First of all, can we express a great big thank you for all the offers of help and messages of support from competitors, both during the weekend and in the aftermath? You have made it so much easier for us to cope with the problems, the extra work and the pressure that has inevitably arisen.
The purpose of this bulletin is to answer some of the questions to which many of you would like answers. Things are pretty busy here, as you can imagine. It is not possible for us to answer every email individually at the moment, so we hope that this will satisfy most peoples' questions.
- Day 2 maps will be posted out to everyone within the next 7 days
- Day 1 times are now on the OMM website.
- We will not be publishing results (i.e. identifying winners). Those teams that started early were able to complete their courses, whereas, those that started late were intercepted when the event was cancelled and hence, through no fault of their own, could not get a finishing time.
- Routegadget for both Day 1 and Day 2 is now on the website. We would love to see your Day 1 routes.
- Thanks to the SI system, by the end of Saturday night we knew the whereabouts of all but about 30 teams. Our wholehearted thanks to those competitors who rang in from elsewhere to tell us they were safe. This enabled us to cross them off the list and reduced the task of accounting for everyone.
- Sincere apologies to all those relatives who were worried about the safety of competitors. Not only did the media totally misread the situation and blow it up to immense proportions but, during Saturday a number of agencies were making independent decisions, with the result that it took some time to understand where everyone had got to and transfer them to the "not missing" list.
- Sincere apologies also to those competitors who were recommended to walk back to the event centre from the overnight camp, only to be turned back at Honister Slate Mine. Initially we had agreed with the mountain rescue that we should encourage competitors to return to the Event Centre, where there was hot soup, etc and where they could get to their cars for extra clothing. Subsequently the police decided that competitors should not go down into Borrowdale because of the state of the roads and that all should return to the Buttermere valley.
- We asked Mark Weir from Honister Slate Mine not to transport competitors down to Cockermouth but he continued to do so under his own initiative. This made it more difficult for us to account for them. He had also complained that competitors were taking shelter in his café, eating their own food and preventing his other customers from getting access to the cafe. We offered, there and then, to pay for all food and drink consumed by competitors.
- As you know, Saturday dawned dry but windy. Our interpretation of the weather forecast obviously underestimated what actually happened. By late morning a number of incidents needing the mountain rescue services had occurred, the weather had deteriorated considerably and, at this stage, it was clear that the event needed to be curtailed. Radio marshals were asked to inform competitors and people were stationed at the main road crossing points to intercept competitors.
- The police had warned us Friday afternoon that there was a flood warning for Borrowdale. We explained that the car parking fields were above flood level and that competitors would not need to get their cars out until the Sunday, so we were not unduly concerned. What we had not foreseen was competitors abandoning their cars all along the approach road, parts of which then became flooded, against the wishes of our officials
- The mountain rescue services, as is only to be expected, did a magnificent job. We encourage you to go onto the Justgiving website and make a contribution to mountain rescue funds. OMM / Vango will be contributing the value of prizes to this fund.
Priority with applications for next year's OMM
We can foresee that, as a result of all the publicity that has arisen with this year's event, there will be an increase in applications for the 2009 OMM. We plan to reserve 25% of next year's places to teams that started in this year's event. After that "all applications" will be put into the draw in the usual way.
T-Shirts
Due to the unprecedented demand we are having for an extra special OMM 2008 souvenir t-shirt, we have decided to overprint our existing stock of 2008 souvenir t'shirts with 'YOU HAD TO BE THERE...'
We're sure you're going to love it, but just in case you don't, we will be happy to keep back some of the original t-shirts.
Because we love your attitude to the OMM and your support of Mike and Jen, there will be no extra charge for the overprinting or for the postage.
This is what you need to do:
If you require an original t-shirt with or without the overprinting please do so through our normal mail order channels at www.upandrunning.co.uk - 'Web Sales' - 'OMM kit'.
If you would like to return your original t-shirt to have it overprinted, please send this as soon as possible.
Please send it to:
Allison Griffiths,
Up & Running,
Clarendon House,
9 Victoria Avenue,
Harrogate.
HG1 1DY.
Very important - please include your return details with the t-shirt.
Souvenir fleeces
These will also be available to order online with the original 'OMM 2008 Borrowdale' logo.
Once again many thanks for your support and look forward to seeing you at the event in 2009, south of this years venue.
Jen , Mike, Roger and the Planning team