Written by Paul Wilson - http://runningbigandslow.blogspot.fr

Edale to Hebden Bridge (checkpoint 1)

We arrived on the Friday afternoon, the evening was taken up with the safety briefing and kit check. Then we went for a meal at the Rambler Inn and chilled out, I did the shorter version of this race last year, So this year decided to step up and do the full race. The start of the race was delayed until 11:30am due to high winds. Then we were off.

Just like every other ultra I have done, at the start people set off like they are running a 10k and I'm at the back!. When I got to Jacobs Ladder and started going up I looked back and there was only about ten people behind me. When we got to Kinder Downfall the wind was that strong the water was getting blown back up.

After getting covered in spray while passing by it, I was over Bleaklow Head and heading down to Torside Reservoir where I met my dad and brother Chris, who were supporting me for the week. I hadn't been here since last years race so was enjoying it.  Then it was over Black Hill and on towards Wessenden and the M62. As I was passing by Warland Reservoir the weather was terrible, it was a blizzard, I could only see a couple of feet in front of me. The weather eased off and I carried onto Stoodley Pike. I ended up in a group with Dave Lee, Malc Christie and someone else.  When I decided to have a go at the Spine Race I'd read all the blogs and information about the race that I could find and Dave Lee's was one of the most informative. It was nice to meet him. I stayed with them until we got to checkpoint one.

Hebden Bridge to Hawes (checkpoint 2)

I checked in then climbed back up the bank and met my dad and Chris, I stopped here and had a couple of hours sleep. When I got up I set off again this, is where I had my first problem in the race, I'd developed a groin strain. As I'd only done about 48 miles this was worrying! There was nothing else I could do but slow down and take it easy so it was onto Ponden Reservoir and Lothersdale, the path was mainly across muddy farmland.
The weather here was really windy and it was raining, I didn't feel cold but just got my head down and walked on concentrating on getting to Gargrave where I'd arranged to meet my dad.When I got there I got in the van then realised how cold I was. I couldnt speak properly and was shivering, I took off the clothes I was wearing, a Haglofs gram goretex jacket, North Face primaloft jacket and an Under Armour cold gear compression top and put on a dry set of clothes. I got some warm food into me and some hot orange. This sorted me out and I warmed up. This gave my dad and Chris a bit of a shock at the state I was in. As I got to Malham they were waiting there to check that I was ok. Gargrave to Malham the path is pretty much just over muddy fields then you follow the river for a bit. Once through Malham you walk up the side of Malham cove, there was nothing to see here as it was dark.

                                                         Malham Cove in daylight.

At Malham Tarn checkpoint, I just checked in and went and this is where things got interesting.  As I ascended Fountains Fell the weather gradually deteriorated, it was wet and windy. At Pen-y-Ghent the wind was gale force (70 mph apparently) the mountain safety team had decided to divert us so we didn't have to go over the summit and instead turned left and head down to Horton in Ribblesdale. The only problem the wind was that strong it was nearly impossible to open the gate to the path down. After managing to get through the gate it was hard work descending because of the wind. On reflection this was probably the windiest conditions Iv been in on a fell. On getting to Horton I stopped for a couple of hours sleep.
Getting going again at first light was ok. I was happy to be heading to Hawes. Then whilst I was unwrapping some flapjack I made a navigation error and missed a left turn in the path. This is how quickly your mental state can change on an event like this, one minute I was moving along quite happily eating and feeling happy. The next I was totally sick. When I got to the edge of the forest I realised my mistake, instead of going back along the path I decided to cut across to the corner of the forest and then get back onto the Peninne Way. This was my second mistake, five minutes later I was knee deep in bog! Once I regained the path I reckoned not paying attention had cost me nearly a mile. Then the wind picked up again and it started raining. I was totally pissed off this was the lowest point of the race for me as I got into Hawes. When Id read other spine racers blogs they had mentioned getting to Hawes in good condition, and here was me arriving in a right emotional state. Everything was hurting. My legs were sore, my feet were sore and I felt tired. When I got into Hawes I stopped and changed my socks and had some pasta. The weather improved a bit and things were looking up.

                                                          Harvey guarding the washing at Hawes

Hawes to Middleton (checkpoint 3)

Once through Hawes you head up Great Shunner Fell, this was ace the rain and wind had stopped and the cloud had lifted. Then I got to Thwaite and it started getting dark. Next stop was Tan Hill., I wasn't looking forward to this section down to the A66 as Id heard it was very boggy. Although it was boggy it wasn't as bad as I expected. At this point in the race, pschyologically I started getting stronger. I had reccied the route from High Cup Nick all the way to just south of Bellingham, and had done a lot of my training in preparation for the race on Cross Fell and Hadrians Wall and knew the route well. After the A66 I carried on for a few miles to a roadhead where there's a small car park called Clove Lodge, just after Cotherstone Moor, I met my dad and Chris here. Just as I arrived the heavens opened so I decided to stop here and get a few hours sleep. I got up just before first light and got going again. I arrived at Middleton at 08.43.

Middleton to Alston (checkpoint 4)

At Middleton checkpoint there was a few tired looking people about. I had a couple of bacon sandwiches for my breakfast then headed off. This section of the race was really good, passing by Low Force and High Force, Id only seen two people all day on this section of the course, Richard Lendon and Simon Beasley (with the exception of 2 blokes walking a dog. They shouted over asking if I was one of those people doing the larl jog! I replied yes, Iv only got 120miles to go!) . There was a diversion around Cauldron Snout then it was over the moors to High Cup Nick. It got dark as I started heading down to Dufton. As I was walking into the village,  Angela was there with Meika our husky. This was a nice surprise as I wasn't expecting to see her until I got to Hadrians Wall, (we only live 20 miles from Greenhead). Earlier on in the race I'd damaged one of my poles. Angela had phoned Tony Holland at the Ultrarunner Store and he sent a pair out and they arrived the next day. So Angela brought them to Dufton for me.I stopped at Dufton and got something to eat and put some warmer clothes on before going over Cross Fell.                                  

                                           

                                       
                                          looking tired at Middleton checkpoint.                  
                            
The walk up Green Fell was good. Richard and Simon overtook me again having stopped in Dufton longer than I did. As there was fresh snow covering the ground from there to Greggs Hut I had practically no navigating to do, I just followed there footprints. Before the race Id reccied Cross Fell four or five times so knew the route. I got to the top of Great Dunn Fell at 10pm. From the top you could see the lights of Penrith and the Eden Valley. Then it was over and up to the summit of Cross Fell which was just in cloud. This part of the route is probably my favourite part of the Peninne Way. After the summit it was down to Greggs hut which was unoccupied, as John Bamber was at Dufton checkpoint not wanting to get stuck at Greggs hut in bad weather, so no noodles this year! It was so cold that the tube on my water bladder had frozen solid. After that I was on the track down to Garrigill when Matt and Ellie from summit media who were making a film of the race came up in the landrover and filmed me for a while.  Then they went. A short while later they came back up the track and stopped, they had Richard and Simon with them, apparently a female competitor was lost on Cross Fell and the three of us had to go and locate her and bring her down to the landrover.  It was approximately 1 am. Matt and Ellie drove us back up the track and we got out and headed up onto the fell. After a while we saw a headtorch when we got nearer the head torch was on a fence post and the woman was in a bivvy bag. Richard made sure she was ok and we escorted her down to the landrover where she was insisting that she only wanted help to locate the track then she would be ok to go onto Alston. She had only got lost because she had lost her glasses and couldn't read her gps. I think in the end race hq told her she was out of the race as she had called 999 and initiated a rescue. I set off and carried onto Alston I was fairly pissed off at the time as I was now about a mile further back up the track than I had been when they picked me up. As my water had froze it was now a while since I had anything to drink and I had also stopped eating. I had  been on the go since 6am the previous morning and as I was walking I was that tired that I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Richard and Simon passed me again and I must of looked like I was in a mess as Richard told me to eat something. They said it had took them twenty minutes to persuade the woman to get in the landrover! The next four miles to Alston were the hardest of the race for me, I was on the edge totally exhausted and just wanted sleep. It seemed to take forever to get there it was 3.45 am when I got to the checkpoint. On arriving at Alston I told my dad and Chris about the lady competitor who had got lost it turned out that they were talking to her at Dufton and she told them that she couldn't use a gps!
So she had put myself and two other competitors at risk coming to rescue her just because of her navigational incompetence! I was slightly aggreaved about that! After a sleep I was informed that the race was going to be suspended for 24 hrs because of Storm Rachel. The wind forecast was 100mph. After the conditions on Pen-y-Ghent a couple of days previous I think it was the right decision to suspend the race at this point as to have racers and mountain safety team out in that weather would of been too dangerous. So I mainly slept for the next day.

Alston to Bellingham (checkpoint 5)

The race resumed at 7am the next day. It was a mass start. Id done most of my training for the Spine on this section of the course as it is the closest to where I live. The ten mile section from Greenhead to just past Crag Loch is the best part of Hadrians Wall. From Alston to Greenhead was pretty straight forward, on getting to Greenhead I went to the checkpoint and carried on without stopping. At Wallhead, Angela had come out to see me, the weather along the wall was as the same as since the start wind, rain and snow.

                                         
                                                       wet weather on hadrians wall

After Hadrians Wall the Pennine Way heads north through the edge of Keilder Forest.  I took it easy through here as it was now dark again and if you go slightly off path in places you can go up to your waist in mud as I had done when I was training for the race. This is probably the boggiest section of the route, if it isn't only the section from Tan hill down to the A66 is worse.

                                                  This what happens if you miss the path in kielder!

After Kielder it was just a slog to Bellingham this must of been pretty uneventful as I cant remember that much about it, other than I took a wrong turn near Bellingham and decided to climb over a barb wire fence as I was getting over it the wire sprang up and impaled my leg. Putting a hole in my leg and more distressingly the goretex trousers I was wearing, which happened to belong to my girlfriend and I now have to replace (maybe!)!! I arrived at Bellingham at 22.54. On arrival at Bellingham I got something to eat and went to sleep for three hours. Even though I'd had over twenty four hours rest at Alston when my alarm went off I struggled to get up. I layed in bed for another twenty minutes more than I'd planned hitting the snooze button.

Bellingham to Kirk Yetholm

Once I got going I was fairly happy, only forty odd miles left to go. I met my dad and Chris a couple of miles down the road and had a couple of bacon sandwiches for breakfast,(not sure where they stand as ultrarunning nutrition but they tasted great?!) On this section all the way to Byrness I walked with Dave Dixon, the miles went by fairly quickly as we chatted away. The route been mainly along forest paths. During the race I spent a lot of time on my own so at times it was good to walk a few miles with people. On getting to Byrness I had a break, got something to eat and sorted my kit for the final stretch. Some people say the race only starts when you get to Alston, if this is the case then for me Byrness to Kirk Yetholm was the sprint finish.

                                                                  Leaving Byrness

After leaving Byrness its twenty seven miles over the Cheviot hills to the finish. You've got to be careful not to get complacent, as in previous years a number of peoples races have finished here, with the end in sight, and have had to be rescued. With this in mind I set off up Byrness Hill shortly after being overtaken by Richard Lendon and Simon Beasley again and then Paul Orton and Ian Bowles overtook me. The weather now was the best it had been all week, the wind had dropped and there was no cloud, you could see for miles and the views were superb. As I was going along I did a few calculations in my head and I worked out at my current speed I would finish about 11pm. This was no good as I fancied a bar meal and a couple of pints. I felt good, no pain in my legs so started running, Gaining ground on the people that were ahead.  Shortly after this Paul Orton made a navigational error and headed off down a ridge in totally the wrong direction. Richard Lendon was closest to him and shouted after him but he was too far away and never heard. The ascent of Cairn hill was good after which you turn left and descend towards the second mountain refuge hut, the ground here was covered in snow and I was loving running down it I could see the route ahead and knew just over the next hill was Kirk Yetholm and the finish. On getting to the refuge hut I stopped briefly to talk to the mountain safety team that were there, I put my head torch on as it was getting dark then I was away. There was only the Schil to climb then it was all down hill to the finish. With three mile to go I lost the path and couldn't find my way out of a farm yard. Anybody watching the tracker would have been wondering what I was doing. Back on track the last couple of miles were the longest of the race. I knew my son Daniel and Angela were at the finish with my dad and Chris and was excited to see them all. It seemed to take forever to get into Kirk Yetholm but as I got  nearer I could see Angela and Daniel coming up the road. Then one of my friends Keith Little jumped out from behind a car and surprised me. It meant a lot to me that people had taken the trouble to come to the end and see me finish the race.

                                      100 metres to the end of the spine race.I love this photo.

When I got to the Border Hotel I touched the wall and was given my finishers medal and t shirt I arrived 19.12. Everyone was taking photos, I found the finish a bit overwhelming and looking back think I was a bit shell shocked. It was a lot to take in.

                                      Touching the wall at the border hotel. 268 miles done.

Cost of spine race £550; cost of equipment thousands. Spine finishers medal and tshirt, sense of achievement and pride I feel since finishing absolutely priceless.

Thanks.
Firstly Id like to thank my brother and dad who were my support crew for the week, some people look down there noses at people who utilise support crews saying that to experience the spine race properly you should do it unsupported. I see it differently having my family supporting me for the week made the spine race an experience that I shared with them. And my girlfriend Angela (who paid my entry fee for my 40th birthday!) who since I decided to do the Spine has supported me going training with me, then when she couldn't go with me putting up with me spend long hours away training, then I changed my diet made sure that all my meals were homemade from scratch. Then coming out to Dufton , Hadrians wall and Kirk Yetholm. To Scott Gilmour and Phillip Hayday-Brown and all the team behind you thanks for making this race possible. To the other racers I met along the way, I enjoyed talking to you all and hope to see you's in the future at races or out on the trail.

Lessons learned.

1. At 5ft 4ins tall jumping over barbed wire fences isn't advisable. A couple of weeks before the Spine I got chased off a herd of cows near Hadrians Wall and tried to clear a barbed wire fence ripping my goretex trousers in the process. During the race after a navigational error I ripped another pair near Bellingham. At a £100 a pair this is proving to be expensive.
2. This was the first time Iv raced over this type of distance. Previously I completed the Challenger and the Lakeland 100. I found as the week went on I became mentally and physically stronger finishing the race well. After time had been credited I finished in 13th place. The time the race was postponed at Alston changed the race and I believe people finished the race that wouldn't have done otherwise, in 2014 I completed the challenger 2015 the full race 2016 I was planning to help out with the mountain safety team. I have now changed my mind and now plan to be on the start line to see if I can do the race twice in two attempts.

3. A couple of months before the Spine I got a husky from a rescue centre. Since then she has accompanied me on all my training runs, there is no better way to find out how deep a bog on the Pennine Way is than to have a husky running ten feet ahead of you.

                                         
                                           On the Pennine Way with Meika.

Written by Iain Harper - http://iain.so

Written by Colin Fitzjohn - http://www.colinfitzjohn.com

A few thoughts on The Spine Race 2014-2015 

I’m not going to write another review or report about The Spine Race. It’s been done to death by better story tellers than me. What I do want to do is a blog post which will help me remember the reason this years race (2015) seemed easy compared to last year. A way for me to remember what was different so I don’t make the same mistakes again. If it helps anyone along the way, well that’s good to.

The Spine 2014 & my mindset going into the race

I thought it would be just like any other long multi-day ultra event. You know the way it goes. You show up, run as fast as you can carrying as little as possible & slog it out to the end. That was my main mistake, The Spine is a different animal as far as other races go, I can’t compare it to any other race. You can’t just batter it into submission, it will fight back. Last year I had a terrible time on The Spine race, suffering the runs (the bad kind) for the first 18 hours then falling coming off a mountain in the dark & getting concussion. This caused me to slow down and eventually get hypothermia.

The Spine 2015 

I needed to finish this one, it was my main race of the year. The Pennine Way & I would share our 50th birthday in 2015, which made it even more special for me this year. It’s the oldest National trail and the hardest to complete.

What I needed this time was a new strategy. The main thing I did differently this year was go with the flow. No trying to change things outside my control. No expectations for things going how I want them. No expecting anything & if good things happened then great! If they didn’t happen, get on with it & don’t look back. It’s not the type of race to dwell on bad stuff, bad stuff will happen. If you fall into a bog or fall on your ass don’t let it spoil your day, move on.

Good stuff will happen to, like a great sky or the sun shinning or a fantastic view. You’ll probably laugh lots (I did) & meet some fantastic & inspirational people. You’ll all have something in common, the goal of finishing the race & getting to the end in as good a shape as possible.

The important stuff . . .

Sleep

The idea this year was not to have a strategy but to go with the flow. I managed to make it to a checkpoint before I fell asleep almost every time. If I managed to sit down anywhere for longer than 5 minutes I would try to have a cat nap. I had one hour of sleep over the first three days! Split roughly into 20 minutes at each checkpoint. This was mainly due to not being able to get any sleep at the checkpoints & being hyper when I could have slept.

I don’t sleep much at home though so it wasn’t a big deal. The section before the Tan Hill Inn I got really tired. The pub had closed when we arrived in the early hours of the morning & once inside the front porch I sat down for a quick rest before taking on one of the boggiest sections just after the Tan Hill. Don’t remember a lot about the next section through the bog but I remember not being able to keep my eyes open in the pub porch. My eyes just kept closing & I couldn’t stop myself falling asleep. As soon as we got outside I started falling asleep whilst running which I have had before but not for as long as this phase lasted. By the time I’d got my head back together the bog was behind me & I don’t remember how I got through it. This was good, the worst bit of the race was over & my mind refocused on the goal.

Food

Most of the food I took with me was still in my drop bag when I got home. I ate anything that would fit in my mouth from anywhere I could get it. We had some good food at the checkpoints but mainly portage & toast. I had some good food in a couple of pubs on the course & also in the guest house at Forest View Walkers Inn. The owners Joyce & Colin made us feel really welcome & even let us have a quick nap on the sofas with our dirty gear on. We later found out that they had donated the food we had for nothing!

The good stuff for me far outweighed the bad. The worst parts for me happened in the last 10-20 miles. On the last section from hut 2 to the finish I fell on my ass about 20 times or more. The ground was ice on top of grass & you couldn’t tell which bits were ice & which bits were grass. Especially looking at it through tired eyes and the light of a head torch. A few days earlier my snow spikes fell to pieces which didn’t help.

I fell & landed on my elbow & it went numb from my elbow down to the tips of my fingers. My first thought was maybe it had snapped on the fall. This happened just before Allan Rumbles, Colin Searle & myself all shook hands & agreed we had been on one hell of a journey & we had shared some great laughs along the way. This made me forget about the pain in my arm & we set off for the finish about a mile away. The finish was like nothing I had felt before, not the feeling of having completed a great race but the end of a journey. Somehow a bit of an anti climax. I’m missing the race already & can’t wait for next year!

Gear that helped me get to the finish . . . 

I’ll probably do separate reviews on this kit at some point but for now this is just a list of the stuff I think helped get me to the finish.

Hilly Socks 

I used the Merino Wool Off-Road for alternate sections which keep you warm & wick away the water fast. The thinking here is that you will get wet feet wearing trainers so it’s better to plan for this by wearing a fast draining sock. At the end of the race I had no blisters, so this stuff works for me. It may not work for you, but it’s worth a try. If you are doing The Spine for the first time I would recommend doing at least two sections with full gear before the race itself. Just to make sure all your kit is good & wont fall to pieces.

Hilly Off-road compression socks for every other section. I wore these with my boots to give my feet a rest & stop blisters or trench foot. The extra compression also stopped some of the swelling which happens when on your feet 23 hours a day.

Buff Headwear

Polar Buff Always used these as they’re great multi function items. Attached to a couple of carabiners on the shoulder straps of my pack. They dry fast & keep the draught out.

La Sportiva Bushido Trainers

These were great on mud, snow & wet rocks. I live on the edge of the west Pennine Moors & it’s about the same terrain as The Spine (we even have the slabs), the mud we get around here destroys Salomon shoes in a matter of days but these had 200 miles on them when I wore them on The Spine. They were still good at the end of the race.

Scarpa Terra GTX

Used the Scarpa’s on every other section to give my feet a rest from the wet. They do keep feet dry but on The Spine water tends to go over the top of the boots it’s that deep. Obviously if your wading through rivers you will get wet feet but they keep most of the water out, most of the time.

Montane eVent Air Jacket

I used this for the first couple of days when running & it kept me warm & dry. It’s very breathable & managed to flow enough air to keep me from getting sweaty. It did however wear out in certain places, it has worn right through. Not what I expected from a £240 jacket!

Mountain Equipment Kongur Jacket

A great GORE-TEX Pro jacket which proved it’s worth in the snow & high winds later in the race when the pace slowed. Not very breathable but if your moving slow & need warmth more than breath-ability you can’t beat a full-on mountain jacket.

2016

Well it’s taken me a long time to do this blog post. I’ve just found out I’m in The Spine 2016! Really looking forwards to doing it all again & hopefully a bit faster this time. Although not to fast as to make it miserable, I do like to take it all in and enjoy the journey. Finishing this beast is enough, I’m not going for any records.

Happy Running! . . . . . .

Written by Frances Britain - https://findhornfran.wordpress.com

When this race first appeared on the scene a few years ago, I’ll be honest, I was a little cynical – why pay to race along something you could follow any time you liked, it being a way-marked National Trail. Despite that, my curiosity was piqued and I tracked that inaugural race; I tracked the race the following year, I read the race reports and the cynicism started to wane. I dithered for a bit longer until eventually January 2014 arrived with a desire to be brave, the form was filled out and submitted, that very same afternoon it came back confirming that I did indeed have a place. I had no idea how I was going to juggle being away from the family for a whole week.

For at least six months I happily pushed all thought of it to the back of my mind, not that I was idle in that time, long distance trail training for other races, and I did line up my fabulous parents to travel up and cover the childcare for me as that was the most important concern. I hadn’t quite factored in destroying my knees on a blinding run in the Great Glen Way Ultra at the start of July, which in turn halted any plans for blasting into training once the kids were back at school after the summer break.

Finally, late autumn and niggle free I settled into some training, but I’d definitely abandoned any thoughts of running parts of the race as I didn’t feel I had enough time to get strong enough to run with a loaded pack on that kind of terrain. It was definitely going to be all about walking – not slow walking though, this was no leisurely amble! New kit was tested out on a couple of solo adventures; firstly Knoydart, and then the Cairngorms. Despite well over 20 years of exploring hills and mountains, I’d done very little of that on my own but the summer of 2014 had seen me doing long solo runs in the Cairngorms and on my local moors; and I realised the pleasure to be had of setting off alone, carrying everything I needed on my back.

January, the Christmas holidays finally over and the kids back to school leaving me the rest of the week to get in a complete panic locating kit and packing. We were allowed a 20kg kit bag that would be dropped at four indoor checkpoints along the route, allowing you to access clean dry kit, food supplies, new batteries and any other essentials.

The weather was already making itself known, with Scotland hit by massive winds on Thursday evening. I barely slept a wink between listening to garden furniture hurtling around the garden, and fretting flights from Inverness would be cancelled. The 4.30am alarm call came after checking the clock every hour anyway.

Predictably all flights from Inverness were delayed. Plenty of time to drink coffee, mark up my maps with route notes and almost miss my flight because they didn’t actually make any flight calls until the last minute. I also managed to drop my beloved phone, therefore cutting myself off from any social media for the next seven days!

The flight was bumpy but uneventful and soon landed at a rather drizzly, but definitely less windy Manchester airport. My drop bag for the race had been in the hold – weighing in at 20kg I can’t say I was delighted to retrieve it from the baggage area, let alone lug it 10 minutes down the way to the train station, to catch a train to Buxton. At Buxton I met my old climbing friend Suzy, stowed my kit in her car and we went on a ‘supermarket sweep’ of Waitrose finding treats to fuel me the length of the race. Shopping done – not sure whether the Peshawari naan really would have held any appeal 150+ miles into the race, but I was trying to be creative!

Next stop, Outside in Hathersage for a pint of tea, enormous piece of cake and catching up on long overdue girlie gossip. Here we waited for my friend Nick to arrive. He was to take over ‘care’ of me here-on-in. So despite some travel disruption, the plan was actually going like clockwork. Still not convinced it made for a great way to spend the day before the race though!

Nick and I set off for Edale: event registration, race brief and kit check. Registration was straightforward and quick. The race brief less so, we were booked into time slots for this, me being in the 5.00pm slot. 5.00pm came and went and still the briefing went on but eventually, about 5.30pm it was our turn. It started off covering race basics: the route and some safety aspects – all good; then followed a lengthy discussion about hypothermia. Now this is a real issue on races of this kind, but I’m not convinced that the depth of discussion we were having on the Friday evening just before the race was the best time for it. Certainly I was struggling to stay awake or concentrate having been on the go since 4.30am, knowing I had a load of kit to sort out before I got to my bed that night, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in this state.

Finally, brief completed, we headed back down the road to collect our race number (and have our photo taken with it); have the GPS tracking device fitted to our packs – you all know about those devices because they allowed plenty of you to follow number 56 wherever she went and witness all her navigational ‘moments’! The final step was kit check. All my kit was randomly packed between the hold bag and my race pack in no logical order, it had been all about trying to make the hold bag as light as possible. Ultimately though, I passed the inspection and shoved everything haphazardly back in my bags. It was now about 7.00pm and we returned to Nicks place in Sheffield.

Here I exploded all of the kit and food across his lounge floor while dinner cooked, but gradually order appeared in the chaos. Dry clothes were packed into small bags and labelled in my drop bag, hoping to make access at checkpoint easier. Food was divided up amongst the shopping bags ready for loading in the back of Nick’s car. Nick had kindly volunteered to support me for the first couple of days of the race. He’d successfully completed the Challenger the previous year (this being the ‘shorter’ but by no means less challenging race, at 107 miles). Being supported meant he would meet me at various road crossing points on the route, giving me access to food and hot drinks and possible shelter from weather, rather than just relying on the race checkpoints which were placed some 40 miles apart. There is a view out there that this is taking the ‘lighter’ option of the race, but as a newbie to the race, and given the complications of even getting to the start line, frankly I was happy for the assistance and certainly don’t feel it ‘lessened’ the experience in any way.

Finally about 11.00pm I turned in for the night and actually had the best night sleep I’d had in ages, clearly so exhausted from the journey and the prep that there was no way I could stay awake.

7.00am Saturday morning the alarm went off, outside it was all about blue skies and sunshine, where were the signs of the evil MWIS forecast we’d been looking at the day before, the forecast that kept upgrading the weather from Severe to ultimately Acute!! Breakfast – muesli, toast and tea and then we loaded all the kit in the back of Nicks’ little red car and headed off to Edale again. I felt nervous, but in a detached kind of way. The enormity of this race was so huge I didn’t really know how to take it on board.

Arriving in Edale it was a bit breezy, but still no real sign of what was going on up on the tops. Heading to the start building I walked past a fellow competitor and overheard mutterings of a delayed start – delayed from 9.30am to 11.30am, could this really be true? I could have had another hour in bed, more importantly, two hours LESS daylight! In a race with limited hours of daylight, and knowing I would be nearer the back of the pack, this had a big impact on things, although I appreciated that with a race being held at this time of year, weather conditions were always going to be a key influencer of race logistics. Once inside it was soon clarified that yes, the start was delayed and very probably until 11.30am. I toyed with the idea of heading off to a café but even the vague possibility of them going earlier made me stay put. We had access to endless cups of tea in the small kitchen anyway. OK, plenty of time to sit and goggle at everyone else’s gear and chat to fellow competitors. The time passed quicker than I anticipated but it was still hard to imagine how windy it was up on Kinder and Bleaklow.

Well, that was until Marcus Scotney, a favourite to win the Challenger race, came limping back in with a bad sprain after being blown over multiple times. Rumours were also creeping in of some of the Challengers being held at Snake Pass for a weather window. With all this hanging around I nearly forgot to eat, something I would definitely had been doing if I’d been out on the trail already.

Finally, 11.15 am and the much-awaited cry to assemble for the start. The wind picked up lowering the temperature, and it started to drizzle. I was already wearing my heavy mountain waterproof jacket and a last-minute change had me putting on the heavyweight trousers too. I’m so glad I did, I wore them for my entire time out on the course.

I was under no illusions as to where to place myself at the start for this race, back of the middle, kind of near the back suited my expectations just fine! The countdown started and before we knew it we were piling out of the field and onto the road leading up to the turning for the Pennine Way, heading off to Upper Booth and ultimately Kinder Scout. I watched with amazement, envy and amusement as frontrunners set off RUNNING – as you do when you’ve got 268 miles ahead of you – ah if only.

We turned off the main road and on good tracks gained height heading up Jacobs Ladder. By now the wind really had started to pick up, gusting at us, tugging at us, the struggle began. Despite this I felt very comfortable striding out steadily. I chatted to a few guys and even jogged the odd stretch of downhill but mainly climbing up, beyond Jacobs Ladder and onto the Kinder plateau. Eating was a challenge; I found I had to virtually suck food out of its bag if it was to make into my mouth so it wasn’t whipped away by the wind. It was during one such food-sucking episode (whilst trying not to be blown over) that I almost made my first route error of the race – embarrassingly early to be going wrong but I only went a few metres before I realised my mistake. Back on track and now following the trail towards Kinder Downfall. The hammering from the wind was increasing with nowhere for us to hide although skies were actually quite clear and the views beautiful when you managed to look around and take it all in. I saw a few people blown off their feet but miraculously I managed to stay upright. All those hours spent running in Scottish weather paid off, I have clearly learnt to drift with the wind rather than fight it! I actually found my poles of little help, bracing yourself against the wind seemed to create a greater resistance for the wind to bounce off it, floating definitely seemed preferable!

You could see the spray from the Downfall blasting upwards, we were showered with water as we passed behind it and the water was starting to freeze where it landed on the turf. It was a spectacular sight. A couple of stream crossings gave opportunities to scoop up drinking water in the cup I always carry attached to my pack, ensuring I keep the water in my bottles for when there is no other water to be found. So I was across Kinder Downfall and on my way down to the Snake Pass, the going was good here, a bit of mud hopping but soon I hit the pass, crossed the road and gave my number to the race official there.

As I descended off Kinder I’d been starting to think about the next stretch, mainly about where my head torch was – I reckoned I’d be coming off Bleaklow at dusk. It wasn’t in my front pack where I usually carry it and I couldn’t picture what I’d done with it the night before – but clearly remembered the conversation about which torch had the brightest beam, but where the hell DID I pack it? Luckily there was a huge pile of those white bags they use for lifting in large piles of rocks, a perfect place to hunker down and dig around in my pack out of the wind, success, I found the torch; it was also the perfect place to take a pee – it’s not great being female on this kind of event when nature calls in a howling gale on an open hillside!

Upward from here terrain changed, it was a lot wetter and muddier underfoot with streams of water making it hard to decide what was path; but I was moving well. It was here that I started to walk a little with Richard Fish, exchanging a bit of chat and during this I learned that he had a heart condition and a pacemaker fitted (more on this later!). Sometimes I was ahead, sometimes he caught me; eventually we emerged onto Bleaklow itself. The weather had been relatively clear and dry until now, but mini blizzards started to whip up, enhanced by the ever-present howling gales. I knew I had to pay attention to route-finding here specifically. My dad, who has spent many many hours of his youth running across Kinder and Bleaklow as part of Four Inns races and recces, had reminded me more times than I can remember of how tricky it can be to get off Bleaklow in bad weather conditions, having been involved with a serious incident during one of the Four Inns events in the 1960s which ultimately resulted in the deaths of two competitors. A stark warning that you don’t need to be in far flung locations for tragedy to strike.

At the summit I paused to look at my map, and Richard caught me so we put our heads together to plan the descent. I think we probably did start off on the right bearing, but somewhere it all went a little bit wrong. Blizzards had dumped a covering of snow on the ground, obliterating any tracks that went before. We clearly drifted off course, but somehow did that age old trick of making the terrain fit the map. We crossed a fence via a stile and even crossed a river and celebrated our success??? We started to descend and I finally listened to that feeling in my gut that I’d been ignoring, stoped and looked at the map – about 1km off track, on the wrong side of Wild Boar Clough. I know many of you watching the tracker wondered why the hell we were going that way, or thought it was some tactic to avoid the wind – if only! We continued the descent with the terrain becoming steeper and rocky, the little path we were on disappeared, so we decided getting on the correct side of the river would be a good start. This involved a rather ‘interesting’ scramble down the side Wild Boar Clough, in the dark; very glad I found that torch!

Safely at the bottom of the section we found a safe point to cross over the river and Richard was quite anxious to inform HQ that although we were off-course we were fine. I didn’t realise he was actually experiencing something of a medical emergency with his heart at this point. I also picked up a worried text from my dad ‘note you’ve stopped in Wild Boar Clough, east of the Pennine Way love dad’ along with one from Nick asking if all was well? Climbing out, we found a small track heading downwards. I was very relieved to be away from the steep rocky ground and led the way down off the hill to the disused railway track at the bottom; an easy stomp to meet the Pennine Way, Nick and his little red car. Here awaited a mug of fantastic US style hot chocolate and I resupplied with food for the next leg (nuts, raisins, salted cashews, Battenburg cake and salami). Richard and I agreed that if we could move at similar paces we’d stick together otherwise we’d go our separate ways. We headed round the edge of the reservoir, turning just before Crowden to start the next climb up towards Black Hill.

Now Black Hill I had been warned about, Damian Hill mentions it in his fabulous guide to the Pennine Way, Alfred Wainwright has not a good word to say about it. But, do you know what, actually it wasn’t that bad. Richard and I set off together but it soon became clear that I was moving at a faster pace, he was having concerns about his heart rate and after double-checking that he was OK about this, and he insisted he was, I pushed on ahead. The trail rose steadily but the path didn’t seem especially challenging, it just went on and on, I guess I was ‘in the zone’ and just got on with it. I can’t remember what the wind was doing – perhaps it was temporarily behind me – more likely I’ve just blanked it from my mind as it was ever constant, never really letting up. I did at one point notice the rather severe drop off to the right as the path contoured above Bareholme Moss. Nothing would slow your passage if you took a slip there.

Finally six kilometres of steady climbing brought you to the summit and then the route descended off towards Wessenden Reservoir. I was feeling good, quite happy on my own, but the effect of the wind was desperate if you stopped, so continual forward motion was the only way unless the wind blew you somewhere else. The route picked up the infamous Pennine slabs, wonderful when dry but treacherous when covered in slime and moisture and the wind is gusting from behind, forcing you to brake and steady yourself with every step.

Finally I hit the road head on the A635. I’d written on my map that there was a possible snack van here – ha ha, not at 7pm on a windy night in January! But, there was a large camper-type van belonging to race support. My number was taken and I was offered shelter inside to eat, catch my breath, have my water bottle refilled and then sent on my way ensuring I knew where I was going. They were absolutely lovely and I was very grateful. Up the road and turning North onto a path that took me past Wessenden Reservoir. With decent terrain underfoot and temporarily clear skies, it was a joy to turn off the head torch and walk with only the moonlight to guide me. I was warm and I was headed in the right direction, life was good.

Past the reservoirs, the route headed out onto Black Moss. The trail was clear although occasionally boggy and, of course, the wind continued to batter and beat me. I successfully navigated across here with no map mishaps, meeting Nick at the road crossing of the A62 for more hot chocolate and the news that Richard had appeared to have stopped. I refilled my ‘nose bag’ (chest pouch) with supplies for the next stretch. And changed the socks on my left foot as my waterproof sock appeared to have sprung a leak, the foot was frozen and numb (and stayed numb for about a week after the race). I also put on another primaloft jacket as it was really chilling down outside and having not had a hot meal for 24 hours now, my body was vulnerable to cooling down very easily.

Buoyed with confidence from the last leg, I promptly went wrong! I set off just fine, taking the Pennine way along Millstone Edge. I even paused by a great big finger post to check my map, and then breezed on down the Pennine bridleway, I headed along this for a good kilometre before realising my mistake, there was no other option other than to back track and take the correct path, the one marked Pennine Way. Nick had even warned me against doing this before I set off too! Climbing onto the moors, it was rutted, muddy and wet; all very unpleasant. This joined with the Oldham Way – something that was not especially clear on my Harveys map but very clear on the OS map (knew I should have stuck with OS). I took my bearing at a significant path junction, but had been looking at the WRONG stretch of moor when I did it (we had been walking across several stretches of moor, all separated by small roads crossing. My error took me across an evil stretch of bog with several leg-sucking experiences in knee-deep mud, with several more blizzards to add to the fun. It was as the path started to turn West I finally listened to my gut instinct and back tracked. A text from Nick asking if I had my GPS on was not amusing; although he DID have a point, having watched me wander around a bit on the tracker! Up until now I had been trying to do this the ‘proper’ way with my map and compass, but I was carrying a GPS with the route uploaded on it with way points on it, so there really was not a viable reason to be blundering around in bogs on the wrong track at 10pm at night! It’s hard to relinquish the old ways!

With the help of my new friend GPS, I arrived back where I started to go wrong and met two head torches who shouted out to me. They had almost followed but luckily realised I was wrong. I was moving a little faster than these guys but my confidence had taken a bashing. The point when I was trying to work out where I was and the map wasn’t making sense (because I was looking at the wrong bit) and I was all on my own in the darkness and the blizzards was probably the only point when I wondered what the hell I was doing. Feeling stressed and muttering at myself to sort it out, there were tears before I got my act back together. So although I walked ahead I stayed with these guys for the next couple of sections. More moor, more bogs, more paving stones, constant wind blasting, sometimes a blizzard.

I met Nick was at the parking point on the A672 before you cross the M62, near the radio mast. Whilst sheltering in the car drinking hot chocolate, a race medic jumped into the car and asked if I was OK. I was a bit surprised by this, especially when she kept asking me – as if I might not be sure. I presume she was doing the same for all those still out on the course at the back of the pack. There had been so many drop-outs earlier in the day, and we were getting into the colder hours of the night but I seemed to convince her I was OK. While I was eating there was also a bang on the window, it was a guy called Steve I had chatted to on the way up Kinder Scout. He was just heading back out with a Czech lady called Alzabeta and we agreed to stick together for the next bit.

The snow on the ground had deepened as we set off up onto Blackstone Edge. This was another navigational ‘black spot’ – my map notes said ‘vague path, boulder hopping, use poles and cairns, worst = leaving crest ridge’. I attempted to keep us on track with the GPS and Steve had the map and compass. We were definitely all showing signs of tiredness at this point, getting tetchy and sniping if we seemed to be off the path at all. We descended off the edge with little incident though, joining the Old Packhorse Road and then picking up the trail across Blackstone Edge before heading down to the A58.

Here was the infamous White House Inn. Originally I had hoped to be here about 9.00-9.30pm and having a hot meal before pressing on, but sadly the two hour delay at the start meant it was now 11.30pm and well past last orders. So no hot food. Steve decided that he was going to pull out; he had a supporter meeting him at the pub so we said our farewells and then Alzebeta and I pushed on alone.

We made a good team, and it was easy flat terrain so we kept a good pace past Whiteholme Reservoir and on towards Warland Reservoir, although the signing was a bit random in places and we temporarily lost the route only to follow a narrow track making its way up onto what looked like the wall of the reservoir which revealed another great big track and another massive Pennine sign post. Alzebeta remembered this stretch from the one recce she’d managed to do, it was pretty flat but boggy if you happened to slither off the slabs at any point.

Heading across Withens Moor, Stoodley Pike started to come into view. This was the next big landmark and also a point of excitement because once you descended off, the next point of interest was Hebden Bridge and Checkpoint One! However Stoodley Pike took forever to arrive – it was probably only about three kilometres away but the wind was blowing at us head on and it was so cold, plus by now we’d been on the go for about 18 hours almost non-stop with the wind sapping extra calories as you fought onwards. I actually still felt OK, fuelled by a desperation to reach the monument and finally drop out of the godforsaken wind, maybe. Reaching the monument was a battle, but I spotted some doorways inset in the monument – perfect to grab 10 minutes of breathing space to get some food down and check the route again.

Heading off Stoodley Pike, we overtaken by a team of three or four who went steaming past. Joy of joy the sky started to lighten as well. Having been in almost total darkness for over 12 hours I was desperately craving daylight. The route was fairly straightforward here with just a few confusing field crossings, soon we were zig-zagging through the woods down to the road where we met Nick again. This was about 7am on Sunday morning.

We didn’t stop for food and hot chocolate, we knew the checkpoint was just six miles away, although it was a tough six miles that took us about 1.5 hours to cover as we had to climb up and over a couple more ridges. I was leading the way here, Alzebeta was virtually sleepwalking – an impressive feat! The route was a bit confusing but I just stuck the GPS on and followed the dot on the route, I’ll not even pretend I map-read my way through here!

Finally we picked up ‘Spine’ signs … OMG … finally the checkpoint … well once we’d negotiated steep switch backs down into a wooded valley where the centre was. I was ignoring all thoughts of the slog involved to get back out again later! As I descended I passed people in varying levels of sprightliness. Some were literally springing around, others were looking distinctly less than impressed and didn’t really need my morning smiley cheer I am sure! It was 10.00am at Checkpoint One. Hard to believe it had taken 22.5 hours to cover about 47 miles (including my little detours). Usually I can cover 50 miles in anything between 11 and 13 hours. I appreciate I was walking rather than running, but the impact of the wind was significant too.

Nick met us in the car park as he had my resupply bag in his car, and after a bit of wandering around we located the right place to check in. The place was pretty quiet as we really were at the back of the pack BUT, most importantly we hit the checkpoint within the deadlines (you needed to have left checkpoint one 24 hours after the start of the race, which was 11.30am). I found an outside tap and attempted to wash some of the mud from my ankle gaiters and shoes before I removed them – they were caked. I hung as much kit as I could up to dry in the sun and wind and then went inside to find food. Starving hungry, jacket potato and chilli, followed by bread and butter didn’t touch the sides, along with several mugs of tea. Another ‘team’ were about to head out – the guys that zoomed past us up on Stoodley Pike. They had grabbed some bivi sleep earlier in the night so were just eating here, not sleeping. I now had about 45 minutes before officially we needed to be out of the checkpoint. I decided 20-30 minute power nap was probably a good call, so I retrieved my sleeping bag from my drop bag and fairly quickly fell into a deep doze on a bunk in a dormitory. All too soon I became aware of a lady sitting beside me demanding what my plans were – I replied in sleepy confusion that I absolutely was planning to continue … ‘well, you’ve got 15 minutes to be out then, you had better get a move on’ was the encouraging reply.

In something of a panic I headed out to my kit bag and rucsac and grabbed dry spare socks and base layers along with fresh batteries. Shortly after this the checkpoint controller arrived (and what a lovely man he was). ‘What is all the panic?’ he asked and I explained. He basically said that the forecast for the evening was horrendous and we were to take the time we needed to ensure we had ALL the kit to make sure we were warm and safe out there, he would check us out on time. I relaxed and focussed on getting everything packed up properly.

Alzebeta was packing too and ready to go at the same time. There had also been another guy sitting in the dining room with us (Tom – Tom Jones) and we invited him to join us … he ummed and aaaahed saying he didn’t want to hold us up but we were extremely persuasive! So he joined our little gang and Nick headed off with an agreement to meet again at Ponden Reservoir.

We left not that long after 11.30am, and almost immediately went wrong on the zig-zag trail back up to the road. Alzebeta and I went one way and Tom another but we all arrived at the road and I picked up the pace, fuelled by the hot meal. Alzebeta fell behind but Tom soon caught me as I paused to check the map and it turned out that we had a pretty similar pace. He jogged a bit more on the flats, but I was faster at yomping the inclines. Of course, it was still windy, but the sun was shining a bit and it seemed warmer than Saturday. We made speedy progress over Clough Head Hill, past Gorple Lower Reservoir and across to the Walshaw Dean reservoirs, with only a minor detour when Tom attempted to take us on a little variation up Old Dike Hill, luckily I managed to persuade him this was not necessary and we were soon back on track. The miles passed quickly, easy inclines and good conversation make for fine travel companions.

We climbed up past Withins Heights, descended past the ruins so famous in Wuthering Heights; the wind seemed picked up another notch and the sky had darkened ominously so we pulled into the ruins for Tom could put another layer on. We shovelled some more food down and headed out on our way again quickly, standing still I found I got cold very quickly despite all the layers I was wearing. Heavy rain started to fall. Clearly it had all been going a little too well at this point and we relaxed, deep in conversation, jogging down the road off the moor, stopping to check the map, but managing to walk straight past the path across to Ponden Reservoir. Another classic ‘make the terrain fit the map’ moment, and then I noticed that we were approaching a village, and it was called Stanbury, nope we definitely didn’t need to be there. We’d probably gone about 800m off route, but when we tried to backtrack and find the correct path, we struggled to locate it in the dark and the rain, it should have been easy! Just as Tom went to check out an option (actually the right one) Alzebeta appeared over the brow of the hill and confirmed it was indeed where we were meant to be going. Another 40 minutes or so of time lost to silly mistakes – grrrrrr. It was the last one we were to make though so I guess we were learning our lesson.

Finally, we emerged by Ponden Reservoir. What followed felt like something out of a comedy; if only I’d been able to video. Nick’s car is very small, I think I’ve already mentioned this, and the back seats were down to fit all the food and kit in it. As we opened the doors to climb in, the wind whipped the doors out of our hands, and then we realised there was another person in the car. Another Spine Racer that Nick had rescued from the weather and let sit in his car to recover a bit. Nick was becoming something of a guardian angel for the back of the pack, but he is so very good at looking after people. So we had four soaking wet racers on the two front seats, with wet packs on their laps, and Nick curled up in the boot attempting to supply hot chocolate to the front. I was trying to change the batteries in the GPS and Alzebeta was trying to give Nick money for some batteries he’d bought for her, it was absolute bloody chaos, hilarious and annoying at the same time! Eventually we just had to eject ourselves back out into the weather, but oh my god, that weather – the doors were ripped out of our hands as we attempted to open them and we fell into the wind and rain, doors slamming behind us. It was pitch black and you could see very little even with the torch beam due to the horizontal rain. This weather went well beyond ‘invigorating’.

We set off as a group of four, the new addition being the other guy in the car, conveniently also named Tom, making life easy for me. Tom Jones clearly had a problem with names because as the evening progressed he started to call me Claire instead of Fran. I never did get to the bottom of why this was so and eventually gave up and just answered to Claire.

A little bit of confusion about the route as we set off – Tom J was convinced the route started off through a sailing club (I think that is what he said anyway), but even the people in a car that passed us by hadn’t heard of the sailing club, and I elected to follow the GPS blob, which brought us to a path conveniently labelled ‘Pennine Way’. A slightly confusing section through paths and road crossings followed, during which Alzebeta fell back from the rest of us, but soon we were on a path heading up onto Ickenshaw Moor. This was not pleasant, with the driving rain and wind, it became noticeable how much we were slowing on the climbs, we put this down to needing another decent hot meal in us and resolved that as soon as a suitable place appeared we would try and cook something up, not being anywhere near suitable hostelries. My map notes stated route finding was tricky here with a big climb at the beginning. I agree with all of that! The GPS backed up the map and with Tom J and I working in tandem we made good, accurate, progress. The descent was really horrible, with bogs, mud, and hidden ditches all making for an obstacle course by torchlight. At one point my foot went down a hidden water-filled ditch, I landed on my hand and felt the thumb make a definite noise it shouldn’t have, going fizzy and numb.

Finally off the moor we hit the road and had a bit of a debate about whether to look for some kind of shelter in Ickornshaw or press on. We eyed up a bus shelter, and even sat in it briefly to test it out, but it had no windows so decided it was no good. Onwards then, crossing muddy field after muddy field, none of which contained suitable spots for cooking or sleeping – they were just fields of slurry. I realised my water was pretty low and if I wanted to cook food I needed more, but all the water seemed to be flowing through cow shit! Eventually I found a stream I deemed clean but Tom J was not convinced, despite me pointing out it was going to be boiled, not drunk unboiled. We then hit a minor road with a few buildings and I found a corner of trees and undergrowth next to someone’s garden, it was quite sheltered and we were not actually IN the garden so agreed it was a good place to stop and cook up some hot food, but I couldn’t persuade the two Toms it would do for a power nap! Not sure what the time was, possibly about 11pm, but I texted HQ to advise that we were stopping for a cook-up. Amazingly we had a break in the rain at this point and sat comfortably in our hollow cooking up our own little feasts – I will concede I was definitely envious of Tom J’s meatballs, my drooling was clear and he is a very generous soul, and then also gave me a mug of delicious hot lemon and honey, AND some of his stash of chocolate … what a love! Not that I didn’t have food of my own … I did, and I was eating it, but his was so much more delicious!!

Time to hit the trail again with the village of Lothersdale being the next target. To reach it lay more miles of navigating across muddy fields in the pitch black. I’m sure it would all be a breeze in broad daylight. Crossing into each field involved either a metal gate that may or may not open, or a stile. The stiles were definitely the worst. They were hardly wide enough to get a body through, even my slim build struggled, and often had a sprung-loaded gate attached on the other side (which depending on the wind direction were often impossible to open). Teamwork was essential. On either side of the wall would be a massive pool of slurry. Sometimes it wasn’t that deep, but usually it was at least ankle deep. One benefit of the darkness was not being able to see this muck but you could smell it! We crossed about seven of these fields, and with each one we could feel ourselves getting grumpier. Sleep, we desperately needed sleep, I knew I was defnitely tired and irritable and by Lothersdale I announced that I was going to sleep, whatever. We then wandered around the streets a bit trying to find somewhere suitable, sadly there seemed to be no bus shelters, Tom J didn’t seem too keen on the corner by the wood pile – someone might wake up and see us, so we walked on up the road in the direction of the next stretch of field and there we found a nice grassy pull-in – slurry free – by the field gate; I spotted the most beautiful sight; a tractor – we could all fit under it! Luxury, a bivy with a roof.

The weather was taking another break from hurling its worst at us so we could at least unfurl sleeping kit and climb into bivy bags without getting wet. The Other Tom (not J) announced this was one of the most bizarre moments of his life – he probably had a point, but I was really quite excited about it all (or perhaps just a little delirious with tiredness), and just so relieved to be climbing into a warm dry sleeping bag, briefly out of the wind. I sent a text to race HQ to say we were stopping for a 2 hour nap (it was 1.00am) and settled down to at least doze if not sleep. I was very cosy and comfortable and remained warm, must have been the tractor shelter and three of us lined up like peas in pod!

3.00am the alarm went off, I’m warm, it’s raining again and nobody wants to move. Another 20 minutes we agree. 3.20am, alarm goes again, Tom J and I were clearly awake but we wondered whether the other Tom had perhaps died in his bivy bag due to the total lack of movement. We shouted several times before he eventually emerged! Reluctantly we climbed out and packed away kit. My liner socks had dried out a treat while I dozed. Thankfully being under the tractor gave us shelter to get sorted, but all too soon we were back out into The Weather.

3.45am I guess and we started to head off, am not sure I felt especially refreshed but the rest did us some good, however the weather is truly awful and daylight was still a long way off. At this point we were briefly caught by Alzebeta who tried and failed to sleep because she was so cold. We crossed a couple more fields; the next stretch was a bit more tricky. Tom J had a great plan involving contouring, which all sounded lovely but a bit complex for 4.00am when we are tired so I got the GPS fired up and with his bearing on both our compasses and the back-up of my GPS blob I reckoned we could keep random wandering to a minimum – well bogs tend to take you off track so easily as you try to dodge and extract. The plan paid off, we gave a little dance of jubilation as we hit the cairn on Pinhaw successfully. Somewhere on the way up onto here Alzebeta fell behind again but we tried to guide her onto the correct path with our torches. Reading her comments after the race, I think she thought she was hallucinating flashing lights, but they were real, they were us!

I had agreed to meet Nick at East Marton, some 5 miles North of Pinhaw. As we descended to the road off there we saw a torchlight and a red-jacketed person walking to meet us from the parking point. I thought it was Nick as I greeted him and then soon realised it was a member of the Mountain Safety Team. This was something of a rare breed by now, as since leaving CP1 on Sunday late morning, we had had no communication with anyone (apart from a brief reply to my text saying we were snoozing); in direct contrast to Saturday, where racers were being ticked off at crossing points and checked out for mental well-being by staff.

Bearing this in mind, I was completely unprepared for what followed: asking how we all were, and then telling us we were being pulled from the course. I was pretty stunned by this. When I asked why, we were told it was because we were not going to meet the checkpoint deadlines and the Mountain Safety Team could not cover the back of the pack. I can’t explain the feelings that went through me. I was too thrown at that moment to do the maths regarding checkpoint cut-offs, but was fairly sure we were within schedule. I couldn’t remember whether we were to leave CP2 60 hours or 66 hours after the race started. Despite my confusion, I knew I wasn’t happy. Yes, I was tired and my waterproofs were definitely wet through, but I was fine (as was Tom J), we also had a support car waiting just five miles away. Tom J was probably a bit more rational and polite to the MST guy, and I guess having completed the entire race a couple of years ago, was able to put better perspective on the moment. For me, I was thinking of all the complicated logistics I had got in place to get to the start line, and then, through no decision of my own, it was game over, despite me feeling fine.

The other Tom decided he was done in and was going to pull out anyway. We asked if they had pulled in Alzebeta yet, and so the MST guy phoned HQ to find out about her situation as he wasn’t aware of her presence. Alzebeta has her own tale to tell of that stretch of moorland and what happened to her, but ultimately she was picked up by the MST a while later.

I suggested that whilst the Safety guy was waiting for official confirmation from HQ, could he let us walk onto the next village as standing still in the rain I was getting incredibly cold. To be fair to the safety guy, he was the messenger, not the decision maker, never a nice task; and even he conceded that we did indeed look fine. However, I did need to get moving – I was wearing two merino wool thermals, a merino wool jumper, two primaloft tops, my mountaineering waterproof jacket, two pairs winter running leggings, waterproof trousers, hat, balaclava, buff, primaloft mitts (with liner gloves), ankle gaiters, knee-length gaiters, wool liner socks and waterproof socks (that I later discovered were full of mud!) and was staying warm providing I was moving, what I really needed was a decent fry-up!

Tom and I set off for the two-ish mile trudge to Thornton-in-Craven. We stomped and discussed, trying to work the maths for the checkpoint cut-offs. We agreed that there was no way we were bailing we would have to be pulled.

We came to the conclusion that we didn’t actually need to have left CP2 (Hawes) until 11.30am on Tuesday morning. Given it was 6.00am on Monday morning, and that CP was about 38 miles away, we had at least 27 hours to get into and leave Hawes. We fantasised about the hot breakfast we would buy in Gargrave and the hot pies we would buy in the Coop. Gargrave was only four miles from East Marton where we were meeting Nick, so we would be there by 9am definitely. Hot food was within touching distance.

We reached Thornton-in-Craven … no sign of the Mountain Safety car, we just started to head off up the track towards East Marton when damn, the guy came running round the corner. We nearly got away … should have turned off our torches!!

The show was over; HQ wanted us off the course. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. We got in the car, which I won’t deny, was lovely and warm, and the guy said he would take us up to CP2 at Hawes (where the Challenger race finished) where we could sort out our kit etc. Tom was going to head up there, get some rest and join the Mountain Safety Team for the rest of the week; he is a stronger braver person than me. I’d said to myself before the race that I would happily do that if I had to bail out. Being confronted with being pulled off despite being fine, I couldn’t face the thought of seeing the Challengers coming in joyful at completing, or seeing the racers still going coming through CP2 and continuing on their way. I asked instead if he could at least take me round to East Marton and drop me with Nick and I would decide then. We headed round there and thought about Tom, Nick and I at least going to get that hot breakfast and then realised we could only fit two people in Nick’s car.

It was such a shock and having to say goodbye so quickly to my fantastic companion for the last 18 hours (who I’m not sure I would recognise in broad daylight, minus layers of thermal and waterproof coverings!). I wasn’t too happy about that either. It was all very sudden and very horrible, and felt very wrong.

I climbed into Nick’s car, put my head in my hands and just cried – tears of anger and frustration. So much effort put into trying to get down to do the damn race and it felt like I couldn’t even prove I DID have the mettle to finish. Knowledge that there were people moving ahead of us, but not an awful lot faster didn’t help. I also felt, that given we were now in the valley, it was getting light, we were close to villages, we were not a million miles from Malham and CP1.5 and we definitely were still in time-scales for leaving CP2, and at no point had anyone even given us a hint that this was potentially on the cards – no text to say ‘keep your phone on, we are monitoring you, we have concerns about your speed’, nothing, and that bothers me.

I don’t want my race report to end on a sour note. I had a fantastic time out on the course, and that is even with some of the most extreme mountain weather I’ve been out in. The extremeness being emphasised by how sustained it was, no let up, ever. I travelled with some amazing people who I laughed with, got a little lost with, stayed on track with and shared memories with. That you can’t beat. But I’m not going to pretend I’m not a little antsy about how it panned out, disappointed. Countless people have talked to me about ‘unfinished business’, going back to prove myself, but I’m really not sure actually.

My kit worked – the only thing I’d like to source is a lighter sleeping bag but everything else worked really well for me.

I had some stupid dodgy navigational moments – which actually, now I’ve read some of the other race write-ups, I realise others also made. But overall my navigation was actually pretty OK, and I now know exactly how useful a GPS can be.

I felt fine in myself – that for me was a massive confidence boost. I actually ‘enjoy’ challenging myself like this – I kind of always knew it, but it’s good to have it reaffirmed after you’ve been on the go for 48 hours with no real sleep to speak of and are still able to make rational (well they seemed rational at the time!) decisions.

Written by Eoin Keith - https://eoinkeith.wordpress.com

A half moon lit up clear cold starry skies this evening, and I ran on up the incline to the high point of Glencullen valley road. Feeling good on this unusually benign night, but common sense says turn around and reverse direction back home now. Yeah, I probably should really. But just how did I even get this far out so comfortably. This time last week I was still in the midst of the Spine Race, making my way through the Cheviot hills towards the finish line. And here I am, comfortably knocking out a 2 hour plus training run, apparently feeling in better shape than almost any time in the last year. And this the after an hour and a half of big-ring power cycling through the hills last night. How did I manage to do this?!

The Spine Race has to be one of the hardest most gnarly running races in the world. The scale and distance of the race, running for over 400km non-stop along the full length of the Pennine way (The eponymous spine of England), are stark enough. But when you add in the fact that it takes place in January it truly becomes Britain’s most brutal race. Extreme conditions are pretty much guaranteed. The cold wet environment of deepest winter in the Atlantic maritime climate is about a tough a set of conditions to endure as you are likely to meet, even with the best available gear.

The 2015 edition of the race was my introduction to the Spine. Pavel Paloncy, the defending champion had a reputation of being the invincible giant of the race. But I had every intention of trying to win the thing, and had a plan to beat Pavel. The race was hugely disrupted by the hurricane force winds which swept across the course on several days, causing the race to be halted and restarted on several occasions for safety reasons. This had a hugely disruptive effect on the race, and the racing aspect of the race. Nobody was sure of what the the net time difference between runners was, and it only became clear after the top runners had crossed the finish line.

The weather enforced stops had also undermined my plan of how to beat Pavel. Even so, I gave it a good shot, with the official finishing times showing me within an hour of Pavel’s winning time (My personal calculations have me just 15 minutes shy of his finishing time). Close, very close, but not quite good enough. Pavel is an excellent all-round adventurer and athlete, with great mountain craft and navigations skills. I discovered here that he also has a top athlete’s ability to absolutely bury himself to try to win a race, to give true 100% commitment to the cause.

As usual with any race, and in particular with a highly technical multi-day ultra like this race, I had learned a ton simply by participating in the race. I reckoned I had left hours behind me through various mistakes that would be corrected the following year. Scott and Phil, the race directors, had generously offered me a consolation prize of a free entry for the following year, given the effect of the weather on the race and how close it had turned out. So that made it a no-brainer… I’d be back.

Once I had finished the Tor De Geants in September my focus switched to preparing for the Spine. This started with a good rest and recovery, followed by steadily ramping up my training to full intensity. I had also decided that I wasn’t mixing in enough cycling, so made sure to try to incorporate at least one, and preferably two days of training per week to be cycling. I also enjoyed myself taking part in cyclocross racing season, doing pretty well in the lowly environs of the B class vets. It was excellent racing practice though.

Training peaked with a weeklong holiday in Tenerife over the christmas period, where I got in my longest training run of the year with a 7 hour trip up and down to the Caldera of Teide at 2,400 metres (starting from sea level). Some of the trails in Tenerife were massively technical as well, so my mind was tuning up nicely for technical terrain. 2 big cycling days mixed-in also added to the preparation.

Arriving back from that it was an immediate taper down, getting used to being back in our winter maritime climate again and getting all the last bits of preparation done. TJ in Columbia was sourcing some new gear for the race for me. This included two pairs of outsized Conspiracy waterproof trails shoes. It also included two crucial new pieces of gear which I really wanted so as to give me a big step up in capability. These were a top-end Outdry Extreme waterproof shell jacket (which wasn’t available for sale yet), and a lightweight down jacket that incorporated an Outdry Extreme outer layer, effectively making it a waterproof down jacket. That’s quite a revolutionary concept in outdoor gear, and one which I had come to realise would be ideal for the Spine Race, while I trained in the cold wet Dublin hills through winter. I really do feel very lucky to have Columbia as a gear sponsor. Their innovations in outdoor gear technology have been amazing.

I had also been working with the lads in the Great Outdoors with some last minute additions to fill out the gear list. As usual, the wealth of knowledge in the shop is super, and I was able to bounce ideas around and get good advice on the finer details of which pieces of kit would be likely to work best in the environment of the Spine Race. The key pieces of equipment I picked up from the Great Outdoors team were a Garmin GPSMap64s and a pair of Leki trekking poles.

I had my race pack configured in race configuration a few days ahead of the race and ran my last few training runs with it as specific training to be sure to be used to running with exactly the configuration I would race with. I also played around with the Garmin GPS to ensure I knew it inside out and wouldn’t have to think too hard to use it during the race. I also configured all the relevant settings to be optimised specifically for the Spine. I made sure to use it on one of my training runs simply to satisfy myself that it was working as well as I would expect (which it was, of course!).

Everything about the journey from home to Edale for the start of the Spine seemed to go better than last year. For a start I got to spend more time with Helen, my wife, as I was able to get a lift from her to the aircoash busstop. On the aircoach there was a classic Irish scene of 3 (the driver, myself an another passenger) strangers who only just met having a great conversation about the joys of being active in the hills. The flight went smoothly, arriving 15 minutes ahead of schedule, which in turn allowed me to get an earlier train to central Manchester. That in turn allowed me to catch the last train to Edale before the 2 hour “hole” in the timetable, and thus arrive there 2 hours ahead of last year’s arrival time, despite starting the whole journey at the same time.

Similarly to last year, people were turning up for the Edale train dressed head to toe in various types of outdoor gear and thus picking out their fellow Spiners and starting up conversations. It leads to a nice atmosphere and enjoyable journey.

The registration process was much slicker this year, with only a random selection of runners needing to undergo a full gear check. Most of us had to produce 3 randomly selected items from the mandatory gear list. The race briefing was also shorter. The main item of note from this was that the diversion away from Hadrian’s Wall was no longer effective, and we were now to use the orignal official route along the Peninne Way. That negated the last bit of preparation I had done the previous night in cutting up and laminating the diversion route.

Again, I was earlier than last year getting up to the YHA hostel, getting in that evening’s pre-race dinner (another social occasion with my fellow Spiners staying at the hostel), and most importantly of all getting in a good night’s sleep.

Race morning was a big improvement on last year. No hurricanes, no driving rain! I had a small breakfast at a leisurely pace, and then jumped into the first shuttle mini-bus to the village hall for the race start. The hall wasn’t long filling to the brim with noisy Spiners avidly chatting away. I found a seat to wait until race start. I was delighted to meet with and chat to some of the locals who I had met at the same place and time last year, and we again had a good chat about the. It’s great to hear the interest that the schoolchildren in Edale take in the race.

Finally without about 10 minutes to go we all made our way out and walked down to the actual start line. One or two small showers had passed in the previous hour, so my last pre-race gear decision was to put on my waterproof leggings before the start. I went and stood right at the startline, with most people choosing to start well back. Only Richard Lendon wanted to be sure to get to the front so that he could lead off the race himself, as tradition dictated.

We got our countdown from 10, and then off we went. After Richard’s lead-out the expected gang of 3 came to the 4, along with one or two others. I had check the list of entrants to see if there was any potential winners there and couldn’t see any obvious contenders. Neither Pavel, the winner for the last 2 years, or Eugene Rose Sole who had won 3 years ago, were on the list, but I had guessed a long time back that they would turn up. Given this, I was expecting this race to become a 3-way battle for the win.

The first learning from last year and improvement for this year came a minute in when we didn’t dive into the race briefing venue, but continued on up the road to the Peninne Way start itself. The early pace was good. Nice and steady without being too fast or taxing. Pavel went flying by on the first small descent, and proceeded to slip and continue on down the descent for a few seconds on his back. All was well, it was a classic wet weather slip with no harm done in the splashdown onto the waterlogged grass.

I was happy to lead out to the start of the first major climb up the Jacobs Ladder route. As it steepened to rocky steps I used my poles to fast-march up the hills. Eugene was full of beans and overtook to move uphill fractionally faster without the aid of poles. Similarly to last year I noted how Eugene seemed to have by far the smallest pack in the race. What gear does he have in there? He must have some seriously lightweight kit. As well as the expected 3-some, we also had Richard Lendon with us and racer number 27.

As ever, I was gaining huge advantages from having done the route before. I have a great memory for both locations and maps. As a result I knew exactly where I was going this year without having to cross-check the maps or GPS. Beware hubris! after the steady climb, a lot of taken at running pace, we reached the plateau of Kinder Scout. And of course I ran slightly off-line, not holding the left edge as I should. I spotted Richard Lendon running along to my left on the correct line and quicly barrelled accross the open ground to arive on the correct track just in front of him. As well as being a very capable ultra runner Richard also happens to be a vetern of every edition of the Spine race so has an excellent knowledge of the route.

I had a good conversation with Richard as we made our way across the plateau. We were still pretty much a solid group of 5 runners. The pace was still strong and steady. I knew it was probably faster than last year’s pace, but it seem less “hot” to me, which was a good sign of where my own fitness was at.

On the steepest most technical section of the short descent from Kinder Scout Pavel came flying past. He is an excellent descender. I had no intention of taking any risks at all at this stage of the race, so was happy to plod down and let him fly away. Once we were back on flatter gorund the group quickly tightened up naturally again, and we ran as a tight pack on towards Snake Pass. This was mostly slabbed-tracks over open moorland, under the landing flightpath for Manchester airport (As ever, my inner aviation nerd can be a happy distraction in the middle of ultra near flightpaths!).

In a near repeat of last year’s unhappy incidents with Eugene, he managed to misplace his footing at one pointing running accross the slaps and put one of his feet into a hole, causing him to crash noisly to ground. The others checked that he was OK (I was in front), which he was this time, and on we went. We arrived at the saftey check at snake-pass only slight out of order (we had race numbers 1,2,3,4 and odd-man-out number 27), crossed the road and ran on keeping up the steady pace.

I was still happy to lead out and path find, which I was doing mostly from memory. Occasionally I’d slow and check with the others on the direction (mainly trusting Pavel and Richard to give an accurate answer). I got chatting with number 27 at this stage, who turned out to be Mark Denby. He clearly had good speed anyway to be keeping up with the lead pack. Pavel again showed his speed on the steep downhills, with Eugene following close behind… a pattern that was becoming well established. We had all fromed up into a group again going accross the Dam at Torside Reservoir. Small gaps opened up along the next few sections occasionally, but nothing of significance.

The combination of a non-delayed start and moving a a faster pace resulted in us having more daylight to play with further into the course this year. We crossed the A635 at Wessenden head with anoth quick sfety check. I ran straight through, but the others must have stopped for something, as I opened up a full sightline gap heading out form there down to the Wessenden Reservoir. I was happy to keep my own steady pace and let the gap open or close entirely dependant on how much work the chasers were willing to put in. As it happens I made their life much easier by having to stop an do a Nav check at a track junction so that they closed right up again.

One of the Mountain rescue teams had set up a mini-aid station at the next road crossing at Standedge. I took the opportunity to stop for a minute a refill myself with two full cups of dilute blackcurrent. Nice and tasty after a day’s running. We still had daylight running out of there. The pattern stayed similar as we ran on as a group across the high open Moors, crossing the occasional road. After the M62 crossing, and the small steady climb up Blackstone Edge I faced reality and got out and used my head torch. The next section is a little more technical in parts, and I was happy to settle in behind a fast moving group of Challenger racers for a few minutes.

It turned out one of those was Damon Rodwell, taking part in the Mountain Rescue team race, who had shown me enormous hospitality last year puttin me up in his house after the end of the race. We greeted each other, and Damon reminded me that the hospitality again awaited, but only for the race winner! I responded that that was probably the number 1 motivation to win the race, and that I had every intention of being the one taking him up on his offer!

The lead group arrived together at the White House pub, where there was another safety team, and another opportunity to restock on water. The weather was a little worse at this stage, with persistant rain. That combined with nightime meant we had to be careful to stay comfortable. My Outdry Jacket was working a treat, and I was feeling like I was in my own little bubble.

We didn’t depart together… Pavel was away first, with Eugene rapidly off after him. I made a few adjustments to my gear (I needed to fix a strap on my gaitors) before setting off myself. The next section is a very flat run winding through a system of reservoirs. It took me a lot less time than I expected to catch up with the other two. We were now down to the expected three-some. We worked together to navigate our way along this section. I was operating mainly from memory, Pavel from the maps, and Eugene from his GPS. We still manged to make enough minor off-track deviation that Richard Lendon was able to rejoin the group by the time we got to unmissable stone spire of Stoodly Pike.

I spent most of the rest of the journey to CP1 in the company of Richard, with the other 2 either with us or just behind. Running down the out-and-back track appoaching the CP Richard said “I know it my inner child, but..”. I knew what was coming and let him in front to lead us into the CP. He was planning to take a relatively long stop there so would loose contact with the group here.

CPs are a nice disruptive influence on any cosy group running! I fully expected some moves to be made here. I was going to do things very differently here compared to last year myself. I was happy to let Pavel away last year to go out and build a lead. I was expecting it to happen, and it did. I picked up from the other runners there that they also expected Pavel to be fastest through the CP as a matter of course. So I presumed Pavel would try to do the same again this year.

Howevever all I had to do here was swap maps so that I was going to be carrying stage 2 maps only, and ditch the stage one maps. So I just dragged my bag into the outer porch where the other 3 were taking off their shoes so that they could go into the dining area and get some food and liquids. I didn’t need food, so I didn’t take off my shoes. I asked one of the marshalls if they could fill my “active” water bottle for me, which they did. Another marshall offered to get me a hot drink, and with the racket of the heavy rain hitting the glass roof of the porch I happily accepted a mug of coffee (The caffine would likely be a good help too). So as the other returned to the porch to get their gear on I was walking out the door and away! This time I would see if I could make this one stick for a bit. The front pack was split. Time for the real racing to start! Wooohooo

The racing begins

The entry route to CP1 at Hebden Bridge is a short but very technical slippy trail followed by a steeper section of slippy rocky steps. People have fallen and broken limbs here in the past. To get back out onto the Pennine Way proper this must be reversed uphill. I had now created a gap. I had to be careful and controlled not to let it get to my head and rush out too fast, particularly on such high-energy technical ground. It was still very early in the race. The race couldn’t be won here, but it could easily have been lost. I was way ahead of my exit time from CP1 last year, when I stupidly tried to get some sleep here (big mistake, effectively throwing time away).

I overtook a few Challenger racers in the muddy section here who had left a few minutes before me, and powered away towards the track end. A kilometre or so of road climb takes us back to the Pennine Way again. I found myself able to run steadily up this road, effectively floating up. All was going really well. I had made a few navigation mistakes here last year, so I didn’t want a repeat of that. Jinxed! I managed to miss the right turn onto the Pennine Way and overran the junction. Luckily I figured this out within about 100 meters and reversed back quickly. Unfortunately I could see a pair of head torches heading rapidly for me, which of course was Pavel being followed by Eugeni. Still, I reckoned they must have worked hard to get back so quickly.

A short steep climb takes us up the ridgeline above, which I steadily “pole” up at cruise speed, not worrying about the gap. My 2 chasers close right up behind me. Now at this point I wandered around for a bit last year before heading off on a big obvious, but incorrect, track. This year I skipped the wandering around but still managed to head off on exactly the same incorrect track. If the other two called me back I didn’t hear it (and if they didn’t that was fine too… we were racing after all).

I looked behind after a few hundred meters and could see that nobody was following me…uh oh. So I fired up the GPS which I had on a lanyard around hanging on my neck and used it to make a quick location check. I’m normally used to racing in events where GPS devices are banned, and I’m a big fan of navigating using the traditional tools of a map and compass (which were also hanging around my neck instantly accessible). However a full proper GPS is mandatory gear for the Spine. If I’m going to be carrying a tool as useful as this with me then I’m definitely going to use it when its quickest tool at my disposal.

The speed and accuracy of the Garmin continued to impress me (I have found on this race that they can be used to fine tune pathfinding to within a meter or two in real world conditions). I was high of the path running roughly parallel to it. So I turned downhill and fought my way through the scrubby stumpy ground as best I could, aided by the fact I was descending. A minute or two later I was back on the proper track. I could see Pavel and Eugeni’s torches heading away in the distance. In the space of about 10 minutes I had managed to completely invert a small gap from a lead to a deficit. Cool, no panic! I’ll just carry on from here at my own pace and see how it works out.

I ran on at a comfortable pace. The gap varied by distance over time, but that was probably more down to the ups and downs of the terrain we were crossing. For a few periods I couldn’t see the 2 lads ahead at all. No worries. This is still very early in the race.

As I crossed the road after traversing around Ponden Reservoir I could suddenly see 2 headtorches not too far ahead up the hill. I followed the PW signposts along the road for a few meters before climbing a style taking me over a wall and ….arrgh!!…  a pretty well flooded piece of land. Oh well… onwards and splashdown into the temporary pond beyond knee level. Definitely no dry shoes and socks now.

I was really feeling like I was moving noticeably faster than last year as I climbed the hill up from the pond, and if anything it was taking less effort to do so. As I hit the open mountain again for the long shallow climb up Oakworth Moor I could clearly see the two lads up a few hundred meters ahead. Before the climb was finished, and within about 5 or ten minutes, I had closed the gap completely to rejoin them, again doing so at my own natural pace.

We naturally began working together again, with Pavel or myself making most of the nav calls, and Eugeni being occasionally asked to check his GPS to see were we on track. There were one or two small deviations, but we collectively corrected them very quickly. This settled in as the pattern again and took us all the way through Gargrave (which we passed through at too ungodly an hour of the morning to have a hope of taking advantage of the local shops), and onwards towards Malham.

On the long flatish riverside run approaching Malham we worked really well to ensure we were all safe, as by now the rain was appallingly heavy and the temperatures had dropped through the night, eventually turning the rain to snow. I was extremely comfortable wearing my waterproof down jacket under my Outdry Extreme Shell, with not a trace of dampness developing on my base layers. However I had delayed putting my gloves on for a little bit too long, and was glad to have Pavel’s help jamming them on over my now frozen hands.  Pavel’s super navigation took us right on course over the now snow-obliterated tracks. A quick confirmation on my GPS led us over onto the track taking us to the bridges leading through Malham.

Conditions were really wintry now, with the village being a lovely winter wonderland. We were making fresh tracks in the snow, as of course there was no-one else around. Visibility had become pretty poor too, making accurate navigation even more necessary. The journey up past the cliffs at Malham was steep and hard, but rewarding. As we worked our way towards “cp 1.5” at Malham Tarn Field Centre we could detect the early stages of dawn approaching.

A warm welcome greeted us from the staff at CP 1.5, and we all took advantage of the facilities to have a warm drink. Eugeni also got out a sandwich for himself from his pack. I satisfied myself with a piece or two of Kendal mint cake which was provided here by tradition it would seem. The CP crew let us know that there were only 4 challenger racers ahead of us on the course. I didn’t want to get too comfortable here and we didn’t stay too long. We stuck together as a group heading off again into the emerging daylight.

Just like last year there was plenty of wind around as we traversed around Fountains fell and onwards towards one of the big climbs of the race, Pen-Y-Ghent (PYG). The winds had caused us to be diverted around PYG last year. Given that they were still quite high as we approached, and there was fresh snow covering the ground I wondered would the same happen again. But no, there was no safety crew at the base to divert us. We could see a collection of people at the top waiting for our approach though.

The very steep technical ground had us all taking this at our own natural pace. Eugeni surged forward and powered up the hill. I had to put both walking poles in one hand so that I could climb more effectively using my free hand for additional balance, as we were still being buffeted by quite strong winds on this exposed section. A collection of photographers greeted us at the top of the steep climb, and a short easy running climb took us to actual peak. Eugeni’s effort of powering up the hill didn’t gain him anything of course, as he waited here for one of us to come up and navigate off the mountain.

As had become the pattern we eventually all closed up again and ran most of the descent into Horton as a group, with the weather getting better as we descended off the exposed mountain top. In Horton one of the race safety crews had set-up a mini aid station at their van. We took advantage of their hospitality to grab some quick hot drinks and a few little snacks, along with a nice chat of course!

And the wide double track leading out from here Pavel made a little surge on one of the first climbs, but we all rolled back together again soon enough. I had encountered very heavy rain (driven by exceptionally high winds) on this section last year, so it seemed quite pleasant in comparison this year, as I only occasionally needed to flick my hood over my head as the odd shower rolled by. I made sure to look around every now and again to take in the views, including a classic English scene of a large stone arched railway viaduct crossing the landscape in the distance.

As we ascended the long road gentle road climb up the Cam Fell road I felt like the other two might be playing games, as they spoke in spanish to each other and then one would then put on a bit of speed to lead up the hill. I just tracked each move and let them at it, putting in the odd running spurt myself. I reckoned that it was equally possible that everyone was thinking the other two were ready to work against them! Lovely little mind games.

We turned off onto the muddy double track past Dodd Fell, with Eugeni making more frequent surges to lead us along. A group of about 5 motorbike scramblers passed us going the other way, leaving plenty of churned mud in their wake. Two or three land rovers followed not long afterwards, leaving even deeper ruts behind. Towards the end of this path we caught and passed one more challenger runner, leaving only the podium placers from that race in front of us.

Pavel was surprisingly slow on the descent into CP2 at Hawes, with Eugeni and myself occasionally waiting for him to rejoin us. Thankfully when we hit Hawes village itself there were separate signs directing the challenger finishers and the Spine racers to their respective aid stations for this CP (or finish in the case of the Challengers), so we didn’t have to do a big loop around the town.

Last year I had grabbed a couple of hours sleep here before being timed out as I went to leave. However we had been much much faster getting here this year, and it was still the afternoon. Plenty of usable daylight left. I wasn’t feeling sleepy either, so I wasn’t going to stop here for sleep. I still had a few jobs to do here. I wanted to switch around some of the clothes I was racing on, so that I had a more cold-weather oriented set-up, and switch from having a spare base layer in my rucksack to having my waterproof down jacket as my cold emergency spare layer (A little heavier and bulkier, but far easier to get on and actually use should the need arise). I also needed to do some standard replacements, such as switching maps, and swapping out batteries for my GPS and active head-torch.

Of course, this being a CP, the fun and games were likely to kick off here again. No doubt Pavel would try a move here. But I was going to do what I needed to do at my own pace and let the dice roll from there. We arrived in and all began taking off our mud-soaked shoes and leggings. Pavel nabbed the only chair in this outer room, but one of the race marshals quickly grabbed another few for us when I had a little whine! As ever, the marshalls were their usual helpful and friendly selves.

To my delight I established that the hot food available here was chicken curry. No way was I going to pass that up, even if I wasn’t particularly hungry. There were large bottles of coke nearby (A new innovation this year), so I grabbed one of those and brought to the table where I was eating. Eugeni and Pavel  joined me at the table, and we ate away quickly enough without too much banter. This was definitely a racing stop!

As we finished up our food and began to prepare to leave things were hotting up and getting spicier than the freshly digesting chicken curry. Pavel had a photographer meeting him around the course, and she was here helping him with his exit preparations. He was definitely in the mood to get out first. Eugeni was moving fast, as no doubt he wanted to stick with Pavel at any cost. I was getting things done as fast as possible, but at the same time ensuring that I didn’t forget to complete any of my little tasks.

Pavel burst out the door and could be seen running off heading down the village. Race on! within a minute Eugeni was hurrying out the door after him. He was looking panicked as he flew off after Pavel. It felt like an age was passing as I was putting my shoes, gators and rain – leggings back on after completing all of my other changes (Change of base layer leggings, adding a fleece mid-layer, and changing socks). But I kept to my own pace, and eventually I was off again, heading down through Hawes village.

This time the split was 3-way, so the race was definitely back on again after a prolonged period over working together and watching out for each other. How we would each pace out from here would be very interesting indeed, as after a day and half of racing, heading for the 2nd night of the race, we had effectively been going non-stop and were all bound to be dealing with the building fatigue in different ways. Sleep deprivation was bound to start to become a factor with the approaching loss of daylight. We now had gaps to build and close as well. And to top all that immediately in front of us was one of the big sustained climbs of the race… about 6km of steady, potentially runnable, ascent to the peak of Great Shunner Fell.

Little Details, Big Effects

Control. That was becoming my main mantra. Control. Keep the pace under control. Keep the effort under control. It’s a long race. Who will be running fastest at the end will more than likely have a much bigger impact than who is running fastest at the beginning.

So I ran down through Hawes village at a nice steady pace, despite knowing that somewhere in front of me Pavel was making a break for the lead and Eugeni was desperately trying to catch him so he could continue to follow Pavel’s navigation. No stressing the quads on the tarmac road descent… no stressing anything at all!

The Pennine way heads off the road and through floodplain parkland just after we exit the town. Much to my surprise I catch sight of Pavel and Eugeni a few hundred meters ahead. I would have expected them to be well out of site at this point. I stopped briefly for one or two more adjustments and then ran on. Again, surprisingly, I was closing the gap easily enough. By the start of the track which climbs up Great Shunner Fell I had overtaken Eugeni and was cruising up behind Pavel. So yet again we were back as a group.

We were losing daylight rapidly at this stage. I was very happy that I was lasting so far into the race without any sleep deprivation issues. The climb up Great Shunner Fell was a long slog, without much of significance from a racing point of view to note. The higher we climbed, the more the snow obscured the path, so that even the stone slabbed sections of the PW were getting harder and harder to find. I’m a pretty good instinctive pathfinder and I was happy to lead out the group and hunt out the track, now under head-torch light. Occasionally I’d lose it and work with the others to refind it.

It was a similar story for the long descent, except that at the higher speed of descent, track-hunting has to be done even more quickly. The potential to have a nasty fall by wandering off the underlying slabs into a hole, or taking a slide on an ice-covered slab section, was always lurking, ready to potentially take one of us out of the race. On a few occasions Eugeni called me back as Pavel had dropped off the back of the group out of sight. We were happy to wait for him to rejoin, given the potential dangers in the darkness.

Hitting the little village of Thwaite at the end of the descent we found ourselves in another lovely winter-wonderland vista. I waited a minute or two for the others to rejoin and be fully ready for the next section, and then off we went. My route memory was proving to be the most accurate means of navigation on the steep climb out of Thwaite. For some reason I find the next high section traversing the valley side to Keld to be a very entertaining run. It’s full of little technical sections and lots of undulations, but is still mostly runnable. Group running remained the order of the day.

After Keld we climbed back out and onto the open moorland of Stonesdale Moor. This was a lovely run in the daytime last year, complete with a low roaring flypast by a pair of F-15s. But at night it was a lot less interesting, especially without the USAF! Still, there was a lot of runnable sections, so we were maintaining our high speed.

We were now approaching The Tan Hill Inn, shining invitingly in the distance, an oasis of comfort and civilisation in a sea of snow smothered moorland. At this point I was starting to feel the very early effects of sleep deprivation. I knew that if I carried on from here to CP3 at middleton without stopping then it would most likely turn into a horrific battling sufferfest of sleep deprivation by the end. So I decided that at minimum I would try to take a 15 minute power-nap here. Depending on conditions inside I might expand that to a more substantial first major sleep of the race. Obviously I’d also see what the other 2 were going to do. Being a virtual CP, this was yet another likely spot for another outbreak fun and games… tactical race chess moves!

We arrived into a pub that was empty, apart from the Landlord and his wife, along with a small group from the race safety team. Pavel and Eugeni sat on stools right next to the open fire and started ordering food and drink. Language barriers seemed to be causing a few issues with the process. I tried to figure out what the lads were planning to do, but I wasn’t getting any clear answers. I wasn’t at all worried about getting in any food or drink and just went into the adjacent lounge, lay down on the couch and tried to grab a nap. I had asked one of the safety lads to get me up if anything happened, or in about half an hour.

About half an hour later I was awoken to find the 2 lad settling in for a sleep on the other couches in the room themselves. They were going to take about 2 hours. Grand. That’s the first big sleep so. I told the safety lads that I’d take the same sleep myself and went back to my number 1 task, returning to the land of nod.

I heard from someone after the race that the 2 lads were carefully watching each other as they were taking their outer layers off in preparation for getting some sleep, just in case one of them (it could only be Pavel) would make a break for it and leave the other behind. I’ve no idea how true this is, but I was happily oblivious to it all.

In what seemed like an instant we were woken again by the safety lads. I had very little to do to get out, as I hadn’t done much except take my rucksack and jacket off and lie on the couch. I took up the landlord’s offer of some soup, which was lovely and thick, full of big chunks of vegetables. He also gave me a great cheese plate and a piece of chocolate cake. I picked off as much as I felt I could, but I wasn’t massively hungry so left a lot behind. An orange juice went down nicely with this. I had an interesting discussion with the safety guys here too about the various personalities in the race, and the psychology of how being in the race bubble can affect people.

Of course, at this stage there was a live demonstration of race psychology taking place! The other 2 were slowly getting ready to leave. They had taken off a lot more of their layers, including their shoes. This was now slowing them down getting ready to head out again. The landlord came over to me and encouraged me to come back to the pub some time after the race, and I agreed that I’d love to, as it was a great pub in a great location. He gave me some good words of encouragement for the race as well.

By now I was impatient to get going. Pavel was having great difficulty getting his shoes back on, and was loudly uttering quite a few Czech words which I could probably guess the meaning of! There was a good reason why I didn’t take my shoes off… I didn’t want to get too comfortable only to have to face back into large levels of discomfort on restarting. I also knew that my feet would be more likely to swell if I removed my shoes. I was already wearing a pair one size too big, and knew that when I switched to my next pair they would be 2 sizes too big. Pavel appeared to be proving the disadvantages of the alternative approach. Little details!

So with that I walked out the door, telling the others that they would no doubt catch me down the trail, as had been the pattern so far in the race. But I reckoned there was an opportunity to break the pattern here. The trail out from the Tan Hill Inn is one of the more bleak sections of the Pennine way. It’s an unpaved track defined by the erosion of walkers over the years through waterlogged moorland. It is a gentle descent at first. It’s hard enough to follow in the daytime. At nighttime, with a snow dusting on top, it would really have to be hunted out. There were marker poles every few hundred metres for reassurance that you were on track. Given that I had lead out the track hunting up and down Great Shunner Fell, I reckoned I might have an edge in track hunting skills here.

I walked at first, giving the other 2 a chance to easily catch up, but then started back running. Enough of that, we’re in a race after all. Time to test my track hunting theories. So I picked up the pace to a steady cruisy run down the track. The trail was expectedly tricky to find, but I was enjoying the rush of finding it under these conditions. Here we go again! Another breakaway attempt. This time I reckon I have a good chance of making it stick for a while. At worst I can dangle out in front of them and maybe they’ll work a little harder to pull me back. Game on. There’s no chance of sleep deprivation kicking in now! Race mode fully engaged.

Attempted Getaway

I was trying not to look back too much. Just stay focussed on running forwards at a steady pace. The standard mantra… Control. Control. If the trail angle allowed it I would let myself take a sideways peek for head torches out of the corner of my eye. They were following of course, but I seemed to have opened a useful gap of at least a few minutes. It’s hard to judge at nighttime though. Just concentrate on steady progress. Control!

The run along Sleightholme moor went well. I held the path all the way without a problem or a hesitation. The trail then drops to a bridge across a small river, and a small roadway takes us out of the little valley and beyond. I remember this being a good long runnable road section from last year. At this time of night there are a lot of ice patches on the road though. I had to be careful with each foot placement as the chances of slipping and fracturing a bone were quite high, given that I was running along at a nice pace. A few small hollows along the way required stepping along the grass verge to be absolutely sure of not going flying. Control!

I knew that there was a left turn off the road onto track to take me towards a lone house on the other side of the small valley on my left. But I had been concentrating so hard on keeping my pace steady without slipping that I looked across and realised that I was coming too close to the lights of the house on a parallel course. Aaaaaaah feck! A new navigation mistake for my Spine collection. I double checked on the GPS, and sure enough that’s exactly what had happened. I had missed the turn-off and carried on down the road.

An instant decision was taken to just barrel straight across and rejoin the Pennine Way as quickly as possible. This turned into a little mini adventure. For the first hundred meters it was good running across grassy meadows. Then a dive down a steep bank and a quick wade across a river, before climbing the bank on the other side. Another hundred meters or so of nice meadow running led me to the top of a cliff edge… yes I had remembered this would be there from looking across at it last year. No time for niceties now though. A quick glance down towards where the Pennine way should be and I still couldn’t see headtorches. All is not lost yet. A peak over the edge of the cliff reveals a severely steep 10 or 20 meter drop to the grass-banked riverside.

I put my poles in one hand and try to make a controlled descent. Whooosh… there goes the control! I tumbled down 5 or 10 meters, but then regained control and stopped. Crap… I’ll have to climb back up to get the poles , which I had instinctively let go of (so that they wouldn’t cause any injuries to me in a fall. I had learned this from my Alpine Climbing instructor who had instructed a group of us for 2 weeks a broken thumb, thanks to having his pole strap around his arm when he took a tumble). But the poles had followed me. Good old gravity. So I just reached out and picked them up, and was off again. Another quick river wade was followed by a brief run along the riverbank on the other side. There were cliffs next to me now which needed to be climbed to get up to the Pennine Way, so I looked for a relatively safe spot to climb. I quickly came to a wall which provided that opportunity.

Sure enough, it was climbable here without too much of an issue and I quickly topped out with only a wall crossing left before finally getting back on the Pennine Way proper. Despite all this, and to my own surprise, there was still no sign of any following headtorches. Things are going well!

The Pennine way branches here. Everyone in the race was going to take the much shorter direct route bypassing the town of Bowes, of course. It was easy enough following this in daylight last year, but I was making a few minor deviations here and there, slowing me down as I worked through the rougher ground to get back on track. Still no sign of following headtorches though.

Approaching the tunnel crossing under the A66 road I could see across the valley behind me and finally caught sight of the chasing torches. I reckoned the gap was somewhere around 10 minutes, but it’s harder to judge at night. That was pretty good, considering I’d had a wander or two over the last few kilometers. But enough of that… control, just keep moving forward at a steady pace and let the dice roll.

The next section of undulating hills over the open moorland of Cotherstone Moor seemed to take an age last year. This year in comparison it seemed like I was just rolling along, even on the longest climb of this section. I was very happy to be able to take a large proportion of it at a relaxed running pace. I followed the GPS basemap track towards the end of this section, which in reality probably had me off the on-the-ground Pennine Way track, but from memory would have been drier terrain.

Hitting the roads taking my around Blackton Reservoir I was nicely tapping along, still running, still at a very steady controlled pace. I got a big surprise crossing the first cattle-grid I encountered on these roads. It turned out that it was much more icy than it looked. I had no traction on it whatsoever and ended up with both my feet and poles sunken into the cattle grid. No harm done, but a little bad luck could easily have caused a serious leg injury there. Every cattle grid from then on was crossed at the edge, holding onto the sides!

Climbing up the road here I again could see headtorches on the other side of the valley. I reckoned the gap was opening up though. I’ve been dangling out in front for quite a while now. If I could keep mistakes to a minimum then I should be able to make this gap stick all the way the CP at Middleton without a problem. That would give me an opportunity to turn this into a significant breakaway.

The pattern continued on. I was finding the going much easier than last year, even though I had covered this section in daylight then. Perhaps the familiarity with what lay ahead was having a good psychological impact. And again, anytime I caught site of the head torches behind the gap had, if anything, grown a little.

One of my personal favorite views on the race is rounding around Harter Fell and seeing Middleton in the valley below. At night time the view was even nicer, especially now that the weather was clear and there was a nice dusting of snow covering the ground. The descent down to Middleton is a truly joyous affair. It’s one of those descents that you just love as a trail-runner. A lovely moderate slope that is covered in fairway-esque grass. This could potentially be run at full-on 110% sprinting descent speed. I was happy to led gravity do the work of pulling me down the slope to effectively “float” down the hill at good but controlled speed.

Bruce from CP3 was waiting just after the bridge in Middleton and ran along side me for while and chatted. He asked what I wanted from the CP, then ran ahead to get it all ready. I trotted on through the deserted town and made my way into the CP building. After the sleep at Tan Hill Inn I wanted to make this a quick stop. I didn’t actually need to do much other than make my standard swaps of maps and batteries. I took up the offer of hot food and drinks, as I might as well get some in whilst doing my swap overs. My main aim here was to get out of the CP before the other 2 arrived in, thus ensuring I would maintain a gap. At that hour of the morning I wasn’t at my conversational best, but it was still good to chat with the volunteers in the CP, who as ever helped me in every way they could.

It wasn’t too long before I was heading out again. I’d achieved my main aim to get out before the chasers arrived in. Now lets see if we would meet in the next kilometer or so in Middleton as I make my way back to the Pennine Way proper (It’s another out and back trip to the CP in Middleton). I made my way steadily back through the town, anticipating the moment I’d crossover with the chasers, but to my delight I made it all the way back to the Pennine way. As I started heading out along the flat riverside track out from Middleton I could see the headtorches making their way down the hill above me to my left. It would seem that I had grown the gap again. I’ve a good chance of making this stick for quite a while. At the least, I’ve got control of the race from this point. Even with an instant check-in and turn around at CP3 they would still not be able to see me ahead through the next section along the river Tees.

The dawn light for a lovely run up alongside the Tees. I’d had a few mini-mistakes along this section last year, but went along flawlessly this time. On the farm track down to the bridge crossing over the river I did find a nice ice patch and landed on the track with a thud in a short blast of expletives. Last year we were diverted around Cauldron Snout due to the cold weather and high winds. At CP3 one of the Volunteers had asked how long it would take me to get to the diversion point, as he was going to go out to check if it was safe. There was no sign of a diversion when I arrived at the decision point, so onwards on a section I hadn’t seen before.

Even though it is shorter on paper than the diversion, the original route proved to significantly slower. For whatever reason I felt a wave of tired as I ran along the river-side track towards Falcon Clints. Every so often the cliffs almost merged into the river so that the track disappeared into huge boulder fields which were very hazardous to traverse, since the rocks were quite slippy. The views were undeniably stunning though. Cauldron Snout itself was roaring in spectacular fashion. Getting past it proved to be slightly easier than traversing the earlier boulder fields.

From there it was back to ice covered roads for a while. I carefully worked my way along those, before crossing Maize beck. A fast march uphill followed, going past red flags on adjacent flagpoles (presumably indicating an active firing range), and then working across the isolated landscape up towards High Cup Nick. This for me is where the best views of the race are to be had. The steep cliffs nearby make for exhilarating running around here. The earlier tiredness had gone away and I was back to steady paced running again. I hadn’t seen any sign of the chasers since back at Middleton.

The long descent down to Dufton from Dufton Fell eats through the kilometers, especially with the views down into High Nick Gill and beyond. The trail widens into rough road lower down, allowing an even faster comfort decent speed. Near Dufton one of the race safety teams were waiting to check that all was OK. I just slowed to walk to say hello, but quickly headed on into Dufton village, having a quick conversation with some cycling locals along the way. I was wishing for a shop in the village, but there was none… time to stop fantasizing about the various drinks I now couldn’t have, since it’s going to be water all the way from here.

Getting back onto the Pennine Way after Dufton I had memories of it being-unrunnably awful here, but more of it turned out to be runnable than I thought. There was still plenty of deep muddy section to squelch through though. Now begins the climb to the highest point of the race. Time to put the head down and churn out some power pole climbing. I had lost some time on this climb last year wandering across the mountain from track to track, so I made sure to nail the navigation this time. I felt like I was making good speed powering up. The weather was quite variable, with blue skies changing to grey murk at different altitudes. In the blue sky sunshine it was particularly beautiful, with light bouncing all over the place on the snowy ground.

As I climbed higher and higher the snow cover became more pronounced, with the trail correspondingly less so. I found the trail all the way to the first of the peaks, Knock Fell, without a problem. From here the snowdrifts made things a lot harder though. It took a little crunching about and sinking into the drifts before I was able to locate the trace of the underlying slabbed tracks again. Even at the the snow was thick enough that it was still slowing me down considerably moving down off Knock Fell towards the road leading to Great Dun Fell. I looked back once or twice here to see some stunning views. Temperature inversion had the snow-covered peaks emerging from the cloud banks in an alpine style vista.

I didn’t immediately find the Pennine Way track that heads directly off road to Great Dun Fell, so had to do a little cross country through the snow drifts to re-acquire it. Thankfully the trail itself wasn’t too deeply drifted and I made it up to the boundary fence of the huge Radomes at a good enough speed. Coming off Great Dun Fell was a different matter. The snow had built up quite deeply on this side, obliterating any trace of a track for the early line of sight. It was back to being closed misty weather now as well, so visibility was getting quite restricted. Boy was I glad to have moved fast enough to get this section in daylight. I didn’t have too much of that left either, so time to kick on and try to get across these peaks with that significant advantage.

The trip from Great Dun Fell to little Dun Fell should be a short little undulation, but it took a huge amount of concentration and track-hunting to the ground covered efficiently. Any time I lost the track I was quickly reminded of the advantage of having the slabs somewhere under my feet when I would sink beyond my knees into drifts. From Little Dun Fell to the flanks of the highest peak of the race, Cross Fell, upped that a notch again. There wasn’t much of a track to be found on most of the climb here, so it was a matter of learning to read the patterns of snow over grass and rock to find the lines of least resistance.

I was very happy to reach the huge stone construction that marks the peak of Cross Fell still having reasonable daylight, even though it was definitely very murky at this point. Descending from here is not as easy a task as it could. It’s vitally important to stick as closely to the official track as possible as there a huge number of hazardous features from abandoned mines to the left, and heading too far to the right is just going so far off course that it would all need to be reversed. To me the correct line off the top is an “unnatural” line which isn’t the direction you would instinctively run. So I paid good attention to navigation here. On the steeper upper slopes before the sharp right turn towards Greg’s Hut I was going so quickly that I ended up flying off and arse-skiing for a moment!

After the right turn the mountain road that headed past Greg’s hut (A small stone built mountain bothy) had a good snow covering, but I had enough light to hunt out the most efficient lines and was able to keep a good controlled running pace for most of the road. I ran straight past Greg’s hut. everything was good and I had nothing to gain, but plenty to lose, if I stopped. A couple of kilometers of steady running, with the occasional uphill walk took me to the end of the eastwards flatish section of the road to where it start to turn northwards. In my head this is the point where I’m leaving the high Fells and starting the long descent towards Alston and CP4. It was also the end of the usable daylight, so I turned my head torch on.

I hadn’t been doing much looking for chasers in the the last while, but the turn in the trail and the fact that head torch lights are easy to spot over long distances meant that I was taking the odd sideways glance. At first I thought I could see them in the distance coming down off Cross Fell. But I soon corrected myself to realise I had my angles wrong and that I was seeing the light of buildings or streetlights in the far distance.

On the next gentle uphill section I tried turning off my headtorch. I found that there was enough ambient light bouncing around the snow that I could trot along quite happily on the mountain road. So the headtorch stayed off. Approaching the Apex of another short climb in road I could see the beams of bright lights approach from the other side, which I guessed was a vehicle, and further guessed would be race staff heading up the hill, probably to Greg’s hut. All guesses proved correct, as they stopped in front of me, check all was OK and if I needed anything. After a brief chat we all set off again in our opposing directions.

It was noticeable that their four wheel drive had had quite an effect on the snow and ice covering the path, cracking the ice along its tracks and leaving a solid trail. It would definitely alter the characteristics of the descent for a while.

This is a very long descent, and all of it is on road from this point. Anyone who runs this too fast will fry their leg muscles. Anyone who has moved too fast to get here will have problems sustaining a downhill run on the continuous hard surface. My standard mantra was as important as ever here. Control. Keep the pace to a good steady run. Don’t run too fast, don’t give in and walk.

The descent down to the village of Garrigill was very long, but uneventful. The onset of the night was triggering my sleep instinct. I didn’t want to do too much to stop this, as I had every intention of taking a good length sleep in the comfort of CP4 at Alston, which was now getting very close. Just like last year, running through the village after the long descent is a bit of a drag, but the ultra-runner in me just keeps up the discipline and digs out the steady unspectacular run. Good metronomic instinctive ultra pacing.

Beyond the village is another turn onto a riverside (downriver thankfully) run towards CP4. Only a few kilometers to go. I had heard other runners before the race discussing this as being about an hour away. So I mentally put that time in my head, knowing I would probably beat that, but to prepare for the worst. The race crew had warned me that this section had been affected by the floods over christmas and to be careful of flood debris left on the riverside sections of trial. Such was the mental readiness I had that the reality moved along swiftly and easily. Within about half an hour I found the first of the race signs directing me up towards CP4.

On the steep road up towards the CP two of the CP staff had come out down the road to meet me. They checked if I wanted any food and drinks. I gladly accepted the offer of a hot meal, but then had to let them I actually don’t like pasta (which they had offered). The suggested alternative of scrambled eggs was perfect though!

Knowing that I was going to rest here, I could really start to feel myself slowing down approaching the CP. As ever, all the staff at this CP were super-helpful. I asked one of them (Phlip, I think) to dig out a jar of hot chocolate powder from my re-supply bag. That was a delicious treat. I was of course very interested indeed to see where Pavel and Eugeni were at this point. They were making their way down the track way beyond Greg’s hut, getting closer to Garrigill. I guessed there was maybe an hour’s gap there. I was still increasing the gap, but not by much, and given that I was going to sleep here it was likely to disappear shortly.

I let them know I was going to take a 2 hour sleep, so I was led up to a bedroom where I hit the sack, finished off my second mug of hot chocolate and went out like a light! My expectation was that when I awoke the other 2 would either well into a sleep themselves, or would have skipped sleep and be out on the trail ahead of me. That would be their call. I was happy that I was making the right long term decision in grabbing a relatively big sleep here, even if it meant surrendering a lead built over a complete day. Once again the stops CPs were the source of big tactical calls!

Defining Moments

As usual, the wakeup call felt like I was being dragged away from the briefest of brief moments in nirvana and slapped back into harsh reality to a world of darkness and pain (that bit is close to the truth!). I had to get into action quickly now. After spending a day building a one hour lead it would the easiest thing in the world to throw it all away with a lethargic approach to exiting this aid station. The first job was to get on new shoes and socks, and make sure I was happy that the rest of my gear was good to go. I also had to make sure the usual task of map and battery changes were completed.

When I wandered down the stairs to the main hallway I was surprised to see Pavel and Eugeni there in their race gear. Apparently they had only recently arrived in. It must have taken them more time than me to cover the ground of the last few kilometers since I checked their progress before sleeping.  Possibly they might have pushed too hard chasing earlier in the day and paid the price later on. Who knows! I said hello, but concentrated on getting my own jobs done. I asked for more hot chocolate, but was also offered porridge which I was happy to accept! knowing that my lead into the CP was bigger than I expected I was happy that I could now afford to burn a little more time on extra comfort items.

I heard on the grapevine that the lads had decided to go for a one hour fifty minute sleep. So they were slightly undercutting me. Given that I had slept a bit more at Tan Hill Inn, I was happy enough to head out with a reduced lead, or indeed any lead at all, knowing that I had more sleep banked overall. It all adds to the control!

Phlip was being extremely helpful as I sorted out my maps and batteries, and finally geared up to leave the hall. Restarts are one of the more difficult parts of the race, particular leaving such a comfortable environment. The outdoors which I was so confident moving about coming into the CP would be a harsh reality check on leaving. But leave I must!

I managed to confuse myself on the road down from the CP back to the Pennine Way itself, but figured it all out eventually. The Pennine way from here is wanders and weaves through fields and walls for a while, before eventually turning into a nice flat trail into the village of Alston itself. After passing through Alston the Pennine Way heads downhill in a big way. Unfortunately that’s in a figurative rather than literal sense! I really disliked this section last year, and that was in daylight. It was probably going to be in even more of a challenge in the dark. At least I knew to expect it.

For some reason, even though I had recently left a well supplied CP, I was beginning to fantasise about various drinks I might like (which of course I had no chance of getting), eventually settling on lemonade as being my ultimate fantasy drink at that point in time. So I was now also self-torturing myself mentally on top of dealing with probably the worst section of the Pennine way.

The route wanders either side of the A689 road, mostly passing through farmland or scrubland, avery high proportion of which had been churned up by farm animals to become a muddy mess. It really was awful, no doubt made all the worse by all the heavy rains over christmas leaving a lot of waterlogged areas behind. It was pretty slow going working through all this.

Quite a few dreary kilometers later I eventually got my wish and the Pennine way ran along the A689 for a little while into the village of Slaggyford. After that it was back onto better trail for a while before passing under an arch of railway viaduct to uphill for a short climb. I had being starting to get some feelings of sleep deprivation in the previous 20 minutes or so, and it was still a long way to go before the natural waking effect of dawn would arrive. So passing under the arch I made a snap decision to have a 10 minute power nap to try to neutralise the sleepiness.

So I just lay down on the ground, grabbed my GPS, found the alarm setting on it and set it for 10 minutes after the decision to nap. There was a probably another few minutes of just lying there with my mind racing, but eventually I did nod off. Thankfully the alarm did wake me, so it was up and off again, beginning with a few seconds of staggering about before properly getting go. I made a conscience effort to dig in here and do a good strong climb up the hill to try to push myself into a fully woken state.

After what feels like a short trip through a few people’s front gardens the Pennine way descends through a few fields again back to near the road. At the bottom of this hill last year I had slipped on a flagstone and landed so hard on my nose and knee that I was surprised not to break one of them. So I beside the flagstones this year, and then crossed over a style. On crossing the style I glanced back up to hill to see two headtorches heading down the hill towards me. That was a big surprise. I was not expecting that at all.

(I have since heard that Pavel did not take the 1:50 sleep he had said he would, but instead got up after an hour to get going again and put a gap between himself and Eugeni. Eugeni then heard him and got up himself to do whatever was necessary to stick with Pavel)

I headed off with a bit of a start and soon came to the climb up the next hill . Near the top of the hill I looked back to see the two lads just starting the climb themselves, maybe 300 meters behind me. Murphy’s law kicked in and I made a minor navigation error to lose another 20 or 30 seconds before kicking on and heading cross country, and then on to another short climb beside a wall. Looking back near the top of that climb the gap had closed again I reckoned it was closer to 200 meters now.

I had quick think. Should I just relax completely, let them put in the work to close the gap, and then work with them through the navigationally tricky flatish section that was coming up next. Or should I switch from running at a relaxed pace to pushing on to a faster, but still cruisy pace (I still had no intention of pushing hard here. I still needed to exercise control and ensure that I would still be able to run all the way through). I opted for option 2! At worst they’d have to work harder for longer to catch me, and given I had more sleep banked that would theoretically leave me level pegging, but better rested heading into the business end of the race.

So I concentrated on pushing up to a  controlled fast cruise pace over the next flatish section of trail, and then working with gravity to keep the pace up on the descent down to final crossing of the A689. When I looked back up from the road I couldn’t see any headtorches, so I must have started opening up the gap a little again.

The next section is probably the most navigationally challenging of the race. The first section is straightforward enough, running a little downhill parallel to a wall. On this section last year Tim Laney got distracted in the dark as he ran past a large dark cow, only to run slap bang into the middle of another cow (which apparently was unperturbed by this). Any large bovine obstacles were a little further away from the trail this year. The track then meanders around a boggy flat section, where I lost the trail briefly before finding slabs and boardwalk again. Looking back I could see the other 2 leaving the road. The gap had increased to maybe 400 meters now.

I pushed on, down an unnatural feeling trail which dives down to a river crossing, before turning sharply and heading back up the opposing banks. At this point all traces of a trail disappear, and don’t re-appear for several kilometers. I kept the concentration on solid forward motion with occasional GPS checks to keep me on line. Eventually we cross a large boggy area with a long shallow climb and descent. There was a bit of a trail here, but it was incredibly waterlogged. Another look back seemed to indicate that I was consistently growing the gap.

Last year Pavel and myself had worked together on this section and we diverted into the village of Greenhead to get some refreshments at the hotel there (including a pint of that fantasy lemonade in my case!). The timing is wrong for a repeat of that this year for multiple reasons. So I stuck to the Pennine way and made my way towards Hadrian’s Wall. I had been looking forward to the Hadrian’s wall section last year, but sleep deprivation made the whole experience more of a survival challenge. I’d cleared out my earlier sleep deprivation with my power nap, so I was determined to enjoy it a bit more this year.

Approaching the carpark at the main entrance to the wall there was a car parked on the road with its lights on. Given the time of night it could only be race staff. Sure enough it turned out to be Phlip, who had been tasked to remind us here that we were to follow the original Pennine way route along the wall and not the (much easier and faster) diversion route. He asked if I’d like a coffee, but I asked if he had any lemonade! He did have coke, and I gratefully drank a good amount of it. Knowing the other two were still chasing I moved off quickly.

The first Hadrian’s wall section went a lot better than last year, and with my concentration on keeping up a controlled running pace I felt I was making very good progress. At a farmhouse near the end of the first section of the wall (I let the 3 road crossings divide up the journey along the wall into 4 parts) two people were waiting on the track. These turned out to be part of the race safety crew. They were there to meet us and do an assessment of our mental state (presumably physical too, but since all 3 of us out here were running there clearly was no issues there).

I slowed to a walk and they walked with me, explaining what they were doing, which was to ask me a series of questions. Unfortunately their first question was “what year was September 11th”. I was 100% mentally alert at this time. Too alert maybe, as I couldn’t contain my inner smart-alek with the answer that “every year has September 11th. That’s the way it works”, even though I knew exactly what they were trying to ask. I did manage to hold myself back when they asked what day of the week it was (real answer : “I couldn’t care less, I’m in a race bubble and that has no relevance at this point”), and gave them my best guess. But then I had no idea what time of night it was… all I was paying attention to was sunrise and sunset, so I hadn’t allowed for the fact it was after midnight.

After the brief interrogation they let me off again, and I made my way down to the road. When I looked back I could see 2 head torches again, but of course that was just the safety team watching me head away. In fact that was the last time I was to see any trace of anyone behind me. I had done a good job on building the gap again. I was confident now that I could continue to slowly build this, or at worst hold it, all the way to CP5 at Bellingham.

The rest of the trip along hadrian’s wall went smoothly. A bit beyond halfway the light of the dawn started lighting the landscape up nicely, and I was treated to views that I didn’t get to witness last year. I maintained my concentration on keeping a good steady pace, whether marching up the steep steps of the multiple “bumps” the wall traverses, or running across the tops of the hills.

Finally the trail junction and left turn that signifies the end of the the Pennine Way’s traversal of Hadrian wall. It was nice to see this section of the route in daylight this year… a completely different and much improved experience. At the road crossing near Ladyhill two different carloads of supporters were waiting. I gratefully accepted the offer of a little soup from the first group, as the forest around Haughton Common had yet again proved itself to be a few degrees lower in temperature than Hadrian’s Wall. I asked the second group if they had any lemonade or coke, but no luck there!

A few Kilometers later I approached the farm buildings at Horneystead. Last year the couple who farm there had greeted Pavel and myself at about 3am, and led us into one of their farm buildings where they had set up couches and chairs, and plied us with all sorts of refreshments. We stayed chatting with them for a lovely 20 or 30 minutes. This year they were not out to meet me, even with the more sociable hour, but there were several signs directing Spine racers into the same building to help themselves to refreshments.

On arriving in I found a similar set-up to last year, along with a not to help ourselves, and a note apologising to Pavel and myself that they couldn’t be there to meet us in person this year, but wishing us well. What absolutely lovely people! I had a quick peek in the fridge and lo-and-behold what did I find but some cans of lemonade. Oh these people are the greatest. After hours and hours,and whilst still out on the course between CPs I got to indulge in my fantasy drink!

On the road just after that the second group of supporters from the earlier road crossing met me again, this time offering me a bottle of coke and some chocolate. Wow, people are so good!

The rest of the journey to  CP5 went nice and smoothly. I was thinking to myself that the long road sections were likely to fry the legs of anyone who had run too hard earlier, and as usual I was exercising my standard mantra of control, and just running a steady metronomic ultra pace. I was trying to calculate the time of day I would arrive at the Bellingham CP, eventually thinking that 3pm was the worst case scenario. Even that time left plenty of daylight to be exploited, so my plan was to go through CP5 in the minimum amount of time, and utilise the daylight to get to Byrness at a good speed.

There was plenty of race signposting near the CP in Bellingham to bring us in on the proper Pennine Way and avoid the road, as the official signposting is pretty poor here. I was a bit ahead of my worst case predictions arriving into the CP.

Phlip had clearly been tasked with moving the bags of the front 3, as he was here again being his usual extremely helpful self, along with a few others manning the CP. As I simply wanted to make a few changes (the usual maps and batteries, along with socks and possibly a base layer) I was declining any offers of anything that would slow down my exit, including a shepherd’s pie.

There was a bit of discussion about the need to carry 800 calories of food with me leaving the CP, and I wondered who was making up this rubbish on the fly. I pointed out that I had eaten a grand total of about 3 chocolate snacks outside CPs in total over the course of the race so far, and I had the same amount again with me now. I did get a bag of jelly babies and added it to my food store to be transported to the finish line to placate them a bit. I did drink two more mugs of hot chocolate (Phlip knew exactly where to find it now!), and after asking was there any real fruit juice, I was also given some orange juice, which was great.

Of course I was also asking about my lead, and what was happening behind me. Apparently I had at least an hours lead built up by now. Also, interestingly, Pavel had managed to create a gap to Eugeni. I was glad to hear that. I wouldn’t like to see Pavel do all the navigation only to be beaten to the finish line. An hour was a useful lead, and all the better considering I was feeling in great shape, and fully motivated to head out and make good time to Byrness. An enquiry with the CP staff about passing shops revealed that I would pass right by a co-op and a cake shop heading through Bellingham. I’d definitely allow myself a stop in the co-op to get something different to drink.

It took me a little bit of time to get going properly again, but after about a 20 minute stop I was off and running down the road towards Bellingham village itself. I was most definitely on the home straight now, with no more full CPs left, and race-wise I was in an excellent position, in the lead and apparently faster than the chasers.

In Bellingham the cake shop came before the co-op, and after a brief look in the window I couldn’t resist going in and getting two nice cakes. I then picked up a litre of fruit juice and a bottle of strawberry flavoured milk in the co-op. A nice new variety for the palette. I threw the water from my “active” bottle and replaced it with fruit juice, keeping the weight gain to my pack from this stop to a minimum.

After walking up the steeper hills out of Bellingham I concentrated on running as much as possible for the next sections. It would be easy to relax too much into a lazy style at the point. I was very happy that I was still setting a nice running pace, even on the waterlogged gentle climbs. To be running at all on any climbs at this point in the race was a good sign that I was pacing well. I had also learned from a few minor navigation slips on this section last year, and didn’t make any deviations from the route this year.

Progress to and from the B6320 road crossing and onwards across the hills of Troughend Common was an excellent controlled ultra pace. Even the sharp climb up by the forest edge after Padon hill felt like it was at least as fast as last year. Light was rapidly running out at this point, and I was back to running by headtorch light. I was glad to have made it to within a few kilometers of the long forest fireroad section in the daylight.

The next two or 3 kilometers are an extremely slow very waterlogged marshy section that seems to take forever, before finally emerging onto the fire roads of Redesdale forest. I upped the pace to a nice controlled fast cruise for the long long descent on the fire roads, which relatively rapidly closes the distance to Byrness. On the uphill intervals here I managed to get a powerful nordic walk going with the poles, so that I was maintaining a good pace all the way.

Getting to the bottom of the fireroad descent feels like the end of the journey to get to the checkpoint at Byrness, but there are another 3 kilometers or more of flat running remaining that have to be bludgeoned through. This section had a few fallen trees to be negotiated, which disrupted my running rhythm briefly, but after what seemed like an age I eventually got to the race signs directing us on to the out-and-back trip to the checkpoint at the forest view B&B in Byrness.

As it had been dark for a while now I was starting to feel the early symptoms of sleep deprivation again. At minimum I would take a half-hour nap here in preparation for the big-push over the Cheviot hills to the finish. But I would see what the race situation was before making a final decision on what to do. Hopefully the race volunteers would have a full picture of what was going on from the tracking. My decision on what I would do here would most likely be my last big call of the race. I knew I had controlled my own pace so well to this point that I more than likely had full control over the race at this point, but I still had to be careful not to get this wrong and give Pavel a sniff of an opportunity. How to balance the timing of this last sleep could be pivotal.

Control!

The checkpoint at Forest View B&B was a very welcoming place again, as expected! Priority one for me was to get an overview of the race situation. Everything else would be governed by that. I was glad to hear that Pavel had created a gap on Eugeni arriving into CP5 at Bellingham. But I was amazed to hear that they had both elected to get some sleep there. This meant that I know had a massive lead on the ground. In reality a lot of this lead was “virtual” as I now needed to bank some sleep here for myself. But with such a huge gap I could take a relatively luxuriously long sleep to ensure I could get to the finish without needing any more stops. I felt I had control of the race now. I could decide how close to let Pavel get to me, and how much sleep to get.

I let the volunteers know that I’d like to take a 2 hour sleep here. I was very kindly offered the use of a bed by the B&B owner. I had to decline it though, as the rules state that racers cannot use hotels or B&Bs for rest, which I interpreted to rule this out. I’d just use the couch in the check-point area that every other racer would have full and equal access to.

Two hours later I was woken, and my first priority again was to get an update on the race situation. There had been plenty of drama in my absence from the real world! Eugeni had yet again had a much shortened rest in Bellingham and had left with Pavel. He was now over 3 days in, running on someone else’s race strategy and presumably deeply into sleep deprivation territory. I was guessing that at this point he was probably a danger to himself as a result, and would have been even more dependant on sticking with Pavel. They were on their way, but had yet to reach the large forest before Byrness. So they were still several hours behind by my reckoning. I was still on absolute control of the race here.

Given the lead, I elected to take another half an hour of sleep to try to ensure that there would be absolutely no need to take any power naps at all once I left Byrness. Sleeping now was a much better option, as this was the most comfortable location left on the course, and I was also utilising nighttime to sleep. The only real danger here was I was loosing my discomfort levels, so it would be harder to restart and get going again.

Half an hour later I was woken again, this time with even more high drama on the race news front. Eugeni had retired from the race, apparently due to a knee injury, and the race safety team had taken him from the course and were bringing him down here to Byrness. Pavel had had to assist Eugeni, but was now free and making progress down the forest fire roads towards Byrness. He was moving quite quickly, but I would have expected this, as this was the fastest section of this stage of the race.

As anticipated, getting up and getting going was a bit of an ordeal. The generosity continued, and I indulged myself with both a hot chocolate and a lemonade (of course!), whilst slowly getting all my things together and kitting up for departure. In the middle of all this Eugeni was brought in by the race safety team. They were of course taking good care of him. Poor Eugeni was wrecked. No doubt he would have been hurting badly at having to pull out of the race as well (as any of us would). I commiserated with him, before he was brought off for a lie down on a proper bed.

After the slow uncomfortable process of getting ready was complete I finally left the checkpoint. Pavel was a few kilometers back up the road, but I knew these were slower kilometers than they looked on paper. The reality was I had total control at this point. I would be heading up the mountain and out of site, fully rested and in excellent shape,  before Pavel would have the opportunity to see me or my headtorch. All I needed to do was keep my pace controlled and steady, and to make sure to navigate well. It took one or two hundred meters to get warmed up and get running properly again, but after that I was quickly back to banging out a steady ultrarunning controlled pace.

After turning off the road out of Byrness comes one of the more sustained steep climbs of the race, with the sharp haul up to the top of Byrness hill. There was plenty of snow on the ground to make life interesting! I made good steady progress up the hill with a controlled pole-climb, taking a small bit of time to enjoy view as I topped out onto the flatter ridgeline at the top. Back to steady running for the gentle climb along the ridgeline towards Raven’s Knowe. This section had a reputation of being a man-eating bog, but with the cold and snow temperatures, along with what I presume to be relatively new paving slabbed and boardwalked sections there was very little sinking! In fact my progress was pretty steady.

However after starting the ridge under a lovely starfilled sky, I was soon moving through fog, with visibility down to only a meter or two (pretty much confined to my head torch beam). This required very careful concentration on pathfinding. This effort made the time move along a little more quickly. Descending form Ogre Hill I very briefly lost the track, before re-finding it and heading into Scotland for the first time in the race. Almost before I knew it I was at the signpost for alternate Pennine Way routes.

I opted for the familiarity of the longer “tourist” route through the roman camps near chew green, as I knew this route from last year, which was a definite plus-point in the murk, and I knew that most of it was runnable. It really is great to run through such ancient historical sights (even if my sight of them was quite limited).

Running through the night in the Cheviots is a very lonely experience. Nobody would be up here at this time if it wasn’t for the race. I love the isolation though. There is an immense feeling of freedom being out here, totally reliant on your own skills to make your way along in the very harsh unforgiving environment of the Scottish border hills at night in January.

The section from the rejoined path split towards Refuge hut 1 before Lamb Hill is was tricky navigation in the conditions that night. There are quite a few track splits, and not all are signposted or obvious. With low visibility it would be easy to get it wrong. I did loose the track once or twice, but was able to figure it out and correct it with minimal loss of time. In general I was pleasantly surprised that I was still running nearly of all the trial here, despite the conditions and the fact that it was an overall climb.

A flashing blue light in the distance indicated that I was approaching Hut 1. One of the good things about the isolation up here is that if there is any sign of life out here then it is almost certainly race related. I had no need at all to stop at the hut, as I was in great condition and didn’t need anything in the way of food or drink (In fact I was carrying huge surplus of both). But I knew that whoever was in the hut had made the effort to be up there to look out for us racers, so a courtesy call was the least they deserved!

So in I went, intending to just say hello and thanks, and then head off again. There were two race volunteers in there in great spirits. They asked if I wanted a hot drink. I couldn’t be bothered with tea or coffee, but when I asked what they had they said hot chocolate. Bingo! These lads knew what they were doing. So I accepted the offer and sat down and hat a good chat, whilst enjoying my favourite hot drink. They were both ex-Spiners and I recognised their names from various online sites.

After a few minutes I got going again. There is the usual danger of getting too comfortable, so I wanted to get back out into the cold night as soon as possible. It only took a minute or so to get back up to speed again. I was still making excellent progress with a very controlled paced effort which still included a bit of uphill running when the slope was gentle enough. It was particularly straightforward to keep the uphill running going when there were stone slabs on the trail (which there was more of than I remembered).

I was soon recognising parts of the trail that I had run with Damon last year. He had come up to meet the leading runners. The wind was so strong last year though that we barely managed to communicate much more than basic information to each other as it was so hard to hear. In contrast things were much calmer this year. I had now climbed above the earlier mist and fog (or it had dissipated), and now had great views out over the landscape. I wondered whether Damon would make it up this year, as he had participated in the mountain rescue race just a day or two back.

From Beefstand hill (or thereabouts) I could see some lights on the mountain ahead. Knowing that only race related people would be up here I hoped this would be Damon again. Just after Mozie Law I finally met with the pair who owned the lights, which were Damon and another member of the border’s mountain rescue team. It really was a lovely experience to meet a friend up here in the remote wilderness in the middle of the night.

Damon offered me tea or some chicken stew. I jumped at the offer of chicken stew. Damon had slow cooked it the night before, and poured it from his flask into a mug for me. It was absolutely delicious (A definite winner of “food of the race” award!), so I even went for a second helping. We all had a nice chat. Of course I asked what the gap was to Pavel, as I hadn’t seen any trace of him behind, and I had had no update on gaps since Byrness. They said I had roughly a 5 hour lead. I would have been happy with 5 kilometers, but was surprised to hear 5 hours, so had to recheck with them. If this was anything near the case then the only way I could lose from this point would be to injure myself.

With work to do, we all headed off in our opposing directions. Unlike last year, when Damon was blown clean over a fence as we were saying goodbye, Windy Gyle didn’t live up to its name this year. From the top of Russell’s Cairn here to the upper slopes of the highest point of the Pennine Way in the cheviots it is nearly all a stone slab track which is mostly a gentle climb. Damon had warned that they had found the slabs they encountered to be quite slippy. And indeed they were. Nearly every step had to be taken carefully. I could feel little skids and slides with each foot strike. Despite this I was maintaining a very solid steady metronomic pace.

After running along several kilometers of this, and starting the ramp up to climb the main peak I had a great realisation. I was running along, mostly gently climbing, and was so controlled and so relaxed that I was actually breathing through my nose. As an indication of controlled relaxed pacing this was remarkable. To be managing to do this at the start of a race would be good. But to be doing it on the last significant climb of a multi-day trail ultra was mind-blowing. This really was one of those moments that you appreciate as being the culmination of years and years of putting in the hard hours and hard work of consistent training. This was creating a good positive motivation feedback loop now. Control! Such Control.

Eventually the slope became steep enough that I had to switch to power walking up with the poles. The snow cover was also becoming thicker, so that the trail was getting harder to pick, but I still managed to find the line the whole way to the peak. On the peak I had a quick look around, knowing it was broadly speaking the start of the final push down towards Kirk Yetholm, and the finish!

After crossing the wall here there was no sign of the path with all the drifted snow covering the area. I had a few seconds of sloshing about in deep snow before finally figuring out where the underlying slabs were located. Having done that I was able to accurately guess from there where the slabs were from the pattern of the overlying snow. 5 minutes of flattish running followed, and then the trail nosedives into a very steep descent, taking me right past the edge of Hen Hole, and it’s cavernous looking depths.

Once I was on the descent I could see lights on the ridgeline ahead, indicating the presence of more race volunteers at Hut 2. Even with the aid of gravity it took another good 5 minutes or so of descending, followed by a short climb, before reaching the 2 people at the hut. Similarly to the first hut I didn’t need to head in, but with 2 people having gone to all the trouble of coming up here to look for me, and make sure I was safe, then the least I could do was call in for a quick chat.

This time the two lads were members of the local mountain rescue team. I was offered homemade soup, so asked what the flavour was. “Butternut squash, with a hint of pepper” was the answer. Now I like butternut squash soup at any time, but the way he phrased “with a hint of pepper” made me sure I was dealing with a real foodie here, so this soup was definitely going to be worth trying for epicurean reasons alone! To say the least, it didn’t disappoint. More great food on the Cheviots! I was also offered a little bit of christmas cake, which also went down a treat. One of them pointed out to me that if I got to the finish line before 10a.m. I’d complete the race in under 4 days. That appealed to me, so I had a new target to get me home.

Having gone into the hut in the dark of the night I emerged only 5 minutes or so later to see the nice dull blue glow of impending arrival of the dawn behind the mountains I had just descended. This was almost exactly the inverse of last year where I was loosing the last of daylight at this point on the Cheviots. Given that I had no sleep issues at this point in time it also meant that I should have no problem making it to the finish without needing a rest of any kind.

Again, restarting was awkward and it took me a minute or two to properly get my rhythm back and get running again. I could now see the ridgeline ahead of me more clearly in the early morning light. One small undulation ahead, followed by the last mountain of the race, the Schill. The Schill looks big, but really its a short enough climb. In my current state I knew I’d have no issues working my way over it at good speed. However the ground under foot for this section was mostly bad waterlogged boggy ground, with only occasional good trail. I was still able to keep up some kind of running pace over most of the route though, barring the steeper section of the Schill climb.

Once on the Schill, now under bright blue morning skies, I had the wonderful feeling of knowing it was downhill most of the way from here. Whilst there was still quite a few kilometers left I knew I would be able to take a lot of it at relatively high speed, trading off height for distance on the relatively good trails from here on. It really was a glorious morning as well. As good weather as you could possibly expect on the Spine. I must be getting some good karma here with such perfect conditions to finish.

The descent down off the mountain went as well as I hoped. Indeed I completed the descent towards the farm at Burnhead faster than I had estimated I would when I was on the peak of the Schill. Along the way one of the race photographers met me on the trail. I apologised for the lack of witty conversation, but I was putting all my focus into keeping up the steady controlled running pace. Just at Burnhead the Video crew were waiting, and we all made our way down to the road. Getting close!

The photographers and videographers all hopped into their car and drove ahead of me as I plodded on down the road. The road itself was quite icy, so I had to be careful. It would be tragic to fall and fracture something at this point (I’d probably have tried to crawl to the finish if I did). The one notorious sting in the tail on the road is one last hump to get over before descending into Kirk Yeltholm. I wasn’t going to run this one! I had more than enough time to get to KY before 10a.m. So I got my nordic walking style going and powered up the hill as best as I could manage.

One last 5 minute effort of careful descent on icy roads took me to the green at Kirk Yeltholm. I had to make a conscious effort to rouse myself to enjoy the moment and knock myself out of my metronomic forward movement. So with a cheer I raised my poles in the air and ran to the wall of the hotel to touch it and officially complete the Spine race. Woooohooooo!

I knew from the early days of this race that the pace was high, and that the winner would probably break the record. But my aim was simply to win, and everything else that derived from that was a bonus. I was absolutely delighted to beat the 4 day mark though, and equally delighted to learn that I’d knocked about 15 hours off Pavel’s old course record.

I was soon presented with my finisher’s medal, and more importantly to me my hard-won winners trophy. This trophy would stand proud in the (virtual) trophy cabinet. It was won the hard way in a good race against quality opposition. After some questions from the camera crew I was offered a seat, which I was very glad to accept!

About 10 minutes later Damon arrived and whisked me away back to his house. This was perhaps the greatest reward for finishing the race! Most of the rest of the race crew followed on to the house. Despite being finished, suitably wrecked and sleep deprived, I didn’t want to crash to sleep. We had a most wonderful breakfast in Damon’s house, with lots of lively banter around the breakfast table. It’s these little things that make for special memories.

Iwa surprised myself at how good a state I was in. The controlled way I had paced the entire race has meant that I hadn’t really hammered my muscles at any point. As a result the main issues I had at the end of the race were simply cuts and abrasions on my hands and feet from grit. I didn’t really have any blisters of note either. The cuts on the back of my heals did make walking awkward for a few days though.

Later in the day Pavel finished (with a gap of about 5 hours), and he was also brought back to Damon’s house where he was able to shower and freshen up. Damon and his family treated is all to a lovely dinner, with much good conversation and post-race discussion. Pavel had to leave that evening to get an early flight the following morning, but I had the pleasure of another day’s R&R in Damon’s house before making the journey back to Ireland.

And so it was that only a few days later I found I was able to go for a 2 hour+ training run on the roads through the hill of south Dublin, under the unexpectedly clear night sky. It really was remarkable how fast I recovered, even by my own standards. It just showed how well I had stuck to my overwhelming race mantra… Control!

(I’m hoping to write up one or two more articles on the Spine, one being a gear review, another being thoughts on nutrition, safety and other aspects of racing the Spine)

 

Written by Daragh Kelly - https://ultrarunningtriathlon.home.blog/

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The beginnings:

I first came across The Spine Race in 2015 just before heading off to the Sahara desert for Marathon Des Sables as I dot watched an Irish athlete, Eoin Keith, complete the 430 km course that follows the Pennine Way from Edale village near Manchester to Kirk Yetholm on the Scottish Borders in the middle of January and I thought to myself that it was just pure nuts.

But it somehow had got my attention so the following year was dot watching again and suggested to Sean my friend and training buddy that we should enter the baby/sprint version The Challenger in 2017…. a mere 170km with a 60 hour time limit. Seemed like a doable challenge…. what could possibly go wrong.

2017:

So in March 2016 Sean, Alan (brother in law) & myself sent off our applications with a full list of our previous race history to The Spine Challenger wondering if we would be accepted. A few days later the acceptance mail arrived and entrance fee paid…. no turning back now.

Roll on January 2017 & the three of us headed off to get the ferry to Hollyhead with another friend Brian who was acting as crew for us during the event.

Friday consisted of registration, kit check, race brief, food & few pints. Personally I felt like a duck out of water as everyone else seemed like hardened mountain men & women well capable of doing the event.

Saturday morning we headed off to the start to be fitted with trackers & the gun went off at 8am in light snow. Shortly after Jacobs Ladder the first climb we made our first navigational error in whiteout snow conditions. Following the group in front we all veered off course costing us about 1km and 10/15 minutes. This was to be the first of many. We were now at the tail end of the competitors. During daylight hours we were moving well but the real problems started once it got dark and our inability to use our Garmin sat navs efficiently. We just kept missing small turns by a few meters here and there but left us on the wrong side of walls in various farmer’s fields with no way out bar the obvious backtrack.

We stuck together and arrived at the first checkpoint, Hebden Hay, at 6am with just 2 hours to spare over the cutoff. Totally spent after c75km we had no time to sleep so just food, change of clothes and back out just before 8am. Over next few hours we moved well with no major nav errors but stopped with Brian for a bacon roll & an hours sleep in the back of the jeep.

Still at the back end of the field every time we overtook someone they seemed to retire from the race leaving us in last place all over again. Dusk arrived and with it our nav errors reappeared through the low lying fields around Cowling, Lorthersdale and making a complete hash of the section off the canal into Gargrave. Sean decided to pull out here with foot blister issues that had been slowing him down for the previous few hours.

On out into the night along the river into Malham with some interesting detours along the way and being passed by the race leaders of the full Spine Race…..who started a full 24 hours behind us. At about 4am we arrived into Mahlam village totally spent, ready to throw in the towel and get into the jeep with Brian & Sean only to be met by two members of the Spine safety crew who encouraged us to keep going as there was only about 5km to the next checkpoint with 3/4 hours to make it. Fu)k it….. on we continued up the road to Mahlam Cove where after climbing all the steps we couldn’t find a route across the top. Hallucinations stared in earnest and we were like a pair of zombies…. we were now a danger to ourselves and decided to make our way back down to Mahlam just as dawn was breaking and phone HQ to retire. Game over but were any lessons learned?

2018

Straight after DNFing whilst having a few sociable Guinness in The Board Inn in Hawes we realised that the Challenger Race was doable for us providing we could sort out our navigation issues. Maps & Garmin sat nav weren’t the problem…. it was the fools using them.

In May 3 of us flew into Leeds and between a hire car & a taxi we reccied Gargrave to Hawes with an overnight bivi on Fountains Fell. Staying in YHA Hawes the following night on our way to the airport we reccied Stoodley Pike to the road before Hebden Hey.

Roll on January after a 50 mile race in December on the Wicklow Way we were on the start line again. No issues whatsoever…Navigation was spot on all the way. Into Cp1 with over 7 hours to spare, 10 minutes cat nap in the bothy at Top Withens, 30 minutes in Mahlam Tarn & felt strong finishing in Hardraw in 51 hours…..even with terrible weather from Mahlam to the finish. Job done, box ticked, itch relieved etc…… not really.

The following morning we hobbled into Hawes YHA … Cp2 for the Spine Race (which started 24 hours after The Challenger). As Sean was getting his feet sorted by the medics I surveyed the room of athletes still in race mode with less than half their race done….. I was in awe of them. Seed planted in my head for next year…. now to convince Sean.

2019

Back home and after a week I was back into training for Ironman Austria which kept me focused until July…. 2 weeks family holiday & then it was all about The Spine…..Sean had signed up in August…… Dublin City Marathon in October, plenty of 5/6 hour night runs in crap conditions finishing up with a 100 mile race on the Wicklow Way in December in atrocious weather ….perfect Spine training……5 weeks to The Spine. Took it fairly easy over the Christmas period. Nothing to be gained…. time would tell if the training was right or not.

Kit sorted, flight to Manchester, train to Edale & 2 nights in Ramblers. It was great to catch up with Steph last years MRT female winner now on Spine Safety duty, Caroline & other members of the Spine crews. A few quiet pints to settle the nerves.

Saturday was all about registration, kit check, race brief, food, more food & an early night of fitful sleep listening to the rain and wind hopping off the bedroom window all night…. not a great omen for the week ahead.

Sunday morning up early for breakfast to discover that my left knee had locked and I couldn’t bend or straighten it…. it had been niggling me a bit for a few weeks but generally came good with light stretching….not this morning of all mornings though. Not much to do but keep doing gentle stretches and head to the start to get our trackers fitted. Weather outside was wet & wild so our original plan to wear light OMM jackets was quickly revised to our heavy Columbia jackets and waterproof leggings…. which would make moving slower.

Eight am and we are off up the road past Ramblers Inn and onto the Pennine Way proper. The wind and rain kept the pace slow but gave my knee time to free out and after an hour or two it was completely fine and didn’t bother me again until a few days after the finish. By the time we got up Jacobs Ladder and onto Kinder we were been blown all over the place. Pace was much slower than this time last year as we ran lots of this section down to Snake Pass and beyond….not a possibility today. Quick stop at Torside where MRT (mountain rescue) had kindly set up offering hot drinks & top up water. The weather calmed a bit for a few hours but the rivers were swollen and Sean managed a dunking into one of them. Head torches out and the wind & rain reappeared battering us. To our disappointment there was no sign of the burger van just before the M62 so on we moved over Blackstone Edge towards the MRT unofficial checkpoint beside the Whitehorse pub.

About 2km from here we noticed a headtorch about 50 meters off to our left & off course. We called out to it and got a confused response so we made our way over to investigate. Another competitor was trying to bivi out in a storm drain (Broad Head)…. less than 2km from hot drinks & some shelter. Turns out the guy had fallen, had a nasty laceration on his cheek, couldn’t see properly with wind blindness and was extremely cold. He had tried to hit his SoS button on his tracker but it wasn’t working and he couldn’t read his phone to call race HQ so he decided to try to bivi unsuccessfully. We gathered his stuff up and got him moving down towards the White Horse pub. I ran on ahead with some of his stuff to alert MR while Sean walked him down to safety…… if he had bivied out nobody would have seen him in the storm drain off course. Drama over and with a soup and some food we headed along Warland reservoir and up towards Stoodley Pike … a brief respite from the weather which was still battering us. Not too far now to Cp1 at Hebden Hey….. just down hill to Charlestown and a long slog up to the road before the turn off to the Cp.

We arrived in Cp1 about 2 hours later than last year but considering the weather & our good deed we weren’t too concerned but it had taken a lot more out of us. In & out in about 1.5 hours and back out into the night with plenty of moors ahead. As daylight approached the tiredness really was affecting us so we decided that if the bothy was free at Top Withens we would take an hour there. Fortunately as we arrived there were 2 or 3 competitors were just about to leave so out with the sleeping bags for an hour of sleep. Feeling refreshed we started out towards an unofficial Cp at Lothersdale set up by a local Tri club. Along the way we met up with Emiko a lovely Japanese lady & we all fell into pace for the next 24 hours. Into Gargrave at dusk & the Co Op for last supplies before Horton. Here we met up with James & Tony and the 5 of us made good time to Mahllam, over the cove and into Cp1.5 at Mahlam Tarn where Sean, Emiko & myself decided on an hours sleep before tackling Fountains Fell and Pen Y Gent in worsening conditions. We slept out on the veranda of the old house but sleep didn’t happen as someone was shaking the foundations with their snoring.

Just before leaving the checkpoint we were told by the Spine Safety crew that a diversion was in place for Pen Y Gent due to high winds and poor visibility. Two minutes later we were told that it wasn’t fully confirmed but by the time we got there a safety crew would be there to advise us one way or the other. I clarified that in the event of no safety crew being there could we then make our own decision re the diversion taking into account the weather conditions….. The answer was absolutely yes but not to worry as a crew would be there. Happy with the clarification we headed out towards Fountains Fell.

As we headed up visibility was a few meters at best with driving rain and strong winds…..goggles made visibility even worse. So it was heads down with our eyes glued to our gps units keeping on the purple line & keeping close together as a group. TBH I really struggled here after not getting any sleep due to our snoring friend. Eventually we were on the road section upto the turn off point to PYG expecting to meet a safety crew at the turn off point. Nobody there so on we went up thinking that they were further up the track or that a diversion sign had been put out further up. The weather was getting worse if that was possible but most concerning was the visibility ……Head torches had to be used as hand torches to get any idea of where we were going. About 1km from the summit we had to make a decision as there was no sign of safety crew ….. decision was to look for a diversion to Horton as there was no way that we were comfortable scrambling over the top in driving wind, rain, fog with 1 hand being used to hold a torch. Maps out, diversion found and we started making our way to the haven that is PYG cafe in Horton for a nice bowl of stew. From there its a long 23k to Hawes on a lonely exposed Cam High Road. Sean and Emiko had said to me to push on as I was moving slightly faster so on I went solo just as dawn was breaking. The last few km into Hawes take an eternity through farmer’s fields but eventually I arrived into Cp2…… about 7 hours ahead of the cutoff. The place was jammed with crew and weary competitors so after sorting my feet out I grabbed my spare sleeping bad & got 2 hours sleep. Then it was up, food, sort kit, change batteries and out to tackle Great Shunner Fell. Just as I was putting on my boots and waterproofs I was called aside and informed of a 1 hour time penalty for diverting off PYG. I was fuming & my explanation fell on deaf ears…. to be fair to Andy, who told me, he was only the messenger of the RD’s decision & I apologised for my grumpiness but did ask for him to speak with the powers that be to explain my discussion with the Cp crew in Mahlam. Out the door and down the road only to realise that I had forget to put on my waterproof leggings which were sitting on a chair in the Cp…. back I went and set off again.

Sean had gone ahead of me but I made good time going over Shunner Fell and caught up with him going into Thwaite. Here we met up with Chris Whorton and his friend where had a 5 minute break & chat before the tricky section to Keld followed by the never ending slog upto Tan Hill pub. Somewhere along here the wind & rain reappeared with vengeance. Battered again I arrived here around midnight and took an hour or so to dry off and have a freeze dried meal before tackling the bogs of Sleightholme Moor. Sean arrived in just before I headed out and was in good form but was going take his time there.

This night section into Middleton-in-Teesdale was probably the hardest for me mentally…. I saw nobody from Tan hill so it was wet, dark & lonely. I found navigation on some parts quite difficult …. just finding the right track in the dark was frustrating but generally I was heading in the right direction. Tiredness was affecting me again and I had a 5 min nap somewhere around Lunedale but it wasn’t enough. The section from here to Cp3 through the churned up farmer’s fields was mentally draining especially with the Cp so close but yet so far. Here Leslie Binns passed me but neither of us were capable of conversation …… just wanting warm food & sleep. I pulled out my phone to call my wife Orla to catch up with events at home and take my mind off my pain & suffering. If there any 1 point that I would have DNfed it was here but after the call everything seemed somewhat better….. she told me to look at all the WhatsApp messages of support for Sean & myself.

Eventually into Cp3 with about 7 hours to spare…… At this stage my brain could only handle Cp to Cp and cutoff times…..the old story of how to eat an elephant…..small chunks at a time. Shoes off and feet cleaned, powdered. They were in bits….. half a dozen big blisters & toe nails falling off. The medics were busy so I grabbed a bed to sleep for 3 hours. Just before dozing off I checked my messages to see nearly 600 whatsapps from various groups….I couldn’t believe the support, quite emotional tbh, and whilst I just scrolled through before sleep it gave me a huge boost.

Up & refreshed I got food while the medics did a super job patching up my feet. Relaxed and had a good chat with Caroline and some of the safety crew. Sean appeared but gave the bad news that he was pulling out…. his feet were killing him and making him slower than normal. He told me just to focus & get the job done…..he was making arrangements to get to Newcastle & a flight home.

Back out around 5pm along the river towards Cauldron Snout…..I really enjoyed this section and made a few calls to Orla & Brian … our crew from the 3 years ago…no better boy to get you fired up. Just as I arrived at Cauldron Snout wondering how the feck I was going to get up there Leslie appeared. He knew the way up having done the summer Spine & being timed out on the winter one last year. He was on his way to doing the double so I asked if he minded me tagging along……up and over with no problems. We were fairly evenly matched pace wise but he was stronger overall. Good time made to High Cup Nick where I took 5 minutes & he motored on. Along the way we had passed Will & Graham and Graham caught up with me on the descent to Dufton where there was a Spine half Cp….. hot water only. There we grabbed a quick nap and in the meantime Will had arrived ready to pull out. The Safety Crew encouraged him to eat and get back out there which he did…. fair play to them because he moved really well all the way to Alston.

The next section was a steep climb up to Great Dun Fell and Cross Fell. It was bitterly cold, snow, ice & wind with reported wind chill of -17. A group of 5 formed and in single file we made our way over Cross Fell and down to Greggs Hut for some of Paul’s & John’s now famous chilli noodles whilst having experienced one of most beautiful sunrises ever.

Graham, Will and myself didn’t hang around and started the long descent to Garrigill where we met a lovely mother & daughter who invited us into their home for breakfast…. we settled on coffee & homemade flapjacks…. they were offering this to all competitors wanting nothing in return & they do it every year….hats off to them. 6km to Alston along a lovely riverbank on a crisp morning …. the nicest lead into a Cp along the way.

Alston was a somewhat quieter Cp with the field more spread out and reduced numbers. Excellent food & staff. Again with 7/8 hours to spare over the cut off I set my alarm for 2.5 of sleep but slept through it for another 1.5 hours…. panic stations. Will & Graham whom I had arranged to leave with had well gone. Nothing to be done but more food and my feet sorted…. they were in a complete mess now and really hurting. Medics did a great job while I was eating my second dinner & having a good chat with Emiko….. telling her that my youngest son was stalking her all week….he’s only 9. In fact she had a huge following in Ireland. She was very tired & didn’t have much time to get a long sleep but overall she was as strong as the rest of us.

Out again around 7pm with a probable bivi at Greenhead. These first few hours after a Cp see me in a good place feeling strong. A nice easy to navigate section I soon met up with Leslie and we moved well together with easy conversation. About an hour before Greenhead we caught up with Will & Graham with all of us planning a hour or 2 sleep before tackling Hadrian’s Wall.

Arriving at the public toilets there between 4 & 5 am we all started boiling water for a hot meal & got our sleeping bags out for a few hours sleep…. the stench from the men’s toilets was too much for a few of us so we slept out in a covered area…. it was -5. Waking up around 8am I made some porridge whilst trying to defrost my shoes which had frozen solid while I slept….the hand dryer in the wc was put to good use.

Beautiful morning on Hadrian’s Wall with nobody in sight. I was moving well but did have to stop a few times to drain & tape blisters. The downhills were agony on my feet which were now a problem. Off the wall and the long forest sections to Horneystead Farm for some warm food and coffee. There I met with Peter Hoffmann and continued together to Bellingham feeling better after the food stop.

Arriving in Bellingham around 6pm the Cp was like a war zone….. bodies looking shellshocked, kit everywhere and a big queue for the medics…. nothing to be gained hanging around here as there was no chance of sleep. So food, kit check by safety team and got a great job done on my feet by the medics. Out the door around 9pm with Graham & Will and a vague plan to bivi in the forest section on the way into Byrness

We moved well together but tiredness hit us around 2am near the end of the detour around Padon Hill so as soon as we got into the shelter of the forest we found a spot under trees and got our sleeping bags out for two hours sleep……our last before the finish nearly 24 hours away.

Arriving at Cp5.5 in Byrness around 8am, meeting Will’s parents outside, we were given drinks & a hot meal by Colin & Joyce the owners of the B&B where the checkpoint is set up……great supporters of the Race for many years…. many thanks. Max 30 minute stop so back out for the final push of 44km over The Cheviotts….we had about 7 hours of daylight but this was going to take a fair bit longer than that.

Straight into a hard uphill climb for a few kms making our way to Hut 1 & a chance to make up a hot meal. Everything was now taking forever with us frequently having to stop just to sit & close our eyes for a few minutes. My feet were in absolute agony…. just think of walking on lego in your bare feet for hours on end. We met some woman with her dog along the way who was planning on entering next years event…..I think she was shocked by the state of us. Hut 1 arrived so food and a drink and back out relatively quickly……About 5/6 hours to Hut 2.

Weather cleared up with some views and spectacular scenery especially around Windy Gyle …..we were really up in the clouds. The light began to fade along with our energy ….we were running on empty with nothing left. The ground became icy just before Hut 2 so traction aids on and soon we were greeted by a welcome party from Hut 2. Safety crew led by Steph ( mad as a brush in the best possible way) & Laurence came out to meet us & walk us into the Hut. More food and the final 10k or so ……about 3/3.5 hours of agony for my feet.

Finishing was only a matter of time now and the realisation of what was achieved was beginning to dawn on us. It was quite emotional but that was probably more to do with tiredness …. real men etc. Orla had phoned me to say that Sean had got the ferry over & driven up to the finish with his wife and two friends Brian & Brian….. This news was completely chocking me up especially since I had no plan made to get home or anywhere to stay.

An amusing drug dealing exchange with Graham on a Scottish mountain, worthy of a cameo in Trainspotting 2, had us ready for the final sprint to the finish….We managed to run a whole 200m to a great crowd of supporters and spine crew. Wall of The Border Hotel kissed and a pint of Guinness handed to me by one of the Brians…. down in one go….how it stayed down I will never know.

We ended up having a few pints in the bar & Sean had booked a room upstairs. It was so nice just sitting with friends, a few drinks & a stupid grin on my face.

Aftermath

Three weeks later I’m still coming to terms with it all. Physically the tiredness was something else. If I closed my eyes at all during the first week I was gone asleep. Every night I was waking up every 2 hours or so in a panic thinking that I was still out there on the course. This passed after about 2 weeks. Blisters took about a week to dry up and I’m now the proud owner of 1 toenail. No feeling in my big toes yet. I wore a pair of runners 3 sizes bigger for about a week waiting for swelling to come down. The only real injury is my knee which troubled me on day one….it’s some tendon damage in the back of my knee which will take time to sort out but in the meantime is quite painful especially at night.

Emotionally its been more of a rollercoaster. On the journey home I read through all the messages of support and it created a nice timeline of events during the week and some realisation of what I had done. In my head I just went out for a long “run” but reading the messages back tells me something else…. how family & friends went about their daily lives…work, school, travelling to various part of the world for an entire week and all the time I was just moving north, eating or sleeping…..but yet they were all glued to my little dot on a map. Haven’t got my head around it yet. Honestly I am totally humbled by all the kind words from everyone and especially with so many of them coming from much more talented & accomplished runners than myself.

What went right……Well before heading over to the event I knew that so many things had to go right if I had any chance of finishing. Mentally I think I’m fairly strong & can push through the bad times. Breaking the event down into more manageable sections worked well for my sanity…..ie getting from Cp to Cp with X number of hours to spare & tried to keep that cushion all the way….. being tight on the cutoffs all the way would have affected me mentally & physically through reduced sleep/rest time. The weather was another major factor…. heavy snow in the Cheviotts would have dented my chances seriously but we were lucky IMO that the worst of the weather was upto Middleton and after that it was just very cold but dry. Kit wise everything worked well with the exception of my tinted goggles. The best bit of kit was my paramo jacket. I wore this most of the time with just a marino wool top over a Bjerne long sleeved string top and was warm all the time…. I didn’t let it get wet & wore a Columbia outdry jacket during the heavy rain over the first few days. Sleep wise I think I did ok….often I pushed hard just to make it into a Cp a few minutes earlier which resulted in more rest/sleep..fairly obvious but try to tell that to your body when you are trying to push on. I left myself open to the idea of biving out when totally knackered & the two times I did this made a huge difference to my pace afterwards. Feet wise I don’t know what else I could have done. They were ok upto Middleton and after that it was managing them as best I could …..& suck up the pain. In all I feel lucky that most things went in my favour and gave me the opportunity to finish.

Finishing up with Graham & Will was great …..Mentally I don’t think that I could have done the Cheviotts on my own & I think that the 3 of us worked well together & had good craic along the way. Well done to Leslie on his Summer/Winter Double & the best of luck on his future exploits. Emiko is a fantastic woman and came so close to finishing……. hopefully she will be back again to get that medal.

The Spine crew… safety, checkpoint, medics, transport etc are a special bunch of volunteers. Each and every one of them will just do about anything to get you to the finish line….safely. Scott & Phil should be so proud of them. They really make the race.

Sean my running pal will be back again and is already tempting me by saying a two time finish would be special…..way too soon pal.

Orla and the kids thanks for all the support over the years. At times juggling work, kids & sport can be difficult but we manage well….. I will let you know soon about the next adventure. Would I do it again? … as I finished never but as time passes…….

…..Seven months on & I have entered The Challenger again in 2020. Luckily the full was sold out so wasn’t an option. Only back running since May with long recovery from above knee injury. After an MRI scan showed up torn ligaments and cartilage (again) running was not possible but hours of turbo training & gym work have paid off so I’m back in the Dublin/Wicklow mountains with Cody (dog) who had put on a few lbs whilst I was injured.

Roll on January 2020