A Billion Miles (by land and sea): OMM2012

It was good to be back doing the OMM after a break of 4 years. The last attempt was in 2008 - the year of the great flood, the cancellation of the event after day 1 and the hoo-ha in the media over the 'unaccounted for'. I did it with Bruce again (partner since our first OMM (KIMM) in 1985) - and we prudently took on the short score. I hadn't done a lot of training but we did alright in the end - coming in 56th out of 130 finishers, and more importantly doing pretty well with the navigation, certainly not losing any points on that account. Given our level of fitness it is difficult to see how we could have managed any better.

Day one was clear and bright but very cold (below zero) and windy - with the tops being clear navigation was straightforward. Our tactic was to take a fairly direct route to the camp site and pick up the high scoring points close to it - our key target of a 40 pointer was, however, to remain elusive. Rolling grass covered hills made for easy terrain although some of the climbs were on the steep side - particularly the climb out of Bowderdale to Randygill Top. All in all though a straightforward and enjoyable day with 150 points in the bag and 73rd place.

Overnight camp was in a grazed field below Wild Boar Fell - it was dry and spacious. We were watered, fed and into bed by 7pm - giving us a good 12 hours to toss and turn before the morning reveille at 6am (remember the clocks went back an hour during the night!). Our start time was 8.21.

Day two broke drizzly and overcast and it remained that way throughout the day. The tops were in cloud meaning that navigation was going to be a wee bit more challenging. Overall though it wasn't too bad as there were plenty of paths, dykes, fences etc to help our route finding. The only stretch of bare high moorland with really low visibility was the traverse across the top of Brant Fell The highlight (!) of the day was the climb up onto the Brant Fell Plateau - steep and unrelenting with a wee rock scramble at the end to find the checkpoint. Lack of training was starting to show at the end as my ankles and leg muscles began to ache. Hot soup immediately after crossing the finish line soon put that right - the organisers' had also laid on a bus back to event centre, where more food was on offer. Certainly was appreciated. Day two position was 40th with 105 points - we always do better in poor conditions!