(Originally posted on 27th October. This is a repost as, owing to a catastrophic hosting server failure, the original was lost. The follow up is tomorrow.)

It’s been quiet here because I’ve been preparing for the OMM. That’s “Original Mountain Marathon” which was the Karrimor International Mountain Marathon (KIMM) until this year. If you’ve heard of it.

In a little while I’ll be spending 6 hours driving my hired car up to Dumfries and the overnight pleasure of a Travelodge (provided they haven’t overbooked!) Then, bright and early, tomorrow morning my team mate and I will be setting out on the first day of our 30 mile run over the mountains of Galloway Forest Park. 15 miles a day with an overnight camp stop.

All kit must be carried.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been in a number crunching geeks paradise. It’s all about the weight, man! I’ve got to carry my kit so there’s no “I’ll pack an extra jumper just in case it’s nippy”: it’s how much does this fleece weigh? Will I be better off taking two lighter tops rather than 1 thicker top? Where can I find a lightweight water bottle?

But the real challenge has been the food. We have to take all food (including emergency rations) for 36 hours. And as we’re going to be running, we’re going to be needing about 4000 calories on the first day alone. I struggle to even take in 2000 most days! So I spent some time researching the best type of foods to take and it turned out that really, for the endurance type of events, you need carbohydrates to replace the energy you burn. (I could go into how your body can only really store 2 hours worth of glycogen but it’s very much blah blah blah blah so I won’t.) 4000 calories of pure carbs is 1kg of food (there being 4Kcal of energy in every 4gm of carb.)

Pure carbohydrate more or less comes in one form. Sugar. So 4000 calories for the first day plus 2000 for the second (don’t have to pack an evening meal!) is 6000 Kcal or 1.5kg of sugar.

Oh dear.

Some of it is easy. Jelly babies, energy bars/drinks and so on. Plus we don’t need to take breakfast on the first day. Couscous has a very good return on energy vs weight but eating it on it’s own? I could get quite sick of it very quickly.

So, what am I taking? Some scientifically planned, flavoursome meal designed for expeditions? Norwegian Army ration packs? Nope! Supper on saturday is going to be a family pack of supernoodles (1000 Kcal for only 200gm weight) followed by a Snickers bar, hot chocolate with the possibility of a “Pasta ‘n sauce” if I’m still hungry. All in all, 1600 Kcal for about 350gm of food.

As well as that, I have dried milk, tea bags, muesli bars, more Snickers and some Weetabix. My pack, with all my waterproofs, safety kit, food and sleeping bag currently weighs about 4.2kg and there’s only my 1.5kg share of tent and cooking gear to go. And water (which will mostly be got from streams, dead sheep or not!)

Of course, all this time spent working out the best combination of light weight kit (new toys Gordon? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!) and food means I’ve totally forgotten to spend any time doing any running! Oh well.

See you on Monday. Hopefully.