Mountain Marathon/Navigating course with Steven Fallon

Yesterday was simply awesome!

6 of us including me from Giffnock North met Steven at the top car park at Midlothian Ski center in the Pentlands, Edinburgh. Now we weren't there to navigate the ski slope! We were there for a crash course in navigating the hills on foot and it was basically a complete guide on how to do a mountain marathon.

First of all we went into Steven's office for an hour. This way he could find out our levels of experience and we could get to grips with the basics. We then headed for the hills were we spent the rest of the day. It was great getting tips and techniques from Steven of measuring distances and also running techniques. For instance the best way to go through thick heather is to use a galloping technique like a horse.  There were these golden nuggets of information Steven would tell us all day.  You may have got the impression I really enjoyed it - You would be right!

The thing I enjoyed most though, was that once we all knew the basics we were basically replicating what happens in a mountain marathon - walking, running, eating and finding checkpoints.

How mountain marathons work is that you don't know where the location of the event is until the week before. All we know is that it is 3 hours north of Glasgow/Edinburgh this year. At the start you get given co-ordinates and have to mark them on the map. It then turns into a kinda game of golf. The more accurate you are at plotting the points and using the map and compass. The more likely you are to find the checkpoints easier.

Each checkpoint represents the hole until you complete the full round for the day. Then the next day you do it all again. Checkpoints are not always visible as it could be cloudy or over a hill or in a forest. So that's where the map and compass come in. Yesterday for example, the source of the burns were some of the checkpoints. The thing was the burns were so dried up that it wasn't really obvious and unlike a mountain marathon there was no flags or anything to indicate where it was. So really it was harder yesterday than LAMM will be on the day. The reason being streams are usually made up of lots of little streams joining together. Where as the map does not show this and would just show the one main one. Therefore there is more than one source to the main stream. The thing is though where the exact checkpoint is - is like the hole in golf. If you get on the green which is a wider target, more often than not, you can see the flag.

The locations are rotated just to keep things interesting and also to make things fair as people who live near the area that it is; are more likely to know the mountains better than people who haven't been (best routes to take, etc).

Steven Fallon doesn't just do courses for runner/mountain marathons. He also does basic/advanced navigating course for beginners right through to expert for walkers. He also has a book which goes through every area of Scotland and lists the best hill races and hill walks/runs. Starting from the easiest routes in a given area building up to the more difficult ones.

Navigating is a bit like driving. You can read up on what to do.  However the best way to learn navigating is to actually do it and learn from experience.

Yesterday in a word: AWESOME