Spine Challenger 2014

Before sitting down to write some thoughts on my race I had a little read over some blogs from this years race and I think no one summed up the experience more accurately than Mimi Anderson who declared “shit that was hard”. I don’t think anyone who took part in the race would disagree with that. If you can't be bothered reading on that should be your take home message

But for the rest of you, a bit of background: the Spine Race is a 268 mile non stop race along the entire length of the Pennine way. In January. For those who don’t want to spend the next 3 months recovering they also offer a shorter race: the Spine Challenger- a 108 mile race from Edale to Hawes. Exactly the same route as the Spine race, you just get the luxury of finishing at checkpoint 2 instead of pushing on to Kirk Yetholm. I like a long run but 268 miles is pushing it a bit so I went for the more sensible 108 mile Challenger option.

Me and Elsie travelled down the day before, staying at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn, which sounded delightful but wasn't. Thin walls and neighbours having a lively bit of rumpy pumpy didn't make for the most restful night. And they wouldn't give us an early breakfast either, so a quick cup of tea and porridge in a pot it was before we legged it over to Edale for an 8am start.

The weather forecast had promised a dry day, so inevitably as we gathered on the start line the heavens opened prompting a mad dash in the packs for waterproofs. I had to feel a bit sorry for the optimistic chap in compression shorts when the rain turned to first hail and then snow.

The first few hours flew by and were pretty good fun despite the unexpected snow. Navigation was pretty easy at this stage mainly because we could just follow Marcus Scotney's Hoka footprints in the snow. In what felt like no time we were at Torside reservoir, where I was told Marcus was going well and was 10minutes ahead in the lead. I decided not to try and hang on at his pace and stopped to sort out my feet which were already very wet and were getting a few hot spots.

The field started to spread out at this stage and I was mainly on my own. Things were going well until I had a wee lapse of concentration on Castleshaw Moor where I missed a turn and went too far west. I dithered about retracing my steps, but instead decided to  straight line it back to where the Pennine way crossed the road a short way ahead. Probably the wrong decision as I watched Daniel Hendrikson overtake me taking the correct path while I struggled through tussocks and bog getting back on track. Despite the wee error I was still feeling in good spirits and managed to push on at a decent pace trying to make the most of the fading light. Before long it was getting dark and it was headtorch time, the thought of 15 hours in the dark wasn't exactly filling me with glee.

I had hoped I might be able to catch a glimpse of Daniel's headtorch in the distance but he seemed to have pulled away, so it was just a matter of grinding out the miles to the checkpoint at Hebden Bridge. The organisers didn't make things easy for us -getting to the checkpoint involved a steep scramble down through some woods before popping out at a scout hut.

I didn't hang about long at the checkpoint, just getting on some dry clothes and wolfing down some beef stew. It was great to get some proper food  after 11 hours of gels. Apparently Marcus had left a couple of hours ago in the lead but the 2nd placed chap had stopped for a lie down so I gained a place and left the checkpoint in 2nd place with another 60 miles or so to go and a long 12 hours till daylight.

The next section was pretty difficult, there were lots of flagstones over the boggy moorland, but the water on the slabs had frozen making them pretty sketchy to run on. So the option was run over the icy slabs risking a fall or run alongside them going knee deep in ice cold bog. Neither option was very appealing, and progress was pretty slow. Soon a head torch appeared in the distance behind me, I thought it was Daniel in 3rd place but it turned out to be Pavel who was leading the 268 mile race and was looking incredibly strong. We ran together for a some time. There wasn't a great deal of chat – I don't think he could understand my Scottish accent- but it was nice to have some company for a bit. I was really impressed with Pavel, he was doing an extra 150 miles on top of what I was doing, yet a lot of the time it was him that was pushing the pace on.

The terrain didn't improve much, after the frozen slabs it became very boggy and it was pretty difficult to move at any speed. Navigation became a bit tricky as the route heads through a number of fields with no obvious path and it was often difficult to find the style or gate to cross the walls.  Mentally this was the lowest part of the race for me, my feet were starting to get pretty painful too as they had been wet for the entire race thought the Drymax socks seemed to be doing a good job of preventing any blisters. It became a matter of just keeping on moving forward until the mini checkpoint at Malham tarn where I could sort myself out. We hit Malham tarn just as it was getting light, I devoured another coffee here and  managed to get my water bottles open which had been frozen up for the last couple of hours. The coffee and daylight gave me a big boost, so I started to up the pace a bit and parted from Pavel here. My slightly fuzzy brain did a few calculations and worked out that  while catching Marcus was unlikely I could still get under the old course record of 32hrs18mins. However there was still an icy scramble up Pen-y-ghent to negotiate before the last push down to Hawes. The coffee boost got me to the base of Pen-y-ghent, however it soon started to wear off so the scamble to the summit wasn't very swift. At the top I got a nice surprise as Elsie and her mum & dad were waiting there to cheer me on. I hadn't expected this so it was a great lift to stop for a hug and a photo before I carried on in much better spirits.

My good mood didn't last too long, descending the other side I started to feel in a bad way again. My feet were becoming an issue and had become very swollen causing my toes to get badly bruised underneath the nails. The pain was pretty intense but strangely the pain was worse if I walked or stopped, so the best option was to run as hard as I could so it wold be over sooner. The toe problems probably ended up working in my favour as I probably ran the last section faster than I would have done without the pain.  I ended up getting to Hawes in a time of 29hours 33 mins, 2nd place behind Marcus who took the win in 29hours and 1 minute. A great result in his 1st hundred miler, especially considering his injury problems in the run up to the race.

So, in summary, yes Mimi, I agree- shit that was hard. And I only did 108 miles. I cannot comprehend what those doing the 268mile race were going through. Pavel ended up finishing the 268 miles in 110hours and 45 minutes. The man is a machine.

And as for my toenails, to date 5 have departed.  One more looks like it might also be leaving me soon. I won't disgust you with a photo.