The Original Mountain Marathon 2006
Damp and Murky Conditions Ahead
Rob Howard / 26.10.2006
Well, the good news about the weather forecasts for the weekend is the lack of gales, floods and severe weather warnings (the normal conditions for a Galloway OMM).If the Met Office is right with their 5-day prediction it’s going to be relatively ‘quiet’ weather for a Galloway event ... but not necessarily dry, or easy.
Current predictions are for light rain during Saturday and warm conditions (a sweaty 15C in day and a balmy 10C overnight), but the prediction of ‘very poor visibility’ might be of most concern. That is unless you are an ace navigator and positively look forward to murky weather to send faster, but more navigationally challenged competitors, off in the wrong direction!
The Galloway Hills are difficult terrain for navigation and in poor weather it could be a weekend where the top navigators are in their element. There are over 100 lochs in the Forest Park, and if one of these appears from the gloom you’ll need to be very sure you know which one it is!
It’s been raining very hard this week too and there are large areas of bog and marsh in Galloway Forest Park (fed by over 300 miles of rivers). ‘Wet underfoot’ is probably and understatement, and the rivers that will have to be crossed might be fast flowing.
The rain has already affected the logistics at the event HQ at the old Talnotry camping and caravan site. With more rain to come the race organisers have issued this warning;
“Runners intending to register on Saturday morning should note that due to bad weather all parking will be on forest roads. Allow one hour from the car park to registration and another hour to the start. That’s 2 hours.�
Things could be brighter on Sunday. There is a symbol with the sun peeping out from behind a cloud on the BBC weather forecast – which means sunny intervals – but some other forecasts still predict 100% cloud cover. It will still be warm, but visibility is only forecast to improve from ‘very poor’ to ‘poor’.
Still, it could be worse!See All Event Posts
