Report by Greg Jones
Remarkably this was to be my 6th Spine event. I’d finished the full distance race last Summer (following a string of less successful and shorter attempts) so now it was time to take on the biggy – the full Winter Spine Race. 268 miles (431km) and over 10,000m climb with no fewer than 719 stiles and gates, all in 168 hours (7days).
Right on cue, Storm Gorretti blew in and just two days before the race – the forecast was for high winds and 30cm of snow everywhere between home and the Peak District. The railways were closing down, even the roads were being closed in advance and it was far from clear that I’d make it to the start line. Determined not to miss the race I decided to outrun the storm. I bundled everything vaguely racey in to the back of the van, threw in various shovels and tow ropes and headed north. Driving with the storm in my metaphorical rear-view mirror I raced to Edale, parked up in a quiet corner of the carpark and battened down the hatches. The back of the van was a heap of chaos but I nestled in as the wind swayed the van through the night.
I awoke to three feet of snow. No, hang on … I awoke to an inch of snow! So much for Storm Gorretti!
With two days to kill I took the opportunity to test out various kit combinations leaving enough time to repack everything just five or six more times. But whilst I killed time, van life was not kind to me and before long I was feeling rotten. Not eating, not drinking, not sleeping, a racing pulse and a throbbing head. Clearly, I’d picked up a bug from somewhere. Just what I needed before my race. On the eve of the race, I settled down and tried to sleep but at 3am I was awoken by an alarm sounding. It wasn’t my watch – that was set for 5am. I searched the van and five minutes later I found a Carbon Monoxide detector deep in a box. This thing was ear piercing and apparently unsilencable. Obviously, I opened all the van doors but not wanting to wake all my fellow racers – what was I to do with this alarm ? I couldn’t just sit on it for five hours. Smothering this thing as best I could I found a persuader (hammer) and set about a rapid disassembly of the alarm. Eventually it fell silent.
So, feeling great, well fed, well hydrated and well rested (?) I got myself ready for the off.
It was windy and around freezing at the start line with just enough drizzle to justify starting in full waterproofs. As ever, it was a relief to get going. All the stresses of getting to the start line melted away.
We headed off, along the valley, up Jacob’s ladder and onto the Kinder Plateau. After its earlier no-show, it turned out that Storm Gorretti was hanging about just up there on the plateau and doing its best to drag the temperatures down well below zero. There was snow and ice around – the going was ok but slow. As the day progressed however, so the wind built: 60, 70, 80mph. Our race numbers pinned to our packs didn’t stand a chance and one by one they took to the skies. Not one race number remained in place. There were times where it was impossible to stand let alone move and progress, when it came, was at a snail’s pace. Amusingly (in hindsight) the wind kept blowing my trousers off ! Despite being well tucked in somehow the wind kept catching them and whipping them down. As if progress wasn’t hard enough – having my trousers around my ankles every few minutes really didn’t help.
We battled on like this for hours. The snow was deep in places and the rivers were high. There’s a little stream north of Snake’s Pass that you can normally hop over – today it was three feet wide, knee deep, ice strewn and raging. I think I waded that one a good four or five times. Things calmed a little as we went in to the evening but we’d all had a rude introduction to the fruity end of Winter Spine Race conditions. This was going to be tough.
I reached the first checkpoint at Hebden Hey (75km) at 3:15am. Just 45 minutes before the arrival cut-off and way behind my plan. I rattled through my admin as quickly as I could keen to get some sleep. And indeed, I manged to get just over an hour. But with the departure cut-off of 6am looming I couldn’t hang around. I shovelled food in to me and shovelled my kit into my bag. And in turn, I was shovelled out the door by the friendly checkpoint staff. I was out the door, laces untied and barely holding it together at 5:57am. 3 minutes before the cut off. Ok, this wasn’t quite how I’d planned it, but I was up and running again.
Things should get better now – right ? Not so. Barely a mile down the road I woke up my watch. Strangely it wasn’t showing the route and as I set about fixing that it went blank. And stayed blank. Dead dead. Oh great – there goes my primary means of navigation.
It started to rain. Heavily.
Well at least it was getting light now. I resolved to get as far as I could by memory before it got dark again. And so, I did. The rain poured down and the miles clicked by and I made reasonable progress passing runners along the way. But I was cold, very wet and tired and by the time I reached Gargrave it was dark once again. I waded in to the local pub. Like Scott of the Antarctic entering the O.K. Coral – head torch blazing and dripping all over the carpet I strode to the bar and ordered a hot chocolate. The locals were suitably amused and after a good ten minutes of entertaining the guys propping up the bar, I eventually got to drink my hot chocolate. I picked a quiet corner, set my alarm, put my forehead on the table and slept blissfully, for 10 minutes.
I’d come unstuck at Gargrave twice before but this wonderful oasis wasn’t going to get me this time. My alarm went off, I stood up sharply, picked up my poles and headed for the door. And with well wishes from the entire pub, I went back out in to the night.
I knew the next section was a little tricker to navigate and now it was dark dark. But I could see a few red flashing lights about a kilometre ahead of me. My best bet was to team up with others so I ran to catch them up. We five progressed to Malham, past Malham Cove, Malham Tarn and up on to Fountains Fell. The conditions were much the same, sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice under foot with wind and rain. Lovely.
There was I diversion in place taking us around Pen-y-Ghent, which was a bit of a shame but with ice and 70mph winds it was a fair call I suppose. Our group ‘leader’ apparently knew the diversion route and with a few vague pointers from the safety team we veered off. I have to admit, with my watch dead, and perhaps a 100m back, I was in follow mode. We’d gone the wrong way! Miles off route, we were met by the safety team and told firmly to turn around. Not everyone in the group took this well and after some heated discussion heads dropped and we turned back. It fell to me (with old school map and compass) to get the group moving again, back on track, and down to Horton.
Dawn was just breaking as we arrived and, with absolutely nothing else on offer here at this time of day, we headed to the delightful public toilets. We settled down on the floor for a quick break and I made some lukewarm noodles. One of the girls was having some foot issues so I gave her my spare dry socks. After all, my feet were fine. I thought. Actually, I took a peek later and my feet weren’t so great. Most of my preventative taping had come unstuck and my feet were pretty badly macerated. Waterlogged and deeply creased they were a foot disaster waiting to happen. I dried them off and patched them up as best I could. If only I had some dry socks…
The media team rolled in to town. I gave some nonsense bleary-eyed interview. Not my finest hour.
We trudged on in small groups up on to the never-ending rain-drenched Cam High Road (AKA Hell-on-Earth) eventually arriving at Hawes, Checkpoint 2 (175km) by mid-afternoon. That was the two longest hardest legs done and I was happy to have put them behind me. Most runners fail on these early sections.
This checkpoint at Hawes was supposed to be my main rest stop. Maybe not lounging by the pool but a few good hours of sleep would have been great. But I was hours behind my plan now and a decent rest was no longer an option. I squeezed in around 2 hours of sleep which wasn’t bad but I woke up utterly utterly confused. I couldn’t tell you who I was or where I was and I had no idea I was in a race. I had just one piece of information in my entire head – something was happening at 8pm. Doing it’s very best to derail my race my subconscious filled in the gaps with all sorts of nonsense: “There’s nothing important happening so you might as well go back to sleep”. “World War Three has started so there’s no point in getting up”. Meanwhile time was ticking away.
Somehow, despite my brain’s best efforts, I got moving and came down to the utter bedlam that was the main checkpoint room. People bustling around, wet kit everywhere. Noise, chaos, bedlam, bedlam. I think I was overloading. I sat in a chair, bleary-eyed staring at my drop bag trying to work out what was happening. Coffee. Let’s start with coffee. Slowly I worked out what was going on.
What fresh hell is this ? My waterproof drop bag with all my dry clothes was, yes waterproof, but also full of water. Absolutely everything was wet. It was now all pretty much useless. And my head torch was not charging. Aaargh.
The departure cut-off was looming. Ah yes 8pm! I quickly tended my feet, stuffed my pack and was out the door. 7:58pm. That was close.
Good news, my watch was working again! Yey! And it was dark, sub-zero, and raining again. Yey! A 28 hour ‘day’ lay ahead.
With my head torch 75% charged (?) I headed up to Great Shunner Fell for a bit of fresh air. The paths were getting really icy now and progress was slow and treacherous. I stopped every so often to put on spikes, take them off again, put them on again …. Reaching Keld we went in search of the village hall. Heaven! A little wooden cabin, open 24 hours (during the race) with a wood burner, almond cake and a kettle. I gorged on cake, slept for a half hour or so and made good the shoddy repairs I’d made to my feet back at the checkpoint some 9 hours earlier. My feet were really starting to swell up now. I’d been continuously loosening the laces which helped to some degree but at some point in the last leg my shoes had given way and my had feet burst through the side walls. The pressure was somewhat relieved by this but my pinkies were now quite exposed.
Eventually we wrenched ourselves away from the fireside of that lovely little cabin and headed back out just before dawn – up the hill to the pub at Tan Hill. I was in running mode again and I stopped for just a few minutes at the pub (8:30am) before heading out into mile after mile of bog.
And so, it was for the remainder of the day. I was entirely alone at this stage and just plugging away. This was the first time in the race that I’d found any real solitude and I had some time to reflect. With recent events in the forefront of my mind it turned out to be a very emotional day. But I was happy for the space to work through my thoughts.
Onwards to Hannah’s Meadow, Middleton and then on towards the next Checkpoint (249km) at Langdon Beck. Now, that headtorch at 75% served me for 12 hours last night. I had a spare torch but I know that was probably half spent too. And as darkness fell, I realised I was miles from anywhere or anyone. How far could I eke this out ? As one torch grew dim I stuffed it somewhere warm, fetched out the other and pressed on to see how far I could get. Muddling by, navigation got progressively harder as I just couldn’t see anything. Then, bizarrely, my phone piped up. A message from HQ: “You’re off course – you need to turn around”. I was utterly confused. I fetched out my handheld GPS – that seemed happy. I checked the map…. As far I as I could tell I was bang on route. I texted HQ and pleaded my case. “Ah, ignore that, that message was from 11am this morning”. I’d spent 20 minutes proving that nothing was wrong. And I’d squandered 20 minutes of precious torch light. I pressed on by little more than candle light now arriving flustered at Langdon Beck, Checkpoint 3 (249km) at 7:40pm.
After many hours of solitude, I was thrust back in to the chaos of the checkpoint. Apparently, there was a drying room here so I picked out my choice items for special treatment. I think they actually came back wetter than they went but it was worth a try. I rushed to get my head down and I think I managed about an hour of sleep before rejoining the chaos. As ever, I was rushed out of the door with just a few minutes to spare before the cut-off.
My early slow progress was costing me dearly. I was getting very little sleep and everything was so rushed I was missing the basics. Some checkpoints I didn’t have time for food let alone brushing my teeth or anything so trivial. And my charging strategy for my head torch, watch and phone seemed to be failing too.
I left Langdon Beck just before 11pm. Naturally it was cold, dark, windy and now raining particularly hard. Just 19 hours to the next checkpoint. Whose idea was this ?
With all the elegance of a newly born giraffe I scratched and banged my way over the rocks of Cauldron Snout and up towards High Cup Nick. The cloud was way down now and the visibility was zero. What was worse was that the paths on this section were incredibly indistinct and very hard to follow. Time for some micro-nav. Checking and adjusting my route every ten seconds or so required intense concentration and once again progress slowed to a snail’s pace.
After many hours of this torturous progress, I made my way down to Dufton. There was a monitoring station at the village hall where we would normally be permitted a maximum 30-minute stop. But the checkpoint manager took one look at me and my fellow runners and concluded we were clearly traumatised and in need of some respite. He granted us an extra hour. He was a very nice man (but I think he may have got into trouble for that). I stripped off my wet clothes, hung them wherever I could and curled up on the hard floor. Hugging the radiator pipes, I snoozed as I defrosted. I was very grateful for this extended stay – I knew what lay ahead!
I left just after dawn and began the long climb up to Cross Fell. I was alone again and exhausted. Cross Fell is famous for its atrocious and unpredictable weather and is not a place to be taken lightly. At least I had daylight now but the snow was pretty deep and it was super icy. It was cold and windy and I could barely keep my eyes open. I was staggering around, barely conscious. This was a really dangerous predicament and I have to say I was somewhat afraid for my own safety. Fortunately, I was joined by another (slightly) more awake runner and together we staggered our way over Cross Fell and down to Greg’s Hut. Yes, MY very own hut !
Greg’s Hut was an oasis. Inside, a wood burner, good company and a mess tin of hot chilli noodles. Just the ticket ! But we could only linger so long there before heading back out in the cold. On we shuffled, all the way down to Alston, Checkpoint 4 (301km) at 5:51pm.
Once again, the checkpoint race was on. I grabbed an hour and a half of sleep but again my mind was intent on playing tricks on me. This time, my alarm call came with a clue. I had to work out the clue, to get another clue, and then another clue before eventually I would be allowed to get up. And I just couldn’t work out the clues. I was running out of time! Why were they making it sooo difficult? Eventually I rumbled it and realised the exit cut-off wasn’t going to change whether I worked out the clues or not. Get up! Get up!
Ok, let’s face it, my mind was fried!
The usual frantic panic ensued. I had one person dressing me, another stuffing my pack, another fetching shoes and sticks, another doing kit check … and out. 3 minutes to spare.
What am I doing? This is crazy!
300m later … Oh no. Where’s my phone ? It’s mandatory kit and I need it. I went back to the checkpoint. ‘Go back in and you’ll be disqualified’ I was told. But stupidly I’d now just declared that I was missing mandatory kit … for which I would also be disqualified! Bugger ! I retraced my steps checking the ground. I rechecked my pack. I rechecked my pack. I rechecked my pack. Ah! Thank God. There it is. Who put it there ?
Nothing like a good panic to set you up for the next leg.
It was 10pm. And of course, dark, cold and wet. The ‘day’ ahead would be 22 hours of bogs, bogs and bogs. The sleep monsters were regular visitors now and I was seeing all sorts of things. I was seeing faces everywhere. At one point I noticed that I was seeing at least one face per step. I even doubled back at one point to see if the faces were really there or whether my mind was just creating them. I never really got to the bottom of that one. They were still there. But what did that prove ?
There was a grinning Cheshire cat embedded in the stone wall. And my favourite by far though was a Pink Panther ! Which was, ever so pink! My least favourite, a little boy in the shadows by the side of the trail deep in the woods. All this was mostly entertaining (and sometimes terrifying) but always confusing and it left me questioning what was real and what was not. That massive electricity pylon ? Not sure. Go and touch it to see if it’s real.
Hadrian’s Wall was impressive as ever but I took a few heavy falls on ice there. I managed to grab an hour or so’s sleep on the floor of the public toilets at Wall Town. Living the dream!
As dark fell once again, the Pit Stop at Horneystead Farm was the oasis for the day. I joined half a dozen other runners there along with the photographer and a chicken for a mug of soup and an Iron Bru. Delightful. Randomly, a horse strode past the door. The horse and the chicken were real apparently.
Then on to Bellingham, Checkpoint 5 (364km) on Friday evening. You know the story by now; chaos, an hour and a half of sleep , more chaos. Booted out the door with 4 minutes to spare. I left just before midnight and headed up the hill. A 26-hour leg lay ahead.
By the time I got to the forest I was in my usual staggering sleep state. The forest trails were pretty regular, fairly straight, not too rocky and with a consistent camber. So, I found that, with my poles acting as antennae, I could pretty much walk in my sleep without any conscious input whatsoever. This seemed to work for miles and before I knew it, I popped out the far side of the forest at Byrness. Happy with that!
Nevertheless, I was exhausted and called in at the Church for a blissful 2 hours sleep between the pews. I emerged refreshed and ready to tackle the Cheviots. Oh, it was so nice not to be rushed out of the door for once.
Mile after mile of the Cheviots happened, wind, rain, ice, the usual. And darkness fell as I left Hut 1. What lay ahead was Windy Gyle where no great surprise, it’s almost always blowing a hooley, but it’s usually straightforward. Today, not so. The cloud was down and my dark world shrank to the 2m diameter of my head torch. Normally not a problem … but the sleep monsters were at play. Firstly, I was seeing palm trees above me. Then an endless row of garage doors to my left and a concrete wall to my right. They were as plain as day and stayed there for hours boxing me in to this little circle of light. Every now and then, the wind would drop, the footing would change and the acoustics would change and I’d be absolutely convinced I’d just entered a tunnel or passed under a bridge. FYI: There are most definitely no tunnels or bridges up here.
But worse than the hallucinations was the deja-vu. I’d see and climb the same rock step again and again and again. Jump the same stream again and again. What was going on ? I was so disorientated and completely confused. Indeed, I had completely forgotten that I was in a race. As far as I was concerned, this is what I did now. I’d been doing it for ever and I would continue to do it for ever. This was me. I really didn’t know where I was or where I was heading. But I was here just a minute ago apparently …. so that was alright (?!). Eventually the climb up Windy Gyle came to a cairn that I recognised: ‘Oh that’s on one of the races I’ve done around here. What was it now ? Was it the Spine Race ?’ My mind was mush.
I fell again and again. I remember falling backwards in thick mud, then immediately forwards, face planting into a stream. Comical perhaps if anyone was there to see it but I was alone. Very alone. Somehow, I found my way down off the ridge to Hut 2 and called in for a quick reality check. They gave me a Club biscuit and some witty banter which set me straight for a while. Just 12km to go. Walk in the park! I said farewell to Hut 2 and headed back out in to the dark.
What I should have done was ask for some spare batteries as, once again, my torches were on vapour. I stumbled for hours by the candle light of my ever-diminishing torch light. Running whenever I could to get as far as I could before zero light. I scenario’d crossing the finish line by the light of my phone, or my watch. Or waiting for the dawn? … Things were getting desperate. I muddled on.
Three kilometres to go. The nearest runners were many miles back and incredibly, finishing this race began to look possible. Could I relax a little now ? Of course not. 400m back – two head torches, closing fast. My walk became a trot, and then a run. But they stayed with me. Then, the torches went out. Stealth running eh ? I picked the pace up further but I could still see their high viz jackets.
I pressed on with my utterly pathetic headtorch, these two racers in hot pursuit. Oh, hang on. High viz jackets ? That’s the safety team coming down from Hut 2! Idiot.
I slowed to a more manageable trot and within minutes Kirk Yetholm and the finish line came in to view. Only then did it really strike home that I was actually going to finish this race. It was 2:13am so the reception party was small but it didn’t matter a jot to me. I crossed the finish line.
Boy, what a ride it had been. My time was irrelevant, as was my finishing position. This was my race. It was messy, slow, riddled with misfortune, foolish mistakes and bad decisions. I was woefully undertrained and utterly unprepared. Indeed, it’s fair to say it started pretty badly and went downhill from there. But it was also entirely fulfilling and life affirming and all those I met along the way thoroughly restored my faith in humanity with their endless support, kindness and compassion. And for that alone, this will always be a treasured experience.
Through all the chaos and misadventure, I somehow, somehow made it to the end. And I’m happy with that.
That was my race.
