Mixed fortunes in the Lake District for Pegasus AC runners.

Halloween weekend was a busy weekend for Pegasus AC mountain runners. Three of them made the journey to the Lake District in England to take part in the Karrimor International Mountain Marathon.

The KIMM was founded in 1968 and is the forerunner of all adventure racing. The formula remains a 2-day Mountain Marathon where a team of two navigates their way around a 2-day course, in mountainous terrain, in a new location each year, carrying all food, stove, tent and equipment for an overnight camp.
The event is split into 7 categories, Elite, A, B, C and 3 score classes, Long 7+ 6 hours, medium 6+ 5 and short 5+ 4.The Elite distance varies between 75-85km (effectively 2 consecutive marathons) according to the terrain/year and height gain can be up to 3,000m. The score class is a points-based competition within the stated time limits which gives more challenging navigation. With 1500 teams taking part in all the classes and 350 teams in the class that the Pegasus runners were in it would be tough going to gain top places in an international field.

There is no support and GPS and mobile phones are not allowed. The map and course are unseen until the whistle blows. Any team not arriving into camp on Saturday evening is deemed to have camped overnight en route or have made their own way to safety.
The event is always held at the end of October to allow weather to enhance the challenge.

The teams traveled over on Friday and were soon to learn that they were going to be taking part in a little bit of history. This would be the 37th and last time the KIMM would be run but don’t worry if you’re reading this and want to give it a go then you still can because it will be back next year under a different name. The OMM. (Original Mountain Marathon).

The runners split into two teams Ivan Park and Steve Curry teamed up and run together and Colm Mcilfatrick joined forces with Brendan Doherty from the City of Derry running club. Daylight had just broke before Colm and Brendan set off and after a good result in the Mourne Mountain Marathon the month before they were looking for a good result in the last KIMM. Half an hour later Ivan and Steve set off with high hopes of catching them up. They were coming to the end of a busy year of adventure racing and were hoping for a top spot in the results. They were lucky because they had taken part in the KIMM before and they knew what lay ahead. In past years they had got into the top twenty but were expecting a better result this time around.

The course on day one covered 26.7km straight line distance between checkpoints and at least 1400m of climbing. There were 8 checkpoints to visit in the order shown on the map. Between the first and second checkpoint Ivan and Steve caught up with Colm and Brendan who were still looking for the first one. It was the last time the two teams would meet before the end of the weekend, as things were to get worse for Colm and Brendan as the day went on. The weather and terrain were going to play a big part in this year’s event. Gales were forecast along with heavy rain and they were due to arrive in the early part of the evening making it all the more important to reach the campsite as soon as you could. Ivan and Steve finished day one in 5.57.21 and this was good enough to put them in tenth place at the overnight camp some 50 minutes behind the leaders.

The event used a special map for the area and used a different scale to that of normal maps. This made things a little intimidating for teams who had never used them before. Colm and Brendan were one of the teams that were new to the event and after getting their bearings and finding the first checkpoint they headed off on the 4km run to the second one which was a small stream junction. They found this and then proceeded to the next one, a small sheep pen in a valley 3.5km away. When they reached the top of the valley they could see the checkpoint which was 200m below them. On the steep decent to it Brendan lost his footing and fell down the hill and as he tumbled over he hit his head on a rock Colm later said “I could see him falling and then this red flash coming from his head as he hit the rock, as I ran down to him I thought the worst” Upon reaching him Colm found that he had split his head and was losing a lot of blood. On the plus side he was still alert and hadn’t broken any bones. With the assistance of two other teams they got Brendan patched up and luckily one of the other teams were carrying a mobile phone. They phoned the event headquarters and arranged a meeting point 3km away. The event staff met them and took Brendan to Carlisle accident and emergency were he received 24 stitches in his head. Colm and Brendan would like to thank the teams who stopped to help them and the event staff who were very helpful all weekend.

Meanwhile back in the race Ivan and Steve had their tent up and were settling down for the long night ahead. The gales that the forecast predicated came and lasted all night and well into the next day. Some teams had their tents blown down during the night as the campsite was pretty exposed on the side off a hill. After the extra hour in the tents teams woke up and started to set of on day 2. The leaders were the first off at 07.00 followed by any team which finished within an hour of them on day 1. Ivan and Steve headed off at 07.51 and raced to the finish line on a course which had been shortened due to the bad weather. They covered the 15km route in 2.44.32 and moved up one place in the rankings to finish 9th overall in a time of 8.41.53 which was just 47sec behind 8th place.

Anyone interested in off road running are welcome to come along to Pegasus AC training nights, phone Michael on 70355545 or go to www.pegasusac.org.uk for more details.