UKH

After a day too many sat inside looking at others' running achievements, I signed up to this year's OMM. I may come to regret this.

What I failed to think of is how much new kit I would need. A lot of the articles I've read are for people in it to win it, rather than desperately hoping to survive. This is going to be both my & my partner's first multi-day event, so I'm lacking a lot of the superlight camping kit, plus a suitably big bag (I presume taking a crag bag, isn't going to be advisable?)

Has anyone got any recommendations for kit for the average OMM attempter?

Well, it is hard to advise not knowing why you all ready have?

I can get all my kit comfortably in the OMM 25 classic. 
 

Big weight savings are obvs tent, sleeping bag, food and maybe stove.

I'm very much from the 'all the gear, no idea' school but here's what I've learned from my experience competing (Competing is generous. Really, it's turning up and inwardly questioning my life decisions.) I've done a few OMMs over the years. Never particularly well but none of us has died. Yet.

* You don't need a specific rucksack. I used a 25L Montane Cobra for several races. This was fine.

* 2 man tents are fine. Just accept you'll be slower.

* Slow in the wrong direction is better than fast in the wrong direction.

* Pack a tiny luxury for overnight. My partner goes for whiskey. I go for a mini pack of cards. It's a long night.

* Prepare for everything to be wet. Everything. Dry bags are key.

* Use your day 1 maps as extra tent floor insulation.

* Read the map carefully. There are often 'mandatory check points' - even on score classes and sometimes they must be visited in a specific order. I have learned this the hard way....

* Take plastic bags for your feet at overnight camp. Check they are big enough before you get to camp.... (Again, learned the hard way)

* Balloon beds are stupid. Take a traditional foam roll mat. In a bin bag.

* Triple check your stove. Pack an extra lighter 

* Being at the start line after too many beers the previous evening is part of the experience.

* The start line is further than you think.

* No matter the weather, go for short shorts. You'll look pro and have dry tights for camp.

* Get up early day 2 to beat the poo queue.

* The water is probably safe to drink.

* Don't forget the clocks go back. 

* TAKE SPARE SOCKS.

* A windproof top is a great thing to have for a minimal weight penalty in October conditions. 

*  Eat on the uphills, run the downhills and the flat bits.

* It's a long day, no matter what course you do. Take it easy from the start. Do a little bit of distance, find a spot. Look at the map. Make a plan. You won't stick to the plan but that's part of the fun.

* Jelly babies are amazing. 

* 1:40 Harvey Maps are weird and confusing until you get used to them. I look forward to the day when I am used to them. 

* Training is akin to a performance enhancing drug and therefore cheating.

We're not competing this year but hopefully doing the OMM Lite in May. Have a brilliant time! Which class are you doing?

BB

Pretty much my running 'career' in a single sentence.

I can see why you question your decisions given some of the below...

I'd agree with this, although if you plan on doing a lot of running a proper running sack is a lot nicer.

Seems like a way to justify going slow to me Better to just make sure you get your nav right, regardless of speed.

This includes your feet - whatever shoe you put on them will be overcome. Get some waterproof socks too to run in.

A modern light inflatable mattress is infinitely warmer and smaller. 

Or matches and double dry-bag them. Splash out on dried food - it's grim but at the time anything warm you put in your mouth will taste great. The weight saving is not insubstantial.

Grim, why would you do that to yourself?

If you get cold you can put your waterproofs on. Running over trousers are incredibly warm.

Pretty sure this is mandated anyway. Wear them inside your plastic bags at the overnight.

Practice walking up hill and simultaneously map reading, it will save you loads of time. Trust your partners nav - discuss and overall plan at the start, the leapfrog each other. You nav to CP1, them to CP2 etc. Prep your next stage whilst they nav. 

Each to their own - but try the food you plan to eat. Have you ever sustained yourself on pure sugar for 5 hours? It does odd things to your innards. Pre-roasted, salted new potatoes are a great carb rich alternate for when you're sick of sugar.

Practice with a 1:40k map first for this reason.

Training makes the whole thing a whole lot more pleasant when you don't. die on the second ascent of the day. 

To add to this: account for the fitness of your partner. Don't kill them, our let them kill you - managed to lose a lot of places in the past doing this myself!

I'd listen to Ian.

He sounds a lot better at this than me!

Nah you've got some good bits If I really was better I (we) wouldn't have managed to turn 11th on the first day into 21st on the second last time out...

Some great advice on here. Only done two so hardly a vereran but things we did differently second time to first time...all relevant to long score....

Start slowwww. It's a long day and the most important bit is the last 2 hours on day one, not the first two. I was wasted after day 1 first time out, second time more sensible and much more enjoyable. 

Read the rules. We had a great time on day 2 on our first year, except that we didn't read the map properly and finished an hour too early. Whoops!

When in doubt run slower and eat. Have to say we found the nav easy, but finding the fast or easy line needs a bit of thinking so eat while you are doing it. 

Be warm at camp. An extra dry layer, even a light one makes the world seem a kinder place.

Have spare spare matches or a lighter. Three different sets of our neighbours at camp couldn't light their cookers until we gave them dry matches.

Day 2 is blast off day. Go for it.  Hunt down the large point scores and gamble. Worked for us as we jumped from 4th to winning the generation class and had a real fun time!

Not seen it mentioned but don’t fall into the trap of following people, there is no guarantee that A. They are on the same course as you B. They know where they are going

Also take a new full gas canister, not that one you find at the bottom of your bits box in the garage

Do some normal orienteering events. You'll become better at adapting to varying scales. The controls compared MMs are much closer together, so once out on a mountain course you'll feel like you have loads of thinking time. 

Learn and be honest about your strengths. Are you really good at going on a bearing, or is it safer to break it down and pick a longer route with a few attack points. Are you strong and can run straight over the hill or better to contour around. 

Arrive early for everything, you don't want to be rushing away from your car to the start, pondering if you packed X and Y, it'll cloud your thoughts. 

Putting in a couple of wet wipes, bit of Vaseline, tape and compeed is worth the weight. 

If you are doing the score pretend you have 1 hr less than you do, but have an eye on a couple of controls(near or towards the finish) you can divert to in the unlikely event you are time rich. Double check control numbers, never presume.

Do at least 100miles in your chosen footwear prior to the event. Wear nothing new. 

It's unlikely to be open starts, but on several events I've been caught up in the moment and forgot to start my watch, then some time later have been best guessing how long I've been running. 

From experience of half a dozen odd MMs, very much in the category of plod round C class and hope to "enjoy" the experience:-

- 25-30 litre sac should be ample size, even for non-gucci kit. If you have a bag that size which is comfy when running with 4-5kg in it, fine, if not maybe look at OMM 25 or similar, try on if possible. It's worth spending a bit on this, if nothing else, because if your bag is giving you bother all day it may really spoil the experience.

-Unless money is no object, stuff like laser comp tents, 300g down sleeping bags, balloon beds (!) isn't necessary, and will be of limited use apart from MMs, so not great value from that p.o.v. If you have, or can borrow, a lightish 2 man tent, say 2.5 kg, weight is reasonable among 2. If you only have a heavy sleeping bag, there are reasonably priced alternatives which will save a lot of weight eg British army issue jungle sleeping bag. That applies to other kit items eg something like a Marmot precip jacket will do the job, not quite as light as some but still very compact and a fraction of the price of the top notch. 

-It is best to expect that the overnight camp will be a bit cold and uncomfortable, with limited sleep. That applies to most people, including or especially the elite runners with 10 litre bags. As mentioned, some small item of morale is good though, wee plastic bottle of whisky, or chocolate, or whatever you fancy.

-it is possible to save a fair bit of weight just by being really ruthless about what items you actually need to take, within the rules and bounds of common sense, rather than throwing money at it.

-look at the forecast a couple of days before the event before deciding exactly what kit to wear/take. It may be wise to err on the side of caution, beyond what the rules require, if it looks bad. On the 2008 OMM, if I had run in shorts all day, I think I would have been struggling.

Enjoy, and try to avoid the "whose idea was this?" discussion...

Don't think this has been said, but take lots of food for midcamp.  It makes the difference between a good day 2 and a throughly miserable experience.

Practice eating your midcamp meal, it should be as much as you can physically eat.   Packet of Eccles Cakes or a Malt Loaf with custard for pudding!

I reckon a balloon bed is significantly comfier than a foam mat but probably not worth it for first timers.

Think of it as 2 days hill walking, that's what it is for most people!

And borrow what kit you can, I borrowed loads for my first MM. 

Purely from a kit weight pov get onto lighter pack. It will really help with decision making. 

https://lighterpack.com/welcome

Aim for a base weight of around 4-5kg each average between you and your partner (you'll be sharing tent and cooking kit). 

My cooking system weight around 180gms solo and prob about 210 gms for a duo system. With a bit of thought you'll be surprised how much weight you can save. 

Speedster stoves is an awesome website for lightweight gear. 

I know the articles you mean; lots of expensive, highly specialised and very fragile kit! That said, my 25l classic OMM bag has lasted for ten years of heavy use with only minor repairs.

 Some of this will be really obvious, but just in case you haven't come across it before:

Nice freeze dried food for your evening meal after the first day. I recon three of the one person meals (rather than one two person one, or two two person ones, I can never finish a whole two person one myself) is a good option. Or two mains and two desserts. Splash out and get yourself something tasty that you will look forward to, rather than whatever is cheapest when bulk buying (I lived to regret that decision).

Don't skimp on tent pegs. If you are using the 'paper clip' style ones, take four 'proper' ones for the important guy lines.

Don't bother with energy gels unless you are used to them. 'Normal' food goes down better and comes back up less often. 

Take a couple of sachets of dioralyte to mix with your drinks at overnight camp and for day two. This will help with leg cramps (which have had me in bits before). There are all sorts of things on the market (Nuun tablets have a good rep among fell runners) but I've found dioralyte to be cheaper, faster and more effective. I like the unflavoured stuff. 

Baseball cap even if it isn't forecast to be sunny. They keep the rain out of your face when you're looking around and trying to read the map. 

Thumb compasses are a good shout (orienteers love them). Just a little bit less faffy than standard 'hillwalking' compasses, albeit with fewer features and maybe less good for micro nav. Maybe take one of each type between the team?

If you have/can borrow some really good kit (thermarest neoair, nice new 2 season down bag for example) a few extra grams over the very lightest bit of gear can be worth 'spending' to get a better sleep.

I failed to complete my first OMM (due to lack of training, due to hubris). Having let down my running partner was enough incentive for my to fix my running ability. I failed my second event (The inaugural Grampian Mountain Challenge) by failing to meet the cutoffs because I was running, quickly, in the wrong direction. A friend who does orienteering/teaches a lot of nav took me out and taught me some stuff. Since then I've done a couple of OMMs and I'm pretty happy with them now. Don't make yourself miserable with a paper thin sleeping bag and a roll of bubble wrap to sleep on.

Try to carry a maximum of 300ml of water, if that. Depends on recent weather, location and terrain...but I was always happy scooping from streams as I passed and drinking on the following uphills. 

Again, apologies if all of this is really obvious to you. It's stuff I wish I'd sussed out sooner. 

I think the key thing is trying to enjoy it at the time (type A fun) rather than only afterwards (type B fun). The more humourless replies above show the variations in humans nicely and only you really know how competitive you want to be - i.e. how much comfort you want to compromise on comfort or how hard you can train. 

I'd echo most of my acronym buddy BBs' points. You can probably find someone who can lend you a 2 to 2.5kg backpacking tent. If I was in the country I would use my Durston 2P tent which is extremely light and wasn't too expensive; for the last 4 LAMMs I used an REI QuarterDome which was a pleasant 1.4kg. So there are not-too-expensive options out there if you want.

The more foul the weather the more we take. We look at the spectrum of MM competitors from the shivery whippets to the St Bernards. We reckon we are the fat labradors who spend too long lying in front of the heater and eating. The one thing we know we do well at is recovering overnight. So unless the forecast is fabulous then a light mattress beats the balloonbed or any amount of bubble wrap these days. A gas stove and a NEW cartridge is fairly idiotproof as long as you don't knock it over. We take a lot of food and graze continuously, then feast on saturday night, and get tucked in to more food throughout sunday. We usually come back heavier than when we started (although that may be rain). We usually place in the top third of the long score on the LAMM, although certainly not competitive; with age, injury, families and me living in a different continent these days we are happy with the top half of the pack (and indeed I was delighted to be placed at 49.99% of the pack for the Isle of Harris event!). 

Incidentally, in the single luxury item department my running partner always elects for fresh undercrackers, put on once the overnight camp is reached and dry clothes and shelter are at hand. One year he fished around in the dry bag for them, started swearing softly, and pulled out some kind of g-string type affair in black having allegedly picked up his wife's knickers by mistake ("they're also black, and it was dark and I didn't want to wake her up"). This was a mistake he only made the once...

b

Atleast that would be lightweight! :P

Certainly for your first. I signed up with a mate onto the A course as our first outing thinking that both being reasonable trail runners and able to suck up Alpine days we would cruise through it.

Turns out there's quite a big difference between jaunting around the forests of Surrey in your shorts and stumbling over tussocks with a tent on your back and snow being driven into your face at 30 mph. We scraped through the first day less than hour before cut-off (lots didn't) though I was borderline hypothermic putting the tent up.

I remember thinking at the start of the 2nd day that there were few things I wanted to do less at that point that 'run' another 24km. Somehow we got through it, stumbled over the finish line about half an hour after the official finish.

We carried way too much water but everything else I was glad I carried (proper tent, sleeping bag and air mat).

I'd do another one but not the long point to point one again!

Arguably, the relatively heavy items that are expensive to make lighter are: Sleeping bag, tent, waterproofs, and rucksack.  The rest can be pared down relatively easily and cheaply and Decathlon is your friend in this regard and can help with the rucksack too.  On the plus side, the sleeping back I bought in a sale is now far more heavily used than its weightier associates.

As a lot of others have said - for your first one, don't worry too much about kit, go with what you have and an open mind towards fun.

You're better off having your  ability to nav is s****y conditions nailed over any lightweight wunderkit.

Combine the two though....and MMs become a very "fun" weekend. 

I did my first OMM in 2009 as a poor student, begging and borrowing kit from friends and utilising bargain basement gear I already had. Over the intervening years I've built up a fair amount of lightweight kit, but my pack, even at the ~4kg elite level, is a mix of this lightweight accumulation along with bargain basement stuff, and still some borrowed stuff from partners. This has taken me from B-class to multiple elite class podiums (and one DNF when I went too light and got lost...)

The important things are navigation and making sure your kit is up to the job. A lot of the lightweight clothing is too light for a late-October date so don't worry about getting one of those 100g tissue paper 'waterproofs' - they're for summer races where you have to carry it but probably won't need it, they're useless and frankly dangerous in late October!

Things that I still use that are cheap:

£12 Decathlon Quechua waterproof trousers; £10 Deathlon Kalenji running lycra bottoms; cheap random fleece; makeshift pan holder made from coat hangers over a meths burner; 50p magic gloves (if wet I take 2 pairs).

Pricier stuff like warm, waterproofed but light-ish coat, suitable shoes, thermal top, would I expect normally be owned by those who are interested by the OMM. I bought a 'winter' running waterproof (Haglofs, goretex) 5 years ago, end of line so half price, and it gets re-proofed once a year in mid-October. It doesn't bead and holds more water than it used to, but it still keeps me dry and breathes.

The tent can be the sticking point. Asking around and borrowing a backbacking number if you can is probably the best bet. I bought a Laser a few years back, but still tend to borrow a lighter version. I don't think I've ever used my own tent on the 9 OMMs I've done!

Start with what you've got and if you get hooked then you can become more of a weight-weeny as time advances!