutes ahead of them.

Other times Symonds brothers around 4:20, Mudge and Keith 4:45 - both teams affected by the impassable river at the end and also not being able to find the finish control box. Think Morgz and Steve came in between the two teams but not totally sure.

Will we ever get to see the map of day 2? Guess we would have gone North form, Gatesgarth.

[XRunner]

When the BBC interviewed OMM Director Mike Parsons it was as though they were speaking two different languages. The presenter became more and more confused as each question was met by an unexpected answer, until she eventually asked; “You mean there was no emergency here?” Mike’s answer was, “No,

This page should be compulsory reading before anybody posts on here now.

The media storm appears to have been far worse than the weather!

The press have missed a superb opportunity to demonstrate the resilience and ability of fell runners to overcome difficult conditions