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LAMM Full With New Ideas

Rob / 31.05.2005

Organiser Martin Stone describes this year’s Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon entry as “quite extraordinary, without precedent and remarkable”. Entries have suddenly grown by 30% in one year after steady support from loyal competitors over a period of 12 years and he’s not sure why ... but he’s not complaining!

This year’s race is being over the weekend of June 18/19th, and although no one knows where yet, it will be a bit further south in Scotland than some previous races, which might have encourage the increase in entries. (Details will only be released on the LAMM website on Thursday 16th.)

There are several innovations this year too, including issuing two special double-sided maps with some of the irrelevant tourist symbols and boundaries removed. One side will be at a scale of 1:40,000, to help plan routes to within a few hundred metres of each control and the other will be at 1:25,000 which ‘should’ make it easy to navigate to the exact control location. ALL control features will be mapped on the 1:25,000 map, but not necessarily on the 1:40,000 map and it will be interesting to see how competitors cope with this innovation.

There should be more teams in the day 2 chasing start too, with the time limit extended to 90 minutes of the leaders, which will make for more exciting head-to-head racing. The leaders on each course will also be asked to contribute to the race web-cast and SleepMonsters reporter Jon Brooke will there covering the race, which you can follow here over the weekend of the competition.

The LAMM is also the latest race to use our PhotoSales system to allow competitors to buy digital images of themselves racing shortly after the event. Jon will be trying to get a shot of every teamthrough the weekend. Another twist is that the LAMM is being used for the University Mountain Marathon Championships, organised by Adam Stirk of Durham University. (Details are on the LAMM website.)

Course planner Andy Creber has given some hints on what lays ahead too. He says the general area rises to over 3000ft and is “typically impressive Scottish mountain country, with some crags about 1000ft high”. Yes, 1000ft! He added, “Where streams descend apparently easy-angled hillsides they often run in shallow but vertical ravines, or flow over slabby rock.” Naturally these have heavily influenced the courses on day 1. The LAMM is also a race known for it’s ‘surprises’ there will no doubt be a few of those as well ...

You can visit the race website at www.lamm.co.uk.