Mini Mountain Marathon by Lyndsey Carter

Mini Mountain Marathon

6 months ago when my training was going well, I decided to book onto my 1^st mini Mountain Marathon, and roped Mark into being my team mate (lucky mark!). Unfortunately since then my training went downhill due to injury, but decided to just go for it, using it more as navigational training with a lot of walking and maybe a tiny bit of running!!! Famous last words!

Mark had given me one basic lesson in navigation and map reading the week before, so I had a vague idea of which way round to hold a map and take a bearing, no problem (!)

The venue was Edale, which was a beautiful little village in Derbyshire, it was a dry crisp morning and I was feeling raring to go! The event was made up of teams and solo’s and the aim was to visit as many check points in 3 hours, collecting points, the harder checkpoints are worth more scores.

We got registered, put my fell shoes on for the 1^st time in 7 months, checked our ‘dibbers’ in the start point and off we went. Well not quite, we had a look at the map, worked out which check points would be easy enough for me to get with fitness and injury still playing a part. Before we knew it we were going for ones we hadn’t originally planned on, getting a bit caught up in the competition (maybe mark more than me!)

The time passed so quick, not to many mishaps, just a couple of comedy falls by me ( I look up to find mark laughing his head off!) went over on the ankle a few too many times, so was a bit wary after that. Time was ticking and we were at the top of a fell with quite a way to go with 10 minutes left on the clock – uh oh! So we legged it down, staying on my feet and just tried to keep moving. If you are late back you get points taken off you, so the sooner we got back the better, we got checked at the finish in 3.02.05, so we were deducted 3 points.

Our total points was 147, and we came 66^th out of 143. I loved every minute of it, and surprised myself at how well we did, but I think that’s down to Mark’s navigation, I was tired on the second half, so mark took over navigation and I kept moving in the right direction.

I can’t wait for January for the next one!