About a year ago I started planning the courses for the return of the OMM to North Wales, feeling particularly privileged to be designing courses in the Ogwen valley and Carneddau. Dave Chapman had successfully negotiated sufficient permissions to run the OMM, but it was going to be a challenge to plan all the courses to the standards that we had set for ourselves.
We were significantly limited with the total event area, and in addition we had limited corridors for movement between the event centre and overnight camp due to land permissions, safe negotiation of the A5 and Ogwen valley floor and several very rough areas that I did not want to encourage competitors to venture into. Consequently, the actual usable event area was probably about half the size of the Langdale event area that I had planned in 2022 and 2017. It was going to be difficult to fit all the courses into the event area to avoid overcrowding and ensure that competitors would not find themselves back in familiar locations on the Sunday that they had already visited on Saturday
With both the event centre and overnight camp located to the West of the event area, a particular challenge was the “Eastern corridor” (highlighted by the red arrow) from the Eigiau valley, across the A5 to the unfrequented small valleys to the East of Tryfan. I was very keen to maximise the number of competitors that could experience these areas, but the complete round would only be possible with the additional time on the Saturday.
Previous convention would dictate that the Elite and A courses would not go through the same areas on the same day and that the Long and Medium Score courses would also be planned in different areas. The shorter B and Short Score courses would not have the time to attempt the “Eastern corridor” on the Saturday, so I had to plan to use the “central corridor” (highlighted by the blue arrow) for the shorter courses on the Saturday, necessitating significant time above 3,000 feet for the runners on these courses. Even the bad weather options for the shorter courses would need to get across the main Carneddau ridge to reach the overnight.
I had reserved an area in the West of the event area (highlighted in pink) as the main area for the shorter courses to navigate on Sunday, consequently these courses needed to be guided either side of the main Carneddau ridge on Saturday to go around the Sunday courses area.
Line courses
One of my priorities was to ensure competitors experienced different areas on the Saturday and the Sunday. With the event area restrictions, I decided to take both the Elite and A courses through the “Eastern corridor” on the Saturday. I was able to separate the two courses for the majority of the day, with only the A5 crossing bringing competitors together. I was able to squeeze in a circumnavigation of Tryfan on the B course for a close up experience of this fantastic area.
The A and Elite courses were taken North then East on the Saturday with the Elite course crossing over the the ridge to the South of the A5 to do a loop just above Pen-y-pass before climbing over the Glyders and dropping back down into the Ogwen valley and the overnight. The A course did a slightly shorter route through the Ogwen Valley, passing to the South of a Tryfan and descending down into the overnight with a tour of the Ogwen Cwms.
The challenge for the B course was to get competitors over the Carneddau ridge on the Saturday with a significant climb from the Event Centre. Runners would need to get over the ridge in order to reach the Ogwen Valley into the overnight. Saturday was a tough day for the short courses as they actually went higher there than the Elite and A courses on day one.
The effective lengths (distance plus climb) of the courses were marginally longer than in Langdale last year, but still significantly shorter when compared to courses such as Largs or Black Mountains due to the difficult terrain and underfoot conditions this year. We aim for a winning time on the Elite course on the Saturday of six and a half hours, and with the fastest team taking six hours 42 minutes we feel the effective course lengths were about right this year. All of the line courses are planned as a percentage of the Elite Saturday course, with the A course being 75% of the Elite and the B course 50% of the Elite. The Sunday courses are 75% of the effective length of their respective Saturday courses. The courses were a bit shorter than originally advertised on the event entry page, so we are looking to be a bit more accurate in our estimates of the length of the line courses for 2024.
I will be writing two detailed companion articles on the strategies and route choices taken by competitors on all courses at this years event and how the choices compared to our expectations. The greatest variety in route choice over the whole weekend was between controls two and three on the Saturday Elite course.
At one point competitors were spread more than one and a half kilometres laterally across the event area. Around 15 different lines were taken between the controls two and three from a field of 25 Elite runners. Looking at the times between the checkpoints, there was no obvious fastest line, which was what I was aiming for in planning that leg.
Some competing teams left checkpoint two together, then ran entirely different routes and arrived at checkpoint three at the same time from opposite directions. Some teams chose a longer route with more height gain but benefited from good paths or trods on reasonable terrain, with other teams taking a shorter route without good trods in less runnable terrain. It was very satisfying to watch this play out live on the tracker page!
The challenge for both the Elite and the A course on the Sunday was to get a long enough course without taking competitors into areas that they had already visited on the Saturday. For both courses I decided to include a triangular loop in the centre of the event area to achieve the desired length. On both courses I managed to position the controls in such a way as to give a few different route options for some of the longer legs. I planned the start of the Sunday Elite course as a reverse of the end of the Saturday A course to include the circuit of Tryfan before the climb of Pen yr Ole Wen. As the A course had experienced close up of Tryfan on Saturday, I decided to start the Sunday course heading North with two long legs with significant route choice between controls three and five.
Routing the A and B courses North on Sunday did cause some congestion as the number of controls that we could place in that part of the Ogwen Valley was limited. National Trust had asked us to ensure that all competitors went a significant way up the track from Ty-gwyn before climbing up the open fell-side, so control AJ was placed quite far up the track for that reason.
On the longer courses I tried to include some controls that were not visible until the last few metres, with changes in slope angle concealing sheepfolds or other features just over a small drop. The hardest control on the whole event area was a shallow re-entrant on the Saturday Elite course just above Pen-y-pass. Several of the Elite teams spent around 10 minutes trying to find the control having arrived at approximately the right location, whilst many elite teams went straight to it, losing no time.
Score courses
I wanted to give significant choice to the score courses on both days, adding a few more controls than seen in recent years. I felt it was going to be impossible to clear any of the courses, so the challenge for teams on the start line was to decide what strategy they were going to take. On Saturday the Long and Medium score teams would need to either commit to the “Eastern corridor” and still leave enough time to go South of Tryfan, or take the more conservative “central corridor” and perhaps include more controls in the Ogwen valley. I had also included the option to go high immediately or stay in the valley to further spread the teams out after the start. Teams taking the high and Eastern route would almost certainly not have enough time to take significant points in the Ogwen Valley as well, unless they had underestimated the distance and difficulty of the terrain!
Short score teams did not have the Eastern option on Saturday, but still had the option to include a close up experience of Tryfan as I was able to squeeze in a circumnavigation in this epic area – although only one pair attempted it! Controls on the Sunday were more densely packed than on Saturday due to the restricted event area, ensuring that many teams actually scored more points on the Sunday than they did on Saturday.
On Sunday I gave both Long and Medium score teams the option to once again return through Ogwen and even take one last tour around Tryfan, or go North from the overnight and perhaps prioritise the controls in the far North of the event area. The start-line challenge once again was to either commit to a strategy to head East to pick up some big point scores around Tryfan, or head to the far North to include the big point controls in that area.
It would be very difficult to cover both areas on the shorter Sunday courses. We saw significant numbers of teams take both options, with more taking the Ogwen option, including going around Tryfan, than we had anticipated. This helped to reduce the congestion through the Ty-gwyn A5 crossing and the first controls immediately to the North of the overnight.
In final planning I decided not to include some of the potential control locations in the valley immediately to the South-East of the day 1 start. This was due to concerns about river crossings in that area if the event was preceded by heavy rain. This limited options for teams heading back to the day 2 finish, so some controls that had been visited on Saturday were included again on Sunday. Fortunately the rivers were running low so teams could safely cross valleys in their lower reaches on both days. I wanted to ensure most competitors came back to the event centre on Sunday having experienced the valley to the North-East and perhaps take in some views of Anglesey and the sea, so BX was given score of 50 points, whilst DO was not included on any Sunday score courses. I wanted to give competitors on all courses a great mountain experience with plenty of route choices and navigation challenges.
On the whole, the vast majority of you seemed to have had a great weekend and I am grateful and somewhat relieved that the planning resulted in lots of happy faces at the overnight and event centre. There were just a few issues to address here. Control AE, just south of Pen yr Ole Wen did cause several teams concerns due to the very slippy scramble approaching from the wall crossing. I selected this site in June when it was very dry, having rejected a nearby location that was even less suitable. I included the control as I wanted to encourage teams not to use the South-West ridge on Pen yr Ole Wen by placing a number of controls on the easier ground further East. Most other issues resulted from the smaller than usual event area causing some overcrowding at controls, particularly early on Sunday, resulting in reduced navigation challenge for some teams.
Finally, a heart-felt thank you to all of you for coming to experience such a fantastic event area. I really enjoyed speaking to many of you over the weekend and subsequently receiving further feedback in the Facebook OMM Competitors Group. Please feel free to reach out to me there if you have any further comments.
Hopefully Eryri 2023 will be one of the OMMs that we all remember for a long time and I expect we can look forward to returning to the area in the future. I hope to see you in the Southern Highlands in 2024.
About a year ago I started planning the courses for the return of the OMM to North Wales, feeling particularly privileged to be designing courses in the Ogwen valley and Carneddau. Dave Chapman had successfully negotiated sufficient permissions to run the OMM, but it was going to be a challenge to plan all the courses to the standards that we had set for ourselves.
We were significantly limited with the total event area, and in addition we had limited corridors for movement between the event centre and overnight camp due to land permissions, safe negotiation of the A5 and Ogwen valley floor and several very rough areas that I did not want to encourage competitors to venture into. Consequently, the actual usable event area was probably about half the size of the Langdale event area that I had planned in 2022 and 2017. It was going to be difficult to fit all the courses into the event area to avoid overcrowding and ensure that competitors would not find themselves back in familiar locations on the Sunday that they had already visited on Saturday
With both the event centre and overnight camp located to the West of the event area, a particular challenge was the “Eastern corridor” (highlighted by the red arrow) from the Eigiau valley, across the A5 to the unfrequented small valleys to the East of Tryfan. I was very keen to maximise the number of competitors that could experience these areas, but the complete round would only be possible with the additional time on the Saturday.
Previous convention would dictate that the Elite and A courses would not go through the same areas on the same day and that the Long and Medium Score courses would also be planned in different areas. The shorter B and Short Score courses would not have the time to attempt the “Eastern corridor” on the Saturday, so I had to plan to use the “central corridor” (highlighted by the blue arrow) for the shorter courses on the Saturday, necessitating significant time above 3,000 feet for the runners on these courses. Even the bad weather options for the shorter courses would need to get across the main Carneddau ridge to reach the overnight.
I had reserved an area in the West of the event area (highlighted in pink) as the main area for the shorter courses to navigate on Sunday, consequently these courses needed to be guided either side of the main Carneddau ridge on Saturday to go around the Sunday courses area.
Line courses
One of my priorities was to ensure competitors experienced different areas on the Saturday and the Sunday. With the event area restrictions, I decided to take both the Elite and A courses through the “Eastern corridor” on the Saturday. I was able to separate the two courses for the majority of the day, with only the A5 crossing bringing competitors together. I was able to squeeze in a circumnavigation of Tryfan on the B course for a close up experience of this fantastic area.
The A and Elite courses were taken North then East on the Saturday with the Elite course crossing over the the ridge to the South of the A5 to do a loop just above Pen-y-pass before climbing over the Glyders and dropping back down into the Ogwen valley and the overnight. The A course did a slightly shorter route through the Ogwen Valley, passing to the South of a Tryfan and descending down into the overnight with a tour of the Ogwen Cwms.
The challenge for the B course was to get competitors over the Carneddau ridge on the Saturday with a significant climb from the Event Centre. Runners would need to get over the ridge in order to reach the Ogwen Valley into the overnight. Saturday was a tough day for the short courses as they actually went higher there than the Elite and A courses on day one.
The effective lengths (distance plus climb) of the courses were marginally longer than in Langdale last year, but still significantly shorter when compared to courses such as Largs or Black Mountains due to the difficult terrain and underfoot conditions this year. We aim for a winning time on the Elite course on the Saturday of six and a half hours, and with the fastest team taking six hours 42 minutes we feel the effective course lengths were about right this year. All of the line courses are planned as a percentage of the Elite Saturday course, with the A course being 75% of the Elite and the B course 50% of the Elite. The Sunday courses are 75% of the effective length of their respective Saturday courses. The courses were a bit shorter than originally advertised on the event entry page, so we are looking to be a bit more accurate in our estimates of the length of the line courses for 2024.
I will be writing two detailed companion articles on the strategies and route choices taken by competitors on all courses at this years event and how the choices compared to our expectations. The greatest variety in route choice over the whole weekend was between controls two and three on the Saturday Elite course.
At one point competitors were spread more than one and a half kilometres laterally across the event area. Around 15 different lines were taken between the controls two and three from a field of 25 Elite runners. Looking at the times between the checkpoints, there was no obvious fastest line, which was what I was aiming for in planning that leg.
Some competing teams left checkpoint two together, then ran entirely different routes and arrived at checkpoint three at the same time from opposite directions. Some teams chose a longer route with more height gain but benefited from good paths or trods on reasonable terrain, with other teams taking a shorter route without good trods in less runnable terrain. It was very satisfying to watch this play out live on the tracker page!
The challenge for both the Elite and the A course on the Sunday was to get a long enough course without taking competitors into areas that they had already visited on the Saturday. For both courses I decided to include a triangular loop in the centre of the event area to achieve the desired length. On both courses I managed to position the controls in such a way as to give a few different route options for some of the longer legs. I planned the start of the Sunday Elite course as a reverse of the end of the Saturday A course to include the circuit of Tryfan before the climb of Pen yr Ole Wen. As the A course had experienced close up of Tryfan on Saturday, I decided to start the Sunday course heading North with two long legs with significant route choice between controls three and five.
Routing the A and B courses North on Sunday did cause some congestion as the number of controls that we could place in that part of the Ogwen Valley was limited. National Trust had asked us to ensure that all competitors went a significant way up the track from Ty-gwyn before climbing up the open fell-side, so control AJ was placed quite far up the track for that reason.
On the longer courses I tried to include some controls that were not visible until the last few metres, with changes in slope angle concealing sheepfolds or other features just over a small drop. The hardest control on the whole event area was a shallow re-entrant on the Saturday Elite course just above Pen-y-pass. Several of the Elite teams spent around 10 minutes trying to find the control having arrived at approximately the right location, whilst many elite teams went straight to it, losing no time.
Score courses
I wanted to give significant choice to the score courses on both days, adding a few more controls than seen in recent years. I felt it was going to be impossible to clear any of the courses, so the challenge for teams on the start line was to decide what strategy they were going to take. On Saturday the Long and Medium score teams would need to either commit to the “Eastern corridor” and still leave enough time to go South of Tryfan, or take the more conservative “central corridor” and perhaps include more controls in the Ogwen valley. I had also included the option to go high immediately or stay in the valley to further spread the teams out after the start. Teams taking the high and Eastern route would almost certainly not have enough time to take significant points in the Ogwen Valley as well, unless they had underestimated the distance and difficulty of the terrain!
Short score teams did not have the Eastern option on Saturday, but still had the option to include a close up experience of Tryfan as I was able to squeeze in a circumnavigation in this epic area – although only one pair attempted it! Controls on the Sunday were more densely packed than on Saturday due to the restricted event area, ensuring that many teams actually scored more points on the Sunday than they did on Saturday.
On Sunday I gave both Long and Medium score teams the option to once again return through Ogwen and even take one last tour around Tryfan, or go North from the overnight and perhaps prioritise the controls in the far North of the event area. The start-line challenge once again was to either commit to a strategy to head East to pick up some big point scores around Tryfan, or head to the far North to include the big point controls in that area.
It would be very difficult to cover both areas on the shorter Sunday courses. We saw significant numbers of teams take both options, with more taking the Ogwen option, including going around Tryfan, than we had anticipated. This helped to reduce the congestion through the Ty-gwyn A5 crossing and the first controls immediately to the North of the overnight.
In final planning I decided not to include some of the potential control locations in the valley immediately to the South-East of the day 1 start. This was due to concerns about river crossings in that area if the event was preceded by heavy rain. This limited options for teams heading back to the day 2 finish, so some controls that had been visited on Saturday were included again on Sunday. Fortunately the rivers were running low so teams could safely cross valleys in their lower reaches on both days. I wanted to ensure most competitors came back to the event centre on Sunday having experienced the valley to the North-East and perhaps take in some views of Anglesey and the sea, so BX was given score of 50 points, whilst DO was not included on any Sunday score courses. I wanted to give competitors on all courses a great mountain experience with plenty of route choices and navigation challenges.
On the whole, the vast majority of you seemed to have had a great weekend and I am grateful and somewhat relieved that the planning resulted in lots of happy faces at the overnight and event centre. There were just a few issues to address here. Control AE, just south of Pen yr Ole Wen did cause several teams concerns due to the very slippy scramble approaching from the wall crossing. I selected this site in June when it was very dry, having rejected a nearby location that was even less suitable. I included the control as I wanted to encourage teams not to use the South-West ridge on Pen yr Ole Wen by placing a number of controls on the easier ground further East. Most other issues resulted from the smaller than usual event area causing some overcrowding at controls, particularly early on Sunday, resulting in reduced navigation challenge for some teams.
Finally, a heart-felt thank you to all of you for coming to experience such a fantastic event area. I really enjoyed speaking to many of you over the weekend and subsequently receiving further feedback in the Facebook OMM Competitors Group. Please feel free to reach out to me there if you have any further comments.
Hopefully Eryri 2023 will be one of the OMMs that we all remember for a long time and I expect we can look forward to returning to the area in the future. I hope to see you in the Southern Highlands in 2024.
If you have a story to tell, whether it’s from the OMM, another race or challenge or just how you use our kit, get in touch! Just pop an email to james@team-ark.com and who knows, you might just earn yourself some free kit!
More Like this
Original Everest Marathon
Fell Running Royalty Wendy Dodds provides us with an insight into the Original Everest Marathon, a unique event in the shadow of Sagarmatha.