LAMM 2011

A surprisingly sunny weekend in the North of Scotland – it must be the LAMM weekend again, and even the midges stayed away this year (well most of the time anyway). Besides some rain on the afternoon and evening of the overnight camp, the rest of the weekend was fantastic. Which translated to a very interesting sunburn pattern at the end of the weekend after I decided that the sun wouldn’t be in evidence. The course was even better – the venue was just South East of Ullapool and with some very wild country with big hills. The usual tactic of team Penderis and Peplinski of getting lost was thwarted this year by the sunny weather and good visibility, and my new thumb compass meant that we even made a few inspired route choices. We were both slower than last year due to various injury niggles interfering with training, but still managed a respectable enough 22nd place on the B course and an extra 20minutes or so would have meant a top 10 placing, oh well. George’s evening meal choice of smoked sausage with pasta was up to his usual impressive standard, and a lot of jealous fellow competitors were eyeing up his erm, well, sausage. Didn’t see any other Westies there, but the later afternoon rain on the Saturday evening meant that most people retreated to their tents for a couple of hours and I could just have missed them.
What did I learn this year to add to the growing list of things I have learnt on the LAMM: well, using last years balloons for my balloon bed is a bad idea, evidenced by the popping sounds of perished balloons once I crawled into my sleeping bag, accompanied by laughter from the neighbouring tents and a night on the cold ground. At least we had chosen some soft ground to camp on. But otherwise it was an almost perfect weekend of running and navigation out in the hills. Roll on next year’s LAMM.