Roger Completes the Spine Race
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At last, my account of the 2023 Winter Spine Race. It took much longer to write than it did to complete the 268 mile course! https://www.strava.com/
So this was my attempt to put my dnf of 2020 behind me. That year I had managed to get over the end of the actual Pennines into the South Tyne Valley but crawling through the mud and bogs in the rain and dark meant that when I became too cold, I didn’t have the mental resources to think my way out of it with another layer, a sleep, food etc. I was so desperately tired that I just wanted to stop. Would I do better this time? I had made a lot of mistakes during that race but also with preparation of kit etc. For example, I had been unable to recharge my headtorch spare battery quickly enough and when both of the batteries were spent I had to switch to my spare torch but wasn’t sure that I had enough battery power to make it to the next checkpoint. In short, lack of foresight put me under pressure when I was already tired. The other thing to avoid was to consider any section of it easy. The headline climbs of Pen-y-Ghent and Cross Fell and the technical challenges of the Falcon Clints boulder field and the Cauldron Snout waterfall might demand more attention but long trudges through nondescript forest plantations require a great deal of concentration and application.
The Race starts in Edale in Derbyshire and ends in Kirk Yetholm in Scotland and travels over the backbone of England, the Pennines. It is continuous rather than done in stages but many people time their rest to arrival at checkpoints where restocking food water and a change of kit is possible. A maximum of 8 hours stop is permitted at a checkpoint, which sounds like a lot but it actually runs down very quickly when eating, faffing and footcare is taken into account. The mandatory kit list is very comprehensive, including spare clothes, sleeping bag, mat and bivvy, cooker, water and a large supply of food. Also, as the majority of the race is in darkness, headtorches and plenty of spare batteries. There are also a few intermediate checkpoints/monitoring stations along the way and in the Cheviots section a couple of hardy teams waiting in the refuge huts for the safety of runners but not able to offer any sustenance.One of the fortunate turns of the 2023 Race was that a room at the Ramblers Inn in Edale became available for the eve of the race and this allowed me to relax within a few hundred yards of the start instead of trying to get a rare taxi from a neighbouring settlement such as Castleton. After kit check, I had a meal while eying the next table seating Damian Hall, James Elson and other super-runners.
Next morning after leaving the resupply bag most runners had to hang around for an hour and a half outside and try to stay dry in the rain. Pretending to be going to the loo perpetually was one favoured method of returning indoors, but I chose to walk back to the road tunnel under the railway and wait there.
At the off, a few legged it up the road but most of us jogged very conservatively through the undulations of the first miles to the huge climb of Jacobs Ladder up to Kinder Low. Almost as soon as we hit the steps the snow came down, light at first but increasing in volume until most runners took out the (mandatory) protective goggles. Once having topped out, much of the Kinder plateau is quite runnable so the miles ticked off quickly. On the descent to the Torside Reservoir at Crowden I slipped out and splatted, the first but not the last of the race. After a long climb to Black Chew Head we came to a stream in spate where in 2020 I had fallen in and floated off a little way. This time I waded straight in. It was pretty deep and fast flowing but I managed to keep my footing. Not so the runner behind me who had pretty much my 2020 experience. Still there was quite a lot of chance to keep warm on the fast sections around the Wessenden Reservoirs and the climb to Marsden Moor. There had been some concern about the water levels in Dean Clough just after Black Hill but the stepping stones were still exposed, just.I went past Nicky’s Food Bar in its shipping container in a lay-by and crossed the M62 bridge to Blackstone Edge. Dropping down to the White House Inn, I accepted a cup of tea from the MRT team and crossed to the next set of reservoirs. Aside from a bit of headtorch nonsense around the Stoodley Pike monument, all went fine into Hebden Hey CP1 located about a mile off the actual Pennine Way. I checked my feet, which were fine, had some food and set off quickly across Heptonstall Moor which was surprisingly boggy considering the cold weather. At the Walshaw Dean reservoir. I was caught up by a runner, Eddie Sutton, who was keen to run at any opportunity. I was less keen to jog but found that I could keep up with her pace just by taking longer walking strides so we kept together for quite a way over the icy flag stones to the (not Wuthering Heights) location of Top Withins down to Ponden and up and over Ickornshaw Moor where she had a bad fall when her leg went deep into a boggy hole. I was a bit worried that she didn’t get up for a minute or so but once she had recovered her wind we could move as fast as before. It turns out that she has a running coaching business in the Alps. On the descent to Cowling we were overtaken by James Elson who had at some point obviously agreed to help pace her to a quick time. This felt like my cue to drop back and I essentially did the next relatively flat section solo. Apart from a 15 minute nap in the Lotharsdale Tri Club tent it was uneventful, a little wrong turn into a muddy field at East Marton when exiting the short towpath section of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and a quick breakfast of hash browns from the Co-op at Gargrave before the very, very waterlogged fields alone the River Aire up to Malham. This really did involve some deep wading, probably a moment to mention my footwear choice. Instead of the sock liner plus waterproof outer sock combo, I decided after some experimentation to use only Inov8 Extreme Therm socks. Thin seamless neoprene ankle length tubes over bare feet, these work by trapping a layer of moisture which is warmed by the foot. They are indeed really toasty, but my only concern was the long term effect of having permanently damp skin. On the other hand, waterproof socks or just ordinary ones tend after a while to give you permanently damp feet so maybe this would be no worse but actually better. Anyway, in spite of constant immersion I had warm feet if soaking squelchy shoes. As I got to Malham, I started to obsess about having enough batteries, determined not to repeat previous errors. Unfortunately, the shop was closed. Damn, should have bought them at Gargrave. I still had plenty but the opportunities become fewer along the route and any unfortunate loss or spillage might cause a problem.
After climbing the side of the cove, I was slow around the limestone pavement as I’ve always had a bit of a fear of going near to the edge and took a very safe but slow route. After a cuppa at Malham Tarn Field Centre I was really pleased to manage Fountains Fell and (most of) Pen-Y-Ghent still in the light. In fact, true darkness fell just after the first scrambly section and there were a few of us walking around looking for any sign of the worn rocks which would indicate the upwards path. Eventually we spotted them, further to the right than I would have remembered. A couple of the Spine safety team members had appeared, checking the safety of the route periodically and while the ascent had been fairly straightforward the long descent was treacherously icy and a few of my companions had ignominious pratfalls. Jonty Rhodes(a relative) of the Horton Mountain Rescue Team once again came up to see me and chat which was a lovely boost and after walking with me to the unofficial intermediate CP of the Horton Cavers and Potholers Club, took a picture for my cousin Ellie and went back to his duties.
I had intended to grab a quick brew and be on my way, but unfortunately after sitting down for a few minutes, I began to feel a little sick and when offered a place to lie down I moved over to the other side of the room…and came to with a voice asking me ‘What’s the last thing you remember before waking up on the floor?’ Damn, I must have fainted. This could be tricky. The owner of the voice was a doctor who while being in no way keen to throw me off the race, needed to be sure that it was just a temporary thing, so I spent the next couple of hours drinking tea, chatting, answering his questions and occasionally getting up and ascending and descending flights of stairs under his supervision. Once he was satisfied, I layered up and set of with a new bunch of runners up the long and not very exciting Cam High Road into the Yorkshire Dales. This long Roman Road was very icy and while we were keen to keep up a good marching pace, there were sections that really needed care. This is one of the segments which requires concentration without reward, five hours of watching the path in the torch beam and little else…oh and it was bitterly cold and windy as we ascended. Eventually the lights of the villages of Gayle and Hawes appeared and the descent off the fell was reasonably quick, the ground was hard and had a covering of snow, always great for grip. On entering CP2 Hawes, I ate, took fresh clothes and my light sleeping bag from my dropbag, showered and attempted to get up a ladder and into a midget bunk. I purposely set no alarm and had a luxurious three hours sleep. Refreshed by this, I rose, breakfasted and set off to buy batteries first from the nearby garage and then the village Spar. This instantly made me feel better about the later stages and as I strode off to Hardraw, I met a fellow runner, Cyril and we chatted for a while until he fell back on the long ascent. There was plenty of ice and cold water all the way across to Great Shunner Fell and the descent to Thwaite was reasonably fast but a little treacherous. I shifted some snacks from the main compartment of the rucksack to the side pockets and set off over Kisdon Hill to Keld. There is one particular section of this slope overlooking the River Swale that always appeared to be completely undercut by rabbit warrens and I have always been expecting it to collapse..not today fortunately. After Keld, Stonesdale Moor and the drag up to Tan Hill and England’s highest pub. There was a small amount of food and a cup of tea available there but I moved along quite quickly, wanting to get as much of the next section done in the light as possible. There was a warning of a collapsed ditch on Sleightholme Moor(the huge 7 mile bog between Tan Hill and the A66) and fortunately there were comprehensive warning signs as the sinkhole covered with moss was apparently deep enough to take a person fully upright. Eventually, the boggy trail turned into a hard packed trail and led to God’s Bridge and the tunnel under the main road. I had forgotten that it was hidden to the side of a house and wasted a bit of time searching the yard of said house before finding the way. Likewise, the next section in the growing darkness was hard to find trails and frequently needed route correction over awkward bogs, streams and tussocks. As I stopped to change batteries in the torch, I saw that a group was approaching from behind so I decided to stop and eat some food while they caught up. It turned out to be a mixed blessing as two of the three were more than a bit taciturn, but in the very cold temperature it was good to have some company. There was a mistake at Green Wythe Farm where we went into the yard, disturbed lots of dogs and began searching for a way through before a kind but frustrated lady shouting out of a window put us right and sent us further up the road. Arrival at Middleton involved the inevitable seeing the lights long, long before arrival but I had learned not to anticipate and remembered just to focus on the next few steps and not the goal on the horizon.
After taking some more supplies and kit changes from the drop bag, I ate and spent quite a while warming myself by the fire in the checkpoint before retiring to my sleeping bag. After a much shorter sleep(1.5 hours) I got up, ate and kitted up for what was set to be an epic day. Ahead of us was a long trek up the River Tees, the boulder field of Falcon Clints and a scramble up the waterfall of Cauldron Snout initially even before the descent into Cumbria and then the long trek over the fells and drop into Northumberland. The forecast was clear, even sunny but very cold and icy. I took my Innov8 Arctic Talons out and put them on with, for the first time, fabric socks with no waterproofing. After about 10 steps I changed my mind and decided that no matter how grippy they might be on black ice there was no way that I would do a 40 mile stretch with these on my feet. I changed back to the Hoka Torrent 2.
The first section up the Tees was mostly uneventful and the sightseeing highlights of Low and High Force (Waterfalls) were as spectacular as ever. Unfortunately, when squeezing through a stile something popped and my rucksack suddenly sagged..an anchor point had pulled out on my shoulder strap and now the weight was very unevenly distributed. I did a quick fix with a carabiner but it couldn’t be perfectly adjusted to balance the load. After Falcon Clints, which went quite smoothly in spite of the ice warning, I used some spare lace cord to help pull the weight over to the centre a bit more. The climb up the side of Cauldron Snout was much more hairy, 3 in 5 rocks were glazed and it was impossible to see a path through from below so there was a lot of weaving around to avoid the danger..and I topped out a bit further back from the mini bridge over to the road next to the Cow Green Reservoir than the normal route would have taken me. Although ice spikes were a mandatory kit item, I didn’t think that their use would have made the climb any easier or safer, nothing short of a crampon in a rigid frame would have allowed any technical purchase on those rocks.
After the long, long uphill to High Cup Nick we saw the spectacular view into Cumbria and the few miles down into Dufton went fairly quickly. Before the intermediate checkpoint we went to the Post Office Pantry and ate in preparation for the afternoon of climbing ahead. Making fast time up Knock Fell and around the giant golf ball of the radar installation on Great Dun Fell, it was very heartening to get over the vast emptiness of Cross Fell(Highest Point of the PW at 893m) just in the fading light and to the shelter of Greg’s Hut Bothy where the famous John Bamber and team were camped out for the week providing tea and chilli noodles. They were great company but it wasn’t good to stay for too long and we set off down the looooong trail into Northumberland. I fell behind companions Steve and Claire a bit here and got chatting to Sergio, a Portuguese gardener from Manchester who had volunteered on the Spine Safety Team the previous year. He was particularly keen to pop into Annie’s house, one of the first that you encounter coming into the village of Garrigill. Annie is a Brazilian lady who keeps open house for all Spiners but although I had experienced her hospitality, I didn’t want to stop again only a few hours since Greg’s Hut and with only 5 or so miles to the CP4 at Alston. I started doing what I knew I shouldn’t in trying to guess how far to go now and anticipating the CP when there still miles to go over mostly flat but irritatingly long field and river paths. I eventually arrived at Alston just ahead of my travelling companions who had stopped for tea and flapjacks at Annie’s
At Alston my makeshift repair on the rucksack was superseded by someone else’s makeshift repair using paracord taken from elsewhere on the pack. While marginally more secure than my own with carabiners and laces, it was still not adjustable. I ate, slept a tiny bit and then prepared to move. It seemed as though more time was spent getting into and out of checkpoints than actually sleeping, but I did find it useful to go through almost every item of spare kit and remind myself that it was there should I need it, check ALL batteries in all devices, check spares and make sure that I was not just carrying the requisite amount of food but that it would be readily accessible. From this stage onwards I also used a waist pack with the bag at the front, which proved very useful for food torches, phone etc. I knew that the next stage had no intermediate CP or monitoring station, so this would be a good time to use the gas cooker from the mandatory kit. First though I had to get past the point where I had my dnf in 2020. I left the CP alone and rounded the old Roman fort of Epiacum, crisscrossed the S Tyne Valley in its awkward to navigate little paths and ways. I remembered first time the secret stone in the wall that allows egress from the mysterious farmyard and quite soon was approaching the area of Batey Shield at the South side of Blenkinsop Common. This involves passing through the yard of a character apparently known as ‘Rasta Ralph’. In the Summer informal Spine that I did with Patrick and Ammon, he had been sitting outside his caravan at a roaring fire drinking and smoking, telling us of his plan to sell drinks to PW walkers and Spiners. Mercifully he wasn’t up and about at that time but he was obviously a keeper of particularly fine poultry. There were magnificent birds all over the yard and along the path to the Common. I wondered how on Earth they didn’t end up inside foxes. Blenkinsop Common itself was in the most navigable and crossable state I had ever seen. The ground was (mostly) hard and it was possibly to see a clear track, even the bundu was frozen together in clumps. Without noticing I had sailed past the scene of my 2020 hubris and to within sight of Hadrian’s Wall. I began to motivate myself to keep going by eating, as I was beginning to feel frazzled from cumulative lack of sleep now. From my 3000Kcal of food I pulled a bag of Bombay Mix opened it and every time I felt my eyes drooping I would munch a handful. It turned out to be a really good strategy as the chilli and curry flavours provided quite a bit of stimulation as well as getting the benefit of the calories.(Bombay Mix had the best energy:weight ratio of all my foodstuffs at ca500Kcal:100g, Ainsley Harriot’s Cous-Cous had the least, surprisingly at 110:100g). After the Greenhead golf course, which didn’t look at all as I imagined it, having only done it in the dark before, we got to Walltown Quarry Centre and retreated to the sheltered side of the toilet block to sit and cook some food. In a stroke of true genius tiredness, I managed to knock my open packet of noodles to the ground and lose the powders from the flavour sachets. Sergio kindly gave me a veggie cous-cous from his pack and I picked up the unflavoured noodles from the concrete and bunged them in too. Unfortunately, I didn’t bother to read his Portuguese instructions and having only brought instant food with me that only required immersion and not actual cooking, I struggled with a very dry and hard-to-chew load of dried vegetables and nuts. Never mind, it was better than flapjacks and chocolate, but not as good as Bombay Mix.
After this lunch we went along the long section of Hadrian’s Wall that is built upon the Great Whin Sill (a band of Igneous rock that at this point formed a natural defence, and along with the Rivers N and S Tyne dictated the course of the A69). It was steep and icy and I was slow. Towards the end of the wall and just before we cut up through moorland to head North again after the Eastern traverse of the Wall, a guy with his dog hailed us and offered coffee, tea and snacks. His name was Stuart and he had done the race the previous year, yet another example of the inspiring folk who involve themselves every year in support whether officially or just in general support of runners by such acts of kindness.
We passed into the North and over moorland with some pathless descents into the Stonehaugh Forest. This was the beginning of another problematic section for me. I noticed that I was always just off the back of our little group and while on the one hand it was good to be pulled along by the superior efforts of others, it meant that psychologically I felt at a disadvantage and on the edge, plus if I had to make any adjustments to my badly fitting rucksack, stop to pee, alter layers of clothing, change batteries etc, I always had to catch up. The forest was simply horrible, no other way to put it. It had always been ‘the impossibly boggy forest section’ but diversions owing to forestry works meant that it was now all on trails and that there were a couple of extra miles in a course that seemed pointlessly to double back upon itself. It was here that 2nd place runner Jack Scott incurred his 48 minute time penalty that cost him the race by not following the route correctly. Anyway, the trails were as dull as could be, just hours of adverse camber with occasional hundreds of yards of black ice only livened up by areas of what felt like seracs where logging trucks had broken up massive ice sheets and they had refrozen at angles..a sort of Falcon Clints of the forest! In the dark, the only way to see how much more forest there would be was to look at the map and gps. After an eternity, we got back to moorland and cracked and squelched our way through tricky paths to the welcoming outhouse at Horneysteads Farm. Helen, the owner, was there offering snacks and soup and we stayed for 20 minutes or so before moving on the the now not-so-far-away Bellingham.
I was still struggling and not quite sure why when we ascended Shitlington(sic) Crags and near the top I fell further back as my headtorch failed and I took out a spare. For this stage I’d been wearing comfortable waterproof gloves but not my absolute best pair of alpine ones, consequently they weren’t on wrist loops and I dropped one. Worst still I didn’t notice for a while and had to search around on my own after running back down. Then I had to run further for a long time to catch up Raymond and Sergio for the final long drop to Bellingham.It took even longer than usual to get into the CP, label the shoes and poles and go through the drop bag. This time I decided to do the eating and sleeping asap and leave all of the final triage of gear until after rest. The sleeping area here was in a hall, just on the floor, so sleeping mat and proper 4 season bag from the race backpack rather than the light one. It was apparently -3 degrees in the hall, although I have no way of verifying this slightly unlikely stat. I blew up my mat and entered the dark space. There were some tents erected but on examination they were all occupied so I settled my mat between a couple of them, climbed into the bag and turned onto my side to sleep. It was only a couple of hours before I got up. I didn’t really feel rested. I think that there had been some sort of building alarm followed by an announcement sounding off at intervals. This infiltrated my fitful dozing in the form of a Squid Game dream where every klaxon and announcement signified another eliminated competitor. The idea was very strongly planted in my head that I must not allow my foot to stray from the sleeping mat and touch the floor or a similar fate would be mine. This was quite a tall order for a slowly deflating Thermarest uberlite mat, I was virtually on the floor anyway. Eventually, I managed to reason with myself to get up. Only a couple of hours and probably not much sleep in those. I went to the bathroom and attempted for 15 minutes to put in a contact lens. The second one followed much quicker but my motor skills were shaky and I was shivering too! I went back to the main room and started going through my drop bag. This time I would absolutely repack the rucksack and make sure that all necessary items for this stage would be to the fore. A first shock was to discover that in pulling out my third best headtorch on the Crags the previous night, I had dropped my second best, which was reasonably powerful and for which I had a plentiful supply of AAA batteries. It wasn’t so much the loss of the torch that worried me but the fact that I was making that kind of mistake. I needed to be very careful from now on, as I was obviously beyond the point of easy control. I still had my powerful Petzl Neo+ with a full spare battery and one which had been on charge overnight. Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason this one hadn’t charged at all. So, I had my Petzl Tikkita which although capable of 200 Lumens was not really much of an outdoor torch. I also had a very powerful handheld and a chest torch. All in all for the next section I had more than enough power, but could only cope with two or three more foolish errors before being under pressure. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need more than about 15 hours of torchlight and I had well over double that. I dawdled and fussed with kit for the best part of an hour. It was back to the neoprene socks for this stage, a new pair, but more importantly I decided that this was the moment for the Buffalo-style Montane Extreme Smock if it was going to be windy and possibly snowy in the Cheviots. I managed just to time my departure to leave with Raymond with whom I’d spent quite a bit of time the previous days and we chatted as we climbed out of Bellingham and into the fortunately frozen reed beds on the tops. This was the easiest navigation of this section that I have ever known. Even Summer journeys through here involved wrong turns and correction of the route by wading. The extreme cold caused some icy hazards in places but it also changed the game in many of the normally wet parts. After Padon Hill and on the short but steep and overgrown ascent of Brownrigg Head, Sergio caught us up. It was a gloriously sunny morning, like so many of the others. There had been little cloud or snow showers after the first couple of days so the days were sunny and the nights absolutely perishing, but now I was finding my jacket verging on a bit too hot.
I stopped to adjust the zips to maximum venting and trotted to catch up with the other two but found it very difficult to close the gap. I resolved to tell them to go on without me but I couldn’t get near enough to do so. We were now in the Redesdale Forest and while the undulating tracks were easy enough I found myself slowing to a stop. Some stern admonition kept me moving and even forcing the pace, but I found myself with less and less strength and eventually after one mini rest, I could hardly stand without just leaning on the poles. A look at the Garmin told me that I still had at least three miles to go before Byrness, the last safety checkpoint and some food and drink. These three miles seemed to take hours and I had no idea what I could do when I arrived at Byrness. A packet of crisps and a Red Bull handed to me by a supporter who was going the other way to meet a friend didn’t give me the lift I hoped but eventually I stepped up out of the forest and to the side of the A68. A medic was waiting, apparently Sergio and Raymond had warned them that I was badly pulled over on one side and moving slowly. It was true, the badly distributed load of the broken backpack had been gradually fatiguing my core and back so that now it was in spasm and could barely support me. A further shock finding was that what I thought was a little niggly pulled muscle turned out to be a massive case of tendonitis in my right shin. It was so pink and swollen that I thought initially that it was cellulitis which would have been a race finisher. The doctors drew around the inflammation with a marker, gave me a couple of paracetamol and suggested that I have some rest before thinking what to do next. They weren’t discouraging but they said I would have to take a realistic view and that they would help me if that decision was to continue. I had to leave the intermediate CP but hobbled down to tiny church of St Francis’, the smallest in the diocese of Newcastle, and lay down in a pew. After an hour I became cold so I got into my sleeping bag, put my feet up on my pack and dozed. It wouldn’t be too dishonourable to dnf now with such impediments to my movement, but on the other hand I had only 25 miles until the finish and about 40 hours in which to complete. I could crawl or hop it at that rate. So I reasoned, and when I called Spine Control to say that I was continuing and would go back to see the medics, they told me not to worry, the medics would come to me so that I didn’t have to make the journey to the CP twice. Both were surprised to see that the swelling had receded and that I could now hold myself upright. Amazing what a bit of rest on a flat floor had done. They declared me good to go with the caveat that if I struggled by the time I got up Byrness Hill, I should come back down and retire. And so I set off still in about an hour of light and made reasonable time up the steep section and mini scramble of the hill onto the Border Ridge. No turning back now and no more tracks or roads until the end. The going was fairly good underfoot and relatively easy to navigate. Unfortunately, this section has more than one path and there are quad bike tracks which are very alluring when they intersect the trail of footprints so there were a few easily correctable errors and a few which involved a few hundred yards in deep vegetation and snow. It didn’t seem too long before I saw a light pointing in my direction. It disappeared and reappeared periodically and I knew that it must be one of the safety team camped out at the Yearning Saddle Refuge Hut (aka Hut 1 to Spine Racers). The hut itself is hidden in a dip until you are almost upon it, but they must have sent someone out to oversee my arrival. There were four or five brave souls in the hut, some Spine Safety Team and some from the North of Tyne MRT. Chatting to them, I learned that my brother Steve had been there a short while earlier with his dog, just doing the rounds of his local patch. It was about another nine miles to the next Refuge Hut at Auchope and I was hungry so I got out my stove and heated up a packet of curry, throwing in a pack of noodles for good measure. It really did the job and after washing out the cooking pan and my cup, I headed off. There was no other assistance at the hut other than safety, no water, no food, nothing other than that which you bring yourself and these people were sitting there with no heating, electricity and minimal water and gas.
The climbs of Lamb Hill, Beefstand Hill and Mozie Law all broke up the route to the big one, Windy Gyle. It was as expected fairly blowy up there although the weather really wasn’t too bad. In previous races such as the Cheviot Goat, I had gradually come to remember that passing over this trig point there was a path either side of the fence line and that the English side of the fence was laid with large millstone slabs. Normally this would be an advantage, but actually the path was so little trodden and there was so much snow obscuring the stones that the normally, less runnable Scottish side was preferable. It was still somewhat tricky with occasional groughs and watery sections that weren’t frozen but were hidden by snow but it was ok to keep moving. I did fear that if I didn’t keep a certain effort up, I would not generate enough heat to keep my temperature up. The wind on the border ridge was icy and goodness knows what the air temp was even without windchill. I had a fleece-lined gore-tex trapper hat on and also the hood of the smock which were absolutely brilliant at insulating me. Also, the basic incline of the ridge was up, so the effort was sufficient. The section named Butt Roads which leads to Kings Seat and eventually the turn off to Cheviot summit(not part of the Race route) was extremely testing. There was no path whatsoever, just footprints over loose snow and loose heather. It was very slow going as it was hard to tell whether any foot or pole placement might allow you to push off or give way and tip you into the snowy heather. This was initially quite dispiriting but once admitting that there was only one way to get off the hill, keeping going, I adjusted to the change of pace and it just became a matter of finding the next step..multiplied many thousand times.
Eventually, a fingerpost gave away that Auchope Cairn was not far and there followed a steep downhill. I could see some red lights in the distance..it couldn’t be anything to do with the Auchope Refuge, perhaps connected to the local military installations. Anyway, after a few more tumbles on the descent, I arrived at the bottom of the slight slope up to the Hut. I didn’t need to eat any more and didn’t really want to stop but as this Hut was offering a cup of tea, I accepted it and switched over the batteries in my 3rd best torch, the Nao+ having done its job of getting me through the worst. There were not too many hours until daylight now. There should be sun at 7am and it was now just after 4am.
I headed away and onto a long section that I kept imagining must be the Schil, the last significant obstacle of the route at 605m. It had felt tough before, how could I not be feeling it now.? Was I really that lionised by the previous week’s endurance? No of course not. When I finally arrived at the actual slopes of the hill it was brutally steep and long and the descent seemed never to end. I had no real recollection of the route from now on but a fingerpost at a stile promised 4 ½ miles to Kirk Yetholm. I wanted nothing more than to lie down on the path and shut my eyes. It was even tempting to shut my eyes while moving. The hallucinations were constant now. I had become well used to the trick of the mind in attempting to make sense of random shapes and shadows in an otherwise sensorily deprived state and even courted such absurd interpretations as a way of providing entertainment during the long nights but now every shadow, shrub and post appeared to be people come to cheer me in . They never were, of course, until after I really did reach a long industrial road caked with ice and I saw headtorches moving swiftly down a hill in front. Sure enough, when I arrived at the foot of this climb a couple of the Spine Media team were there to record my passing. I croaked out a greeting and realised that apart from the cup of tea at Hut 2 I hadn’t had a drink of water for well over ten hours owing to my drinking tube from the 1.5l bladder in my pack having frozen. Better rectify that. I knew that in extremis I would be able to take off the pack and drink straight from the unfrozen bladder, but I wasn’t that desperate, I just needed to lubricate my mouth. I chewed the ice out of the mouthpiece and blew into the tube until a small amount of water was able to clear the frozen part. It tasted good and instantly revived my mood. I could hardly believe that I was still on track for so long but houses appeared, real ones not hallucinations and soon I turned slightly to see the lights of the Border Inn and the finishing arches of the Spine. I got a bit of a jog on, hoping that I wasn’t too crooked with my back. Before I could become overwhelmed with, well anything, I was taken to the famous wall of the hotel and asked about my solo night in the Cheviots. I managed a bit of dazed waffle and was taken inside where the frozen balls of ice which had formed in and around my gaiters were removed in a bowl of warm water and I was helped to soak my feet. Food and tea were blissfully welcome and I stayed like this for well over an hour before being moved to a more remote sofa so that they could prepare the detoxing space for the next incomers. I fell asleep on this sofa and when I woke a little while later was reunited with Sergio who had got in some hours before me. I think that he’d been feeling a bit sheepish that the last time we had spoken was just before I fell off the back in the forest, but actually he’d done me a favour, as it brought it home to me what a state I was in and how I just needed to reset and come in at my own pace.
A couple of hours after my arrival Steve, Jan and Lydia came to pick me up and drive me to Alnwick. The rest of the day was spent in a strange state, partly due to tiredness, but also to trying to readjust to not having an all-consuming task to see to. I could see many messages coming into my phone on many different platforms but I kept dropping off or writing gibberish as my tired thumbs kept hitting send after a number of random keys. Apart from the tendonitis which took a couple of weeks to subside, I escaped fairly lightly with no particular foot problems and no night sweats, although I did keep waking to the recurring marching nightmare of the Cheviot section and found my feet moving inadvertently under the duvet.
It was a great release to have completed the distance, but in some ways the runners get the glory while the organisers, checkpoint staff, safety teams, HQ staff and so many more have the hard task of just staying put often in far from ideal conditions and wait for the runners to pass. I have to pay tribute to the organisers and volunteers and the supporters along the way, it really was fantastic to meet so many great people in between the rather lonely moments!
