Report from Andy Buck

ROC Mountain Marathon 28 and 29 September 2019

This year’s ROC Mountain Marathon was held in the Lowther Hills, which are about 20 miles north of Dumfries in the Scottish Southern Uplands, a pretty unfrequented area and not one we had been to before.  Dave Parry and I entered the medium score class, requiring us to visit as many controls of our choice in six hours on day one, and five hours on day two.

Upon being presented with the map as we started, we were somewhat bewildered by the huge number of controls from which to choose – 53 on day one and 50 on day two.  What is more, there were very few high scoring controls and these were, for mere mortals like us, too far away to contemplate visiting.  As out turned out we managed 15 controls on day one and 12 on day two, and scored 230 points on each day.  We finished in 42nd place out of 77 finishers in the medium score class, and 12th of 40 vets in the same class, in a total time over the two days of 10:22:44.  As is so often the case we made a couple of relatively minor, but nonetheless time and energy sapping navigational errors – including searching for a “stream end” that turned out to be a “stream middle” in full flow.

That’s it for MMs this year – we’re not doing the OMM.  As ever, it would be great to see more Striders having a crack at these great events next year.

The winners were a mix pair, Alastair Graves / Catriona Graves with a total of 725 points in 10.38.53