Dark Mountains
A Dark Mountain Night
Alex Pilkington – Team Mountain Hardwear / 31.01.2013
A Mountain Marathon at night time in January – what a crazy concept, but this appealed as it would be a testing challenge of endurance, navigation skills, personal resolve and good kit. Kim and Alex decided to team up and put in an entry to the Elite Class, also being slightly enticed by the generous prize booty! This inaugural event was staged from the beautiful Muncaster Castle. The weather had conspired to make things difficult for the competition, with heavy showers and high wind throughout the night, also ground conditions were terrible with a good deep layer of snow on the higher ground, which had then turned heavy and slushy with all the rain.
Starting a race at 8pm is an odd time to set off and left a day to pack and faff – kit choice was tricky, so we decided to bring lots of stuff and sort it all out at the event centre beforehand. Usually we both run with minimal clothing using the energy we burn to generate our warmth, we knew this approach was not suitable as we would be out for a long time and at times we would be moving slowly or standing around to navigate.
Just to give you an idea of kit, starting from the feet up we both used inov-8 Orocs – Kim had the Roclite version and I had the old Mudclaw version, the studs were helpful on the icy patches which were hidden and frequent, inside the shoes we had 2 pairs of socks with Sealskinz on top to help keep the heat in. On the legs we both wore full length tights with Mountain Hardwear Plasmic Pants (Dry.QCore waterproof fabric). For the body we wore Mountain Hardwear Elmoro L/S Zip Neck thermal, Densa Hoodie as the Hooded/Balaclava Fleece top and then the amazing Dry.QElite Quasar Pullover Smock - I have to sing the praise of the Dry.QElite air-permeable waterproof material, it is so good at breathing in wet/wet conditions and has out-performed our previous Gore-tex jackets which are not air-permeable. Ours are not super lightweight fabrics as we have chosen to use the more durable Ueli Steck designed alpine jacket for our multisport races.
For us air-permeable and breathable fabrics are the way forward for high intensity sports in wet conditions – definitely recommend trying one! On my head it was a Mountain Hardwear AirShield windproof hat and the hoods from the two jackets – drawn up as tight as possible! – lastly the hands, Kim used a new technology glove from Mountain Hardwear that uses Outdry and Q.Shield technology combined to keep that hands dry. Alex used neoprene cycle gloves that work well when wet.
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