Ruth and I had said many times over the years that it would be really interesting to enter a mountain marathon together and see whether we’d be a competitive pair. 2022 was the year it became a reality, and we picked the inaugural Kong Mountain Marathon, to be held on the Isle of Arran. I’ve enjoyed several of Kong’s ‘Mini Mountain Marathons’ in the Lake District over the last few years – four-hour score events – so was keen to support the organisers in their attempt to re-establish a Scottish mountain marathon following the demise of the LAMM and Highlander.
For the uninitiated: a mountain marathon is not a marathon held on mountainous terrain. It’s an endurance race held over two days (generally), with pairs of runners backpacking through the mountains via a series of checkpoints, only made known at the start of the race. The course is unmarked and you’re responsible for your own route choice and navigation, and have to carry all the kit and food required for the two days and overnight ‘mid-camp’. Generally there’s a choice of linear courses (a set of checkpoints to be visited in order) and score courses (score as many points as possible by visiting checkpoints in a time limit). For this event, we chose the middle of the three linear courses (‘B’), which we hoped would present a achievable challenge. (Even if we’d wanted, we weren’t eligible for the ‘A’ course, neither of us having previously completed a similar event.)
I took the Friday off work to make the journey up to the Highlands easy. We shopped for race provisions in Kendal in the morning, then made our way north to Ardrossan, where we enjoyed fish and chips for lunch. We then headed to the port to catch our 3:20pm ferry to Brodick, a fairly quiet and very smooth crossing, with lots of other race competitors also travelling as foot passengers.
Once on the island, it was only a 15 minute walk along the sea front to Arran Sports Association, which was the location of the event centre and base camp. We pitched our big tent (on the rugby pitch!), went to registration to collect our SI cards and commemorative T-shirts, and then enjoyed the pasta dinner offered at camp. A folk band provided ceilidh-style accompaniment inside, and the local pipe band unexpectedly (at least by us!) turned up for a rehearsal outside. We got a fairly early night to be as well rested as possible before the race.
On Saturday morning, we had a fairly early start to have our breakfast (bacon rolls again laid on by the race organisers) and pack up our race bags. Paring down our kit a bit compared with our regular Highland backpacking list, we easily fitted everything into 32 litre rucksacks that didn’t feel too heavy on the back. With hindsight, and with a bit of refinement, we might just about have managed with 25 litre bags (not that I own a suitable one!).
It was a couple of kilometres’ walk to the start, the other side of Brodick Bay at the Castle, and a very scenic walk along the beach in the sunshine at that. Our allocated start window was 8:30-8:45am, and we were underway promptly at the start of that period. We picked up up our maps and control cards and spent a few minutes marking on the map which 10 of the 70 controls we needed to visit that day. It turned out, as we’d guessed, that the mid-camp was in Lochranza at the north end of the island.
Our strategy was that, as the stronger runner, I would take the lead on the navigation, to allow Ruth to concentrate on just covering the ground as quickly as possible. The day started with a few fairly flat kilometres on paths into Glen Rosa, which we could mostly jog. Then the going got steeper, with a long climb up Beinn Nuis, taking a couple of diversions off the path to visit controls 2 and 3. Control 4 was by a rocky outcrop, just off the summit.
That was pretty much the end of the path-work for the day! A descending traverse north took us over quite rough ground to control 5 at a stream junction in Garbh-choire Dubh. Then we turned west for a long, hard trudge through Glen Iorsa – exceptionally tussocky! – and past the south end of Loch Tanna to reach control 6 by the higher-level Dubh Loch. Next, heading northeast, we ascended onto Beinn Tarsuinn’s west top and control 7 (the 556m Beinn Tarsuinn, that is, not the Corbett).
From there, we contoured around Beinn Tarsuinn’s east top and the slopes of Beinn Bhreac (more awkward ground) to reach the minor summit of Beinn Bhiorach (control 8). Some boggy but welcome trods eased progress from there down to control 9 by the Abhainn Bheag (river), before the trickiest navigation of the day led us down to control 10 on the coast path. That just left a flattish run-in to the finish by the castle on Loch Ranza. We were glad to reach the end of the day, but not totally exhausted, probably because the terrain had necessitated a high proportion of walking, and we’re well practiced at long, hilly walks!
We called in at download in the village hall before heading to mid-camp, a little further up the road at an outdoor centre. Soon we’d pitched our tent and done some useful refuelling and rehydration. It had stayed pretty sunny all day, but we could see that it was clouding over quite quickly, so decided to cook our dinner (flavoured couscous, as usual when backpacking) quite early, around 5pm. This proved a good decision as by 6 there were a few drops of rain falling and the midges had started to come out for dinner too! We escaped both by heading back to the village hall, where we could look at the results for the day, and see maps of all the courses. We were pleased to find that we’d finished in 6th place for Day 1, out of 43 pairs on our course. The organisers had put on a ceilidh for the evening. Like most of the race participants, we saved our energy by enjoying the music but not dancing!
Light rain continued on-and-off through the night, but had just about stopped by the time we were thinking about getting up, around 6:15am. It didn’t take very long to have our breakfast and pack up, and we were on the start line for Day 2 by around 7:15. We had thought the course would be significantly easier than Day 1, but it turned out only to be slightly shorter in distance, and with similar ascent. Lucky we hadn’t used up all our energy!
The start was up Gleann Easan Biorach for a short distance, then very steeply uphill onto the crags of Torr Nead an Eoin (control 1). We’d have located it more quickly if we’d read the control description, telling us it was above the crag, not below in the gully as I’d incorrectly inferred from the map! We then had a boggy jog on various trods along the Clachan ridge and down to the main road. It was back to walking pace as we climbed straight up the other side (via control 2 at a fence corner) to the ridge of Fionn Bhealach and very steeply back down (through heather and bracken – not much fun) to the coast near Millstone Point (control 3).
Then came the easiest running of the event, several kilometres of flat coast path to North Sannox, where control 4 was near the far side of the stepping stones across the river. Then came the main climb of the day, initially on paths to control 5 by the stream below Coire na Ciche, then much more steeply and roughly south onto Am Binnein (control 6). We were glad to reach the flatter, rockier ground of the ridge, which had traces of a path, and very good views of Goat Fell and the coast.
The hard work was now mostly done. We followed the ridge up to the summit of Goatfell (control 7 was hanging on the trig point), and then jogged down the tourist path to control 8 by Cnocan Burn. Forest paths then led us down via the final control to the finish, back at Brodick Castle. A classic finish to a great mountain expedition! We had covered a total of around 57km and 2800m ascent over the two days.
We were randomly selected for a kit check, so had to show the finish marshal that we did indeed have everything on the mandatory list. Then we ambled back along the beach and coast path to Brodick village to download our results. We got changed into clean clothes, then enjoyed the vegetable chilli and cakes provided for lunch, although we felt the portions were a bit disappointing!
Having taken down the base camp tent and packed our bags, we returned to the download room to check out the results, and were pleased to find that we’d gone one better to come 5th for Day 2, and that that had been enough to move us up to 5th place overall! 14 of the 43 pairs had failed to complete the full two-day course, as had 9 of the 18 on the ‘A’ course! So we were quite proud of our result on our first mountain marathon!
We caught the 4:40pm ferry back to Ardrossan and drove back to Ruth’s house for the night, and I continued to Derby on Monday morning for an afternoon of washing, drying and sorting gear.
In summary, a really enjoyable weekend in the mountains, and definitely the type of event I’ll do again. I gather that the event didn’t quite break even, so I hope that the organisers do find a way to make it profitable and organise more editions in future years. It was very well organised, with well-designed courses to provide physical and technical challenge, and deserves to be a success.
Our full route is approximately shown here: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/2019546.
The courses and my GPX track can also be seen on Routegadget: Day 1 here, Day 2 here.
A few more photos can be seen on Google Photos here.
David Pettit's photo blog 