The frankly scary story this week of the Original Mountain Marathon runners in Cumbria, who battled floods and gale force winds this past weekend in the middle of nowhere (whilst not being allowed to take GPS devices or mobile phones), suddenly focused the public eye on endurance races and the fine line they can tread between challenging and mindless adrenalin-chasing. An orienteering task combined with a harsh test of strength and speed, the race is one for fearless people with a solid sense of direction, which must be pretty hard to maintain when you can’t see the sun, recognisable landmarks are hidden behind sheets of rain and flooding completely disguises the topography.
At last, on Sunday all unaccounted-for runners were tracked down via helicopter from the 2-day OMM after the race was abandoned; but that did not help runners avoid hypothermia, the threat of being washed away and a traumatic night in the cold hills. It sounded like an ordeal straight out of the Bible.
Beyond the physical test, it’s the mental trickery that runners use that’s really interesting. Racing can be both painful and monotonous in the best of conditions, and everyone has their own way of making themselves push on, and speed up; it’s a bizarre measure of willpower over good sense. The OMM organisers are bullishly committed to the ‘authentic experience’ of the course, and the reason the race is traditionally scheduled for late October in the first place is to ‘enhance’ the unpleasantness of the experience.
What makes people throw themselves into these extreme situations? You would think, in the interests of safety, at least one person in every team would be carrying an emergency Garmin or iPhone. That they weren’t was the great mistake, I think, on the part of the rule-makers who stuck to the original manifesto of the race, instead of having the wisdom to acknowledge the usefulness of twenty-first-century gadgets. You can appreciate the romantic notion of going into the wild and leaving technology behind; but thousands of people participate in that race every year, and the likelihood of some being unprepared for it, never mind freezing typhoons, must be high.
A week before this race, I ran one myself, in the Highlands – but despite the far shorter, easier course, I still managed to bust a leg while in some remote brae/glen and then stressed about limping back to civilisation. Several fellow runners shouted encouragement or shared their personal mantras as they zipped by, some crazier than others: ‘Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional!’ yelled one zealous pensioner. Proof that, if nothing else, runners are just like any other fanatic chasing a high, and could use more responsible, controlled supervision.
