Race Director Dave Chapman talks us through the lead up to the 55th OMM in Glen Artney
Blog
Emily Woodhouse
It all started, like many mad ideas, at the pub. My friend Mark was recounting (not for the first time) how he and another mutual friend had an epic on their last OMM. It was Langdale 2017, the 50th OMM and an event so apocalyptic that tales of its suffering have been told in pubs worldwide. I’ve heard stories of emergency camps, tents flattened at midnight by the roaring wind and people with solid mountain experience getting completely turned around in the fog. Many people had unfinished business with Langdale.
I am not a runner. Mark, on the other hand, is the sort of person who qualifies for the Iron Man World Championships. But I’d spent enough time stomping around the hills and mountains of the UK to be familiar with the OMM. My friends at university did it every year, even though it was during term time. What better way to spend a weekend than charging around the fells getting soaked? But as a non-runner, or at least someone who owned a pair of trainers but spent most of their time walking, I felt like someone needed to ask me. I secretly wanted to have a go, but waited patiently like a teenage prom date for someone to ask me. And no one ever did. So when, in that cosy pub in January many years later, Mark turned to me and asked if I’d do the OMM with him, I knew I had to say yes. Because what was the chance of anyone ever being mad enough to ask me again? Of course, I didn’t say yes straight up. I had no idea whether I could run a mountain marathon.
The last 5k I’d done was in Primary School cross country.
It all started, like many mad ideas, at the pub. My friend Mark was recounting (not for the first time) how he and another mutual friend had an epic on their last OMM. It was Langdale 2017, the 50th OMM and an event so apocalyptic that tales of its suffering have been told in pubs worldwide. I’ve heard stories of emergency camps, tents flattened at midnight by the roaring wind and people with solid mountain experience getting completely turned around in the fog. Many people had unfinished business with Langdale.
I am not a runner. Mark, on the other hand, is the sort of person who qualifies for the Iron Man World Championships. But I’d spent enough time stomping around the hills and mountains of the UK to be familiar with the OMM. My friends at university did it every year, even though it was during term time. What better way to spend a weekend than charging around the fells getting soaked? But as a non-runner, or at least someone who owned a pair of trainers but spent most of their time walking, I felt like someone needed to ask me. I secretly wanted to have a go, but waited patiently like a teenage prom date for someone to ask me. And no one ever did. So when, in that cosy pub in January many years later, Mark turned to me and asked if I’d do the OMM with him, I knew I had to say yes. Because what was the chance of anyone ever being mad enough to ask me again? Of course, I didn’t say yes straight up. I had no idea whether I could run a mountain marathon.
The last 5k I’d done was in Primary School cross country.
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