It’s closely related to gamification. As soon as we define and track concrete metrics, we introduce competition, targets, and achievement. Highly motivating factors in their own right.

A strong motivator to reduce one’s climate impact is, to be sure, a good thing. But there is a risk of taking it too far. Of obsessively optimising around only these specific metrics, at the expense of others.

Now; if wider society were also grappling with the same sustainability conundrum, then the discussion of strategies to balance sustainability and quality of life might be an integral part of our national discourse, and answers might be easier to come by.

But when most are principally concerned with personal wealth (completely understandably, given the crisis of wealth inequality and falling living standards); when politicians and academics are still obsessing over GDP, and when laws, regulations, incentives and media publications are principally aligned to profit or populism; then it can feel quite lonely, out on the far reaches of society, wrestling with the practices and consequences of moderating one’s climate impact.

Is this battle sustainable in the long-term - can one really maintain a behavioural divergence with wider society, while meeting one’s own psychological needs?

Lately, I’ve been pondering whether this is a question I will ever need to answer. Because while fascist leaders deploy Orwellian tactics to deny the reality of ecological breakdown, ordinary people are working harder than ever to build-in sustainability from the ground up.

Locally, repair cafes are springing up. Libraries of things are emerging. Freecycling groups, charity and second-hand clothes shops are thriving.

The National Running Show sports a dedicated presentation zone managed by The Green Runners. Even UTMB is improving - this year, one can get a 30% UTMB ballot “boost” by committing to (and demonstrating proof of) greener, plane-free travel to Chamonix valley. They even provide a bespoke travel planning app to help.

In a few years’ time, might sustainability-based entry & financial incentives be the norm for races and events alike?

Will we, in the relatively near future, reach a point when sustainability is a core component of our cultural conversation? When factoring sustainability into day-to-day decision-making requires no societal explanation or justification? When, in fact, it is unsustainability that is met with an inquisitive eyebrow-raise?

If ever I’ve felt confident that such a societal shift is not just possible but inevitable, that time is now.

Travel

Just as I did in 2024, throughout the year I worked hard to keep my car use low; preferring trains, car sharing or journey avoidance wherever possible.

However, my pedestrianism showed a slight year-on-year decline, and I only got on my bike on a handful of occasions. This is largely attributable to more race injuries and long recoveries, not least those from my second running of Winter Spine, and the debacle surrounding North Coast 110. This was all layered atop another very busy year at work that left little time for slow activities.

It’s my goal in 2026 to build a more sustainable work/training regime that will, I hope, demonstrate an improvement across these metrics.

International Travel

For the first time in many years, I didn’t travel internationally. All my races and breaks were local to England and Wales. This was a conscious decision I made to keep my carbon footprint low.

Note this isn’t something I intend to maintain year-on-year, but simply a recognition that carbon is still correlated with mileage (whether that’s travelled by plane, vehicle or train), and that I oughtn’t need to travel internationally every year. As cold, windy, wet and flat as Britain can be, there are still plenty of opportunities for adventure and exploration within the confines of ol’ Blighty’s coastal waters.

Food

For the sixth year running, I consumed a 100% plant-based diet.

And for the fourth year running, while I did still grow food in my front garden, my heart wasn’t in it, and I didn’t make as much of an effort as in previous years.

I still had a good crop of strawberries and runner beans. There was the odd cabbage and head of broccoli, some chard and chillies. And, in a first for me, I did attempt to grow some sweetcorn. But all-in-all, I didn’t make time to give the garden the TLC it needed to produce good crops this year.

Whether I’m able and prepared to commit extra time to my horticultural endeavours this year is a decision I’m deferring until the spring.

Energy

I continue to use a 100% renewable electricity energy supplier.

However, again, this year’s outcomes followed on from my work-life balance. Slightly more time working, slightly less time spent active, and injuries and recoveries alongside required an uptick in heating and energy consumption:

I hope that improving my work-life sustainability balance will produce better outcomes in 2026.

Running

As part of The Green Runners, I am renewing my pledges:

• Prefer local races & training

• Make my journeys by foot, bike, train, bus or carpool where possible

• Track and report my carbon footprint annually

• Be proud of & publicise kit longevity/repair

To address that last point, I’ll sign off on my annual report by updating you on my trusty old Kinvara 12 running shoes.

Still clinging on to life after last year’s patch-up repair job at 3,300km, they have subsequently conveyed me an additional 900km, taking their total to over 4,200km.

To be sure, their soles are increasingly treacherous on slippery ground, their midsole foam has long deteriorated past the point of providing any discernible cushioning, and my repairs to their outers have fallen apart, leaving them as open as a colander.

Despite all this, they still work perfectly as minimalist training shoes!

Will they reach 5,000km by the end of the year? Let’s see, shall we…

Backyards are last person standing events. The idea is to run a 4.167 mile course known as a ‘yard’ on the hour, every hour, until everyone else DNFs. Then, to claim victory, you have to run one final yard alone.

Here’s the kicker: backyards are no-limit events. So long as two or more runners are willing to start another lap, then the race continues, irrespective of the race’s duration or distance. So you’d better have booked enough time off work!

The world record yard count currently stands at 119, which equates to about 5 solid days of running. That’s about 500 miles. An extreme feat of endurance as impressive for the overcoming of sleep deprivation as much as the mileage or mental fortitude.

How long do you think you’d be able to sustain yards for?

The backyard racing format had intrigued me for a while. So when a friend recommended a particular race, the Longbridge 100, I heard them out. It was, they said, an exceptionally well-managed race with a focus on sustainability and community.

Being organised by Darren from 3WordRuns, I could well believe it. Darren’s a co-founder of The Green Runners, and an all-round awesome human who I’d met on multiple occasions before. So I needed no further encouragement and signed myself straight up.

It struck me this quirky race format might also appeal to Jandalf the Savage. It turned out I was right. Jan signed himself up, and even persuaded our speedy wonder-runner, the Atomic Barista, to come and join the fun. That’s how we wound up with a team of 3 eager beginner ‘yarders ready to take on the Longbridge course in the summer of 2024.

In the weeks prior to the race we three enjoyed an unforgettable experience fastpacking across the Pyrenees, accompanied by our audacious comrade Tarp. We chalked up hundreds of kilometres with tens of kilometres of v+. Excellent preparation for Longbridge’s notoriously hilly course.

So on our return to dear old ‘Blighty, we were ready and rearing to have at the Longbridge course. Well... two of us were.

I had managed to run myself into a little bit of a state. A nasty illness that I’d carried around UTS100 had worsened afterwards. While I’d valiantly hauled my infirm body over the Pyrenees, I’d rapidly deteriorated afterwards. And just in case I still harboured any misconceptions about my ability to run a race, I’d also gone and smashed my knee into a rock near Pic Carlit. So I was completely out of action.

Brooding in an air of despondence, I reclined on my sofa, watching Jandalf the Savage and Atomic Barista’s laps tick up on Longbridge’s live tracking system. Barista won the race in style, while Jandalf clinched 3rd place. I felt pretty shit to have missed out.

In the days following, I committed to Darren that I’d make it to Longbridge next summer. I’d make sure of it.

Roll Forward to 2025

I bumped into Darren a couple of times in the months leading up to the race. First at the National Running Show in Birmingham, where he spoke about sustainable racing. Next at UTS, where he passed up his opportunity to run the race in order to mend strangers’ smelly old running shoes for free. I have no end of respect for this purposeful gent.

He asked me how I was feeling about Longbridge. I explained I hadn’t really been training post-Spine, and had lost a lot of fitness. Longbridge was only a month away, and I was only just starting my rebuild. Nonetheless, I noted Darren seemed quietly confident in me.

The rebuild did go pretty well after that. I managed a solid 4 week training block. I even started a taper; though I screwed that up a few days beforehand, by running 75km to London for an anti-genocide protest. Humanity must come first.

I chose to travel sustainably to Longbridge via a sequence of three trains. Without a set of wheels and car boot, I couldn't bring many of the things I’d have liked to, such as a table and chair. But at least I had the basics: food, a few pairs of shoes, headtorches, and an inflatable sleeping mat (just in case...)

Waiting on the platform at Lewes for the last of my three trains, I startled when someone called out my name. This turned out to be Pete, a chap I'd slightly assisted to a 3 hour finish while pacing the Milton Keynes Marathon back in 2023. By the time Pete and I reached Berwick, we’d caught up on our recent races, and had a pretty good idea of each other’s race strategy.

Disembarking onto this rural station platform, we connected with three other ‘yarders, and the lovely Sam, who conveyed us in an electric minibus up to Longbridge Regenerative. A social community of eco-friendly businesses and, of course, this people & planet-friendly backyard race.

Darren, one of the most people-friendly people you'll ever meet, greeted us with a tour of the site’s facilities and its two generous barns. These would form our rest area for the duration of the race.

Within the barns, Darren provided each of us a hay bale covered with a coffee bean sack. This was to be our bed, should we need it. Some runners supplemented their bales with tables and chairs, their nutrition laid out like mini-aid stations. While I wished I could do the same, I had to make do with my inflatable sleeping mat, and the hay bale as a table.

At least, I tried to. For when I inflated my sleeping mat, I found it was so long that wouldn’t fit on the floor without blocking the aisle. I couldn't be bothered to pack it away, so I just shoved it up against the side of the wall. It served either as a bright orange monument to poor planning, or a pretty garish headboard.

I arranged my hay bale so it was half-table and half-seat; hardly ideal, but it’d have to do. I shrugged my shoulders and left for a little explore.

My nose sniffed out Andy's mobile pizza van, La Squadra Della Pizza, which was hidden in another of the barns. Andy had hardly brought the stone oven up to temperature yet, but I couldn't possibly resist, and chomped my way through the most delicious vegan pizza I'd ever eaten while sporting a massive smile on my chops.

During Darren's pre-race briefing he introduced the race's chosen charity, the local WOLO Foundation, and ended with a reminder that one of Laz’s “Big Dog Backyard” bronze coins was up for grabs for the winner.

Then it was time. We each made our way into the starting corral. My friend Jandalf appeared, sporting his characteristically wide smile. He was excited by a night of marshalling at the second turnaround point, followed (hopefully!) by a little crewing for me.

The Slowest of Sweltering Starts

Darren set us all off on our first lap at 6pm. The route immediately passed alongside a craft brewery taproom that looked all too enticing, then began its steep climb up an uneven rocky path, before breaking left onto undulating trail. This was the hottest day of the year so far, and despite being early evening, the temperature held steady at 27°C. The sun beat down onto parched ground, whose trails were dusty and unyielding.

After some descending, the gradient switched to a gradual ascent, while winding through a beautiful valley. A steep hill drew into sight up ahead, at the top of which looked to be perched a little marquee, presumably our first turnaround point. It felt like a strange decision to make us run all the way up there, when we could just as well have continued along the valley. But where would have been the fun in that?

There was a lovely view from the top of the hill. Here a volunteer sheltered from the sun under the mini-marquee. They directed us straight back down the steep descent, which I considered our quads might object to after a day or two.

My plan was to take it very easy on these early yards. So I struck up conversations with other runners to pass the time, covering topics from prior races to heat management strategies. For I could see some were already quite uncomfortable in the heat. When the sun rose on day two, and that midday heat kicked in, I suspected that many of the field were going to struggle.

We passed by the turning to race HQ, wherein I observed we were roughly halfway through the first yard. The logic behind Darren’s route choice became apparent: two almost equal length out-and-back spurs, joined in the middle by the connection to the start, meant we never strayed far from race HQ. It also made it easy to gauge our progress around the course.

The second spur proved just as beautiful, but even hillier than the first, with a big dip followed by a long climb of various gradients all the way up to the second turnaround point.

Under this marquee was housed a handcrafted wooden chest of miniature drawers. On each drawer was written a number. We had to locate the drawer that corresponded to the current yard, and withdraw from it a token etched with the correct yard number (yard 1 in this case). We’d need to present this to Darren at the finish to conclude our yard. No yard token with the correct yard number meant no yard - and a swift DNF.

Wouldn’t it become difficult to remember the correct yard number as the hours and days rolled on, and sleep deprivation kicked in? Time would tell.

The return from the second spur was mostly downhill, and quite rapid. A final left turn took us down the final hill, past the tempting taproom, and concluded with a last little incline back into the starting corral. It felt rather strange accepting applause from a crowd of spectators for completing a 6.7 kilometre jog.

We handed our yard tokens over to Darren, then made our way back to the barns.

I was delighted to find a reclining chair had magically materialised beside my hay bale. Jandalf must have left it for me before setting off to his marshal position. What a star. I leaned back and reclined, sipping Tailwind and knocking back salt tablets. In 27°C heat, maintaining a healthy electrolyte balance was going to be key in this race.

My plan was to smash out the first 24 laps nice and easy, then take stock of the field and build a mental plan for the next 24, or however many it would take. But some questions were emerging.

This was not a flat course. In fact, there were some quite steep climbs, with very little flat to be found. 200 metres v+ each lap - that's nearly 5km every 100 miles. Much more than SDW100, and almost as much as the Arc of Attrition, where a sub-24 hour black buckle is a rare award indeed. I felt sure that not everyone would reach 100 miles on this course.

When I factored in the weather forecast of >30C over the weekend; when I'd already seen many of the field struggle after a couple of hours in 27C, I just couldn't see this race lasting awfully long.

But it was far too early to be thinking about strategy. We set back off, where I kept the pace easy, and the conversations flowing with my fellow ‘yarders. From first-timers to old-hands, weekend warriors to those who’d registered some high-profile successes, and even one about to publish their book. What a glorious summer’s evening out enjoying the Downs!

While one runner had dropped out very early due to injury, our numbers otherwise held steady through the evening. But as the darkness encroached, and we retreated into our headtorch bubbles, our numbers began dropping consistently. I guessed it was the heat. While it was obviously slightly cooler in the darkness of the night, conditions were still remarkably hot and humid.

Come the 9th lap, even I was beginning to feel the effects. My muscles were growing heavy and sore, the hills were growing tougher, and everything felt like a chore. Fortunately, troubleshooting this wasn't difficult: in the darkness, I'd let my electrolyte intake drop off. I had myself righted in a jiffy.

The next thing I needed to sort out was my pacing. Since I’d been running mostly 50-52 minute yards, it left precious few minutes to sort myself out before rejoining the starting corral for the next lap. There wasn’t really enough time to comfortably refill my water bottles, eat, recline, daydream and put the world to rights. I preferred a solid 10+ minutes for all that.

And anyway, I didn't enjoy running as slowly as I was. Doing so required an unnatural, uncomfortable and inefficient gait that just wasn't making me happy.

So from then on, I decided to speed up. And it worked! The joy of running returned, and at the end of each yard I could luxuriate with a nice long rest in Jan's reclining wonderchair. Between yards 10 and 13 I really found my backyard rhythm.

Others on the course were working through their own challenges with pacing. Sergei had been laying down blistering lap times from the outset, so I wasn't surprised to see him bow out fairly early. Stuart, another fast runner with a cracking gait, took over Sergei’s place at the front. Though, again, even despite his most impressive race history (which I could only dream of), I still wasn’t sure how long he’d manage to maintain such a rapid pace given the heat and vert.

I figured a few others were pushing harder than they ought too. I tried to persuade a couple that they might be able to run further if they slowed down a little, but they all seemed reluctant. It's not easy to persuade oneself to run so slowly in a race scenario, I mused.

While there were another couple of folks laying down spritely paces who looked like they might be able to maintain it for a good while longer, with the morning sun rising higher, and the temperature already sweltering on what was, again, officially the hottest day of the year, how would they fare later on with such an aggressive strategy?

Runners were dropping out quickly. I noticed it most in the starting corral. Every yard, fewer and fewer runners remained. It was almost disconcerting - where on earth were they all disappearing to?

It was on yard 15 that our rock-solid frontrunner Stuart appeared to falter. He visibly slowed on the climb to the first turnaround point. Recognising him as my competition, and sensing something was amiss, I tactically overtook and held first position, just to see how he'd respond.

Stuart initially dropped back, as if ceding his place; but seemed to change his mind, and put on a spurt to retake it just before the yard ended. The way I read that little exchange, he was most likely in trouble, and this could be an opportunity to capitalise. For I quietly wagered he wouldn’t like coming second.

So on the 16th yard I overtook Stuart early, put some distance between us and held first place well out front, monitoring how he responded at the loopbacks. This time he didn’t try to catch me back up. I was a little surprised to see him back in the starting corral for yard 17, so I simply repeated the exercise - overtaking early, then holding first place at a good distance. What would he do now?

Stuart didn't join us back in the corral for the 18th yard. I felt I'd neutralised my main competition - which was both empowering, but also disconcerting, only 17 yards in. This was 7 whole yards shy of what I’d considered the real start of the race. Was I getting caught up strategising too early on?

Talking of strategy, this left me in somewhat of a strategic quandary. Should I maintain this faster-than-optimal pace to send a concerted signal of strength? Surely it’d be wiser to settle back into my original plan; keep the first 24 yards super easy, then review…

But slowing down now risked appearing weak; and in the back of my mind, with runners dropping left, right and centre in the heat, I wondered whether I mightn’t just be able to kill the whole race off early.

See, I felt pretty comfortable running at this faster pace, even in the heat. And moreover, my natural gait felt much more enjoyable. Particularly over these glorious, rolling hills.

Would this intimidate the remaining 6 runners into dropping out early? I wasn't too sure about that; but it was a possibility, and I could always reset later if need be. So that was decided, then. For now, I’d pick up Stuart’s frontrunner baton and maintain my pace.

The very next lap, I was absolutely stunned to see half of the remaining field drop out. I hadn't expected that in the slightest. Now there were only three other runners left: Joel, Zoe and Matthew.

This was when I really began to question myself. While I'd been playing games with Stuart, these three had been taking it easy. Now they knew they were in the top 4, what were their intentions? How were they finding the heat? How long were they prepared to go? How experienced were they?

All three were housed in the first barn building, and I the second. So we never saw each other back at base. I could just about hear them murmuring over the wall. Plotting. Scheming. I was missing vital intelligence data. It was those three versus me, and I was running deaf and blind.

n-Dimensional Chess

Jandalf returned from his marshalling duties, and could now help crew me back in my lonesome barn. But I was getting wrapped up in strategic mental gymnastics, trying to play three-dimensional chess: just what were the other three plotting in their self-contained quarters?

Jandalf could see I was troubled, and sagely gave me the same advice I'd given other runners earlier in the day: slow down. Walk the hills.

And I knew he was right. But the thing was, I felt everything was fine as it was, broadly speaking. It was still early; and yet, I could sense this race was, quite possibly, wrapping up.

Joel picked up an injury and bravely started another yard, albeit at a snail’s pace. When I returned from the first turnaround point having not yet crossed paths with him, I found him graciously applauding by the side of the trail. So he was out. Only Zoe and Matthew remained.

Zoe was serious competition, having come in second place last year. But now, after showing such impressive strength and consistency for the whole of the race, she had just started to slow. It appeared something was going badly wrong for her.

Unless, of course, that was just a clever ploy to make me think something was going wrong; so that I'd push harder, and perhaps tire myself out. Perhaps she's playing four-dimensional chess with me, I mused…

But after that yard, Zoe stood back behind the starting corral and smiled, wishing Matt and I well for yard 22. So, she hadn't been playing 4D chess after all. There were only two of us left now.

I had no idea how to play this situation. Matt would obviously be looking to complete 24 yards, and probably 25, so as to exceed 100 miles. But how far was he prepared to go? Would he push to 30? Or 40? Or 50, or beyond?

I scratched my head. I really couldn't read him. He'd just put in a fairly fast last yard for some reason. Had he been playing it cool until now, preparing to drop the hammer when it got down to just him and me? Had he been playing five-dimensional chess? I didn't think so; but I’d no idea what they’d been scheming in barn #2...

As the bell went, and the crowds cheered, and we started trotting, I decided to change things up and adopt a different strategy. I was going to assume the worst: Matt had been conserving energy up until now, and had a prolonged battle in mind. So from now on I was going to be disciplined, follow Jan's advice, and s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. I was in this for the long haul. 50 yards. A hundred yards. Whatever it took.

There was just the question of how to affect a dramatic reduction in pace without appearing weak. And this was where I saw an opportunity. I could mask a strategic slowdown with an information-gathering exercise. So I walked purposefully up the first hill at a pace that matched Matt’s, and led a calm conversation about our lives and places of residence.

What I didn't expect was what Matthew told me next. His legs were in pain, and he wasn't sure what was wrong. He sounded quite tired, almost certainly from the heat, I reasoned. It was clear to me that his race was over. Perhaps not this yard exactly; it might take a few, but for all intents and purposes he was done.

I adopted a consolidatory tone, changing the subject to keep the conversation flowing. But it felt odd. Surely he’d make it to the 100 mile mark, 24 yards? Didn't he want to have a go? Or… was he playing six-dimensional chess with me?

With the first turnaround point in sight, I glanced at my watch and realised after all this walking and talking, I was far behind where I'd ever been before at this point. Slightly concerned we might miss the cutoff, I bid Matt farewell and hurried off to finish the yard. To his great credit, Matt picked up his pace too and followed not too far behind.

Back at base, Jan had laid out an impressive buffet for me, full of the food I would ordinarily have devoured in a snap. But my brain was knotted in strategic spaghetti, and I simply wasn't in the mood for food. I downed simple sugars in the form of Tailwind; for simultaneously the race was almost over, and yet, it was only just beginning.

Was Matt really on the verge of dropping out? That would be unfortunate for both of us, coming up just shy of 24 yards; or, more likely, was he playing a tactical masterstroke, expertly teasing me into a series of fast yards just to wear me down, all the while sitting tight and playing the long game?

I sat there in miserable silence, weighing all the possibilities, grappling with my eight-dimensional chess game, while poor Jan tried his best to figure out what on earth was wrong with me. He whispered that he could overhear ominous overtones coming from Matt's crew in the first barn. Just one or two more yards, apparently.

But that was irrelevant. Matt’s crew must know they could be overheard. They were playing me too. This was twelve-dimensional chess: mind games, ploys, decoys, agents, counter-agents, who knows what was going on. I was in mental preparations for a battle of the ages. A thousand yards! Whatever it took; because in sixteen-dimensional chess, I had to be prepared for every possible eventuality. Perhaps Matt was a world-class elite backyarder under an assumed name. We were truly entering twenty-dimensional psychological warfare here!

"Look strong", Jan whispered as the bell went and I proceeded to the corral. I didn't need telling. I was gearing up for an epic 119 yard conquest, one for the ages. I wasn't going to get played by the most devious backyard racer of all time!

I strutted purposefully toward the start line in the corral, when someone thrust their hand into mine. My eyes firmly on the start line, I shook it and continued. Where was Matt? I was always the last one into the corral. Oh, wait; was that Matt? I looked back around, and realised it’d been him shaking my hand.

"I'm done", he told me gently, with a relieved smile on his face.

Done? Ha! Did he think I'd fall for that old chestnut? In twenty-three dimensional chess, that was such an obvious ploy!

But he remained perfectly still, wearing a look of contented resignation. "Are you serious?" I asked; only half-serious myself, with one eyebrow raised to the sky. He nodded.

"Fifteen seconds" shouted Darren. “ONE MORE LAP!” screamed the crowd, desperately trying to persuade Matt to continue. Confused as heck, my eyebrows still entirely askew, I gradually paced backwards toward the start line, while beckoning Matt forth.

This was only the 23rd yard. Was he really not starting? What about 100 miles? What about the twenty-three dimensional chess…?

"Three, two, one, …" called Darren, as I meekly rotated my body around to face the course.

Matt hadn't been playing twenty-three dimensional chess. Nobody had been playing chess. It was just the hottest day of the year. The heat had taken its toll. And I happened to be the last one standing.

While I ran, I texted Jandalf asking him to bring my Palestine flag to the finish. I'd like to run in with it, I told him. When I returned from the first turnaround point, dropping over the hill beyond the midway marshal, I saw the spectacular sight of my flag smack bang in the middle of the trail, flying proudly in the wind. I ran through it, feeling its powerful symbolism of peace and humanity course through me. And on my return from the second turnaround point I picked it up and ran it in.

This was always how it was going to end, I reflected. It didn't matter whether it was chess or hopscotch. 119 laps or 23. The outcome had been as inevitable as the rising of the sun, or the ebb and flow of the tides. I was flying the flag to the finish.

I was amazed there were still spectators remaining. It's a long time to stand around waiting, even for a single lap. Everyone was really so lovely here. Things seemed a lot simpler now I was back in the world of single-digit dimensions.

Despite its short distance this year, my experience at Longbridge really was ace. It’s got to be the friendliest, most eco-friendly, most community-spirited event I've ever had the joyous pleasure of participating in.

The course was lovely, the provisions at race HQ were second-to-none, the volunteers and of course Darren and family were the best RDs imaginable, and the runners were the friendliest of folks to spend time with. To top it all off, the sustainable, locally-produced, thoughtful finisher mementos, complete with personal touches, are wonderful memories of the experience. Longbridge is a race you will not regret running.

And no chess playing experience is required! In fact, all things considered, it’s probably for the best if you leave your multi-dimensional chess set behind.

Just put one foot in front of the other, and remember the adage inscribed onto the back of 3WordRun’s silver coin: on the first yard, you are never alone, but to win, you have to run one on your own.

This post follows Part 8: To Kirk Yetholm, and The Box.

Cradling the jar of tea in my hands, I gazed down into my tea leaves.

I could see that my why predated Spine 2.0. It predated Spine 2024. It even predated the Legendary Triad itself.

My why began a decade ago, back when I was living life more like an observer than an active participant. Reacting to events, thinking short-term. I was unhealthy, unhappy, and disillusioned. Lost within the Matrix.

The Matrix

Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that our modern way of life, founded in complex societies comprising many millions of people, has lost its way. As a collective we fail to embody the social and egalitarian qualities of our natural human condition, the fabled noble savage of Roman lore.

Instead, our advanced societies exhibit obsessions with the accumulation of status, private property, wealth, power and seemingly inexorable corruption. Rousseau famously lamented that “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”.

Orwell was one of the principal intellectuals of the last century to warn of our impending descent into oppression and tyrannical rule. While he defined doublethink, the condition where propaganda trains us to simultaneously hold contradictory thoughts in our minds, Hannah Arendt went on to describe organised confusion: inundation with so much contradictory disinformation that we can no longer discern fact from fiction (here on Substack, you can delve deeper in Life in the Matrix).

Roll forward to 1992, when Steve Tesich described our living in a post-truth dystopian pseudo-reality. Around the same time, the idea of neo-feudalism was emerging. It described how sectors of public life were being consumed by multinational private companies, with a corresponding shift of power from government to corporation that harkened back to the medieval social hierarchies of lords and peasants.

A decade later, Yanis Varoufakis coined the term techno-feudalism, highlighting how this feudalistic monopolisation played out within the domain of technology platforms.

The exploitation of these platforms by modern lords was described by Jonathan Ong and Jason Cabañes, and expanded on by writers like Peter Pomerantsev in their exposures of the global disinformation architecture. This comprises networks of PR professionals using fake accounts to disseminate micro-targeted disinformation, while undermining rational discourse through discreditation and harassment. It laid bare the extent of organised confusion and propaganda in the digital sphere.

Our Matrix today is a rabbit’s warren of stress, poverty, illness, distraction and disinformation, within which it is increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, good from bad, moral from immoral. With 22% of the UK population now living in poverty, and so many feeling that life is out of their control, it’s easy to become dispirited; to be left flailing around, searching for an anchor in life. Something that can connect us back to humanity, or hope.

“A drowning man will clutch at a straw” goes the proverb. He’s unlikely to clutch for books, scientific papers, or engage in serious political discourse.

Instead, he’s likely to be vulnerable to oratory, lies, propaganda; to be exploitable through the tried-and-tested tactic dating back some 2,500 years, divide and conquer. This tactic has worked so well that, for the past fortnight, even despite Trump’s support tanking in the US, all the UK’s opinion polls have placed the Reform Party squarely in the lead.

The Masters

Who are these divide-and-conquerors, our neo-feudal landlords? The oligarchs, some of whom fund our political parties with donations. Their wealth continues to skyrocket, as Oxfam explains in its latest report: “In 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by $2 trillion, with 204 new billionaires created. This is an average of almost four new billionaires per week”.

Few people truly understand the meaning of a billion pounds, let alone tens or hundreds of billions of pounds. And yet, instead of taxing that wealth so that we might all live healthily, the billionaires are all set to siphon ever more from the poor, so they might grow their wealth into the trillions.

I might need to explain the word “trillion”, for it isn’t a word many encounter in daily life. One trillion pounds is 25 million times the average annual salary in the UK.

The likes of Reform will surely work overtime to convince us this is morally justifiable. That the real reason for mass impoverishment is a few poor people in dinghies, or multiculturism, or “woke ideology”, or “government waste”. Anything but those mountains of money growing up and out of the bank accounts of a small number of neo-feudal lords, breaking through the clouds up into the stratosphere.

Zeus’ plagues upon humanity really flew out of Pandora’s Jar, didn’t they? But if you cast your mind back to Hesiod’s story, Zeus left one thing in Pandora’s Jar. He left hope.

The Search For Hope

Through the ages, Zion has represented hope. Hope for a fabled, spiritual, prophetic utopia.

In the Abrahamic religions this hope relates in various ways to Jerusalem. In modern Christianity it’s used figuratively to relate to the spiritual realm. In Rastafarianism it relates to the hope of building a harmonious society in Africa. In Mormonism it has many connotations, one being the hope of forming a New Jerusalem in America.

For religious Zionists, both Jewish and Christian, this hope relates to the migration of Jewish people to the historical Land of Israel/Palestine. It’s considered a return from exile; making Aliyah, and the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. Some hope this will expedite the second coming of Jesus, and the prophesied End Times.

For many areligious political Zionists, it relates to the hope for the safety and security of Jews who have been persecuted, exiled and genocided through millennia (the English Edict of Expulsion of 1290, the Russian pogroms of the 19th century and the Nazi’s Holocaust in the 20th being just a few notable examples; of which the latter murdered 6 million people, amounting to two-thirds of the European population of Jews).

However, support for Zionism was far from universal. Relatively few Jews supported Zionism at the start of the 20th century. There was particularly strong opposition from Orthodox and Socialist Jews, and assimilation was generally preferred, especially in Western Europe.

There remain many Jewish communities today who do not share this hope for migrating to the Land of Israel/Palestine. Many disbelieve in a Jewish state, with some believing it is only God who can reunite the Jewish people in a Jewish State. Many find the genocidal reality morally indefensible, and some think it antisemitic.

But; it was with Disraeli’s enthusiasm, with the coining of the phrase “a land without a people for a people without a land” (conveniently overlooking Palestine’s population); with Theodor Herzl’s formation of the World Zionist Organisation in 1897, with the UK’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 (staunchly opposed by our only Jewish MP who decried it antisemitic), with the manner of withdrawal from Mandatory Palestine and with the collective failure of the international community to intervene in a peacekeeping (as opposed to settler-colonial) capacity, that the runway was laid for the progressive ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide of Palestinians that we’ve seen ever since.

In 2019, there were 5.6 million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations. 1.5 million of them lived in refugee camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Since 7th October 2023, almost all the 2+ million Palestinian residents of Gaza have been forced from their homes. Most will be unable to return, since 92% of housing units have been destroyed or damaged, replaced with over 50 million tons of rubble. Well over 50,000 Gazans are documented to have been killed, but as in all genocides the total count is impossible to know. And of the UNRWA workers trying to help the homeless refugees survive, Israel has killed 284 of them, totalling over 400 aid workers in all.

Aid workers like Doctors Without Borders’ Mohammed Al Ahel, a laboratory technician bombed in a refugee camp; Ahmad Al Sahar, a doctor blasted in an airstrike while working in one of the last partially functional hospitals in northern Gaza, and Alaa Al Shawa, a volunteer nurse sniped while travelling in an medical convoy.

Two days after Alaa was shot in the head, Israeli forces returned to Doctors Without Borders’ clinic in Gaza City, to bulldoze their vehicles and partially destroy the medical clinic.

“The basic contradiction in Zionism - the wish to control the whole of Palestine while stating this can be done by a Jewish State - is there because it is impossible without genocide or racialized expulsion”

Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, son of Holocaust survivors

The Hope in Zion

Even amidst so much bloodshed and destruction, I find hope clinging onto life as powerfully as limpets cling onto their rocks. I hear hope resonate through our voices. I see hope etched on our faces. And our actions are its manifest reality.

Hundreds of thousands of people make a monthly pilgrimage to the seat of UK power in London, giving voice to the voiceless in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Be they protesting alone, or representing trade unions, Jewish Voice for Labour, Na’amod, or countless other groups standing up for our common humanity. This demonstration of hope is replicated in cities and towns across the UK, and more widely across the globe.

Charities work painstakingly to document the genocide, render assistance and offer hope to victims in the most hazardous of circumstances. These are not small in number. Oxfam, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, The Red Cross, Islamic Relief, ActionAid, War Child, Unicef, Mercy Corps, UK-Med, MAP, Amnesty International, The World Food Programme, Christian Aid, Action for Humanity, The International Rescue Committee, Greenpeace, Plan International, World Central Kitchen and many others. Donors, workers and volunteers alike, united in their vision: a hope for a better tomorrow.

Indeed, many Palestinian refugee families still carry their house keys from the 1948 Nakba, in the hope that one day they might return to their homes.

Hope. It’s what the concept of Zion represents, in different ways for different people. Not a physical place on Earth, but a hope for safety, salvation, freedom from persecution, unity, equality, justice and truth.

In the Matrix, Zion represents hope for people’s liberation from the Machines.

For me personally, I define Zion as the hope for a better future for the whole of humanity.

A peaceful, democratic future, where truth and justice are valued. Where we strive to provide that “safe and just space for humanity” that Kate Raworth describes in her doughnut model of economics. Where we all enjoy the opportunity to live happily, healthily and sustainably.

The Spine and Zion

If Zion is hope that we can strive for, then why, throughout this story, have I equated the Spine with Zion?

The Spine is a microcosm of the real world: honest, truthful, and our natural home. It sits aside from the organised confusion of Big Brother’s Oceania, the Architect’s Matrix, and Wonderland’s rabbit hole.

Nobody said navigating the real world is easy. It’s awash with risks and fraught with challenges. It’s raw, tough; sometimes ugly and dangerous. Battling through sleep deprivation, injuries, ice, bogs and Garmin’s Sentinels. There are few modern comforts, no telescreens or convenient doublethink here. There is only truth, and the truth can sometimes be brutal.

But to live well, as Aristotle would have put it, requires exposing ourselves to discomfort in our quest to seek the truth. It requires our presence in and understanding of the real world. Thus, we can only forge a path to Zion by exploring our most difficult trails, and finding our Way among them.

The Pennine Way is our most difficult trail. So, the Spine; it’s not just the Pennine Way, it’s a Way to Zion. And just as we understand the journey is the destination, then the Way is the goal. Peace, freedom, truth; the Way is Zion.

My Way to Zion

A decade ago, I recognised the need to build a framework to guide my life. Running was the first step I took along that journey. It rapidly improved my fitness, health and happiness, giving me a solid foundation upon which to build.

I felt it necessary to push myself to run longer and longer distances. Half-marathons, marathons, 50ks, 100ks, 100Ms and beyond. And if not further I’d go harder, higher, colder, hotter, more technical. All the while I was searching for something: direction, purpose, that elusive why.

The further I pushed myself, the more the training and racing demanded of me. To progress I needed to develop more aspects of my being and my character. Fixing longstanding health problems, refining dietary practices and sleep patterns, sharpening my mental resilience and defining my purpose. I turned to writings of philosophers ancient and modern to guide me in constructing a life philosophy I could take pride in.

This combination of physical and mental refinement is what got me to the start and ultimately the finish of Spine 2024. An event so overwhelmingly difficult that I knew I didn’t want to run the Spine, or anything harder, again.

That meant I’d reached the end of my running journey, and with it, my journey of transformation. I was proud of how much I’d grown, but I sensed there was plenty more to learn; and with no bigger challenge, no next destination, I couldn’t see a Way forward. It threw me into disillusionment.

I needed to unearth that underlying why. I needed to grasp it, feel it, internalise it, and live it. I couldn’t think what else to do other than run the Pennine Way again.

At the start of Spine 2.0, I experienced complete confusion as to my purpose in the race. But all the time I was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why I was rerunning the Spine, the question I should have asked was why I ever ran it in the first place.

Why had I ever run Dragon’s Back, or the Arc of Attrition? Why had I run a marathon, or a local Parkrun? Why had I ever laced up a pair of running shoes to start with?

Why

My why was my need to find my Way. My vision. My philosophy. My Zion.

My framework through which I could understand the world and act purposefully within it.

Aristotle would have thought my passive existence a far cry from his goal of eudaimonia (living well). To him, a life well-lived came about through noble pleasures - those that are virtuous, enduring, independent. He argued that intellectual and moral virtues, developed through study and practice, offered the path to happiness. To arete, human excellence.

Stoics like Epictetus and Aurelius emphasised behaviours in accordance with nature and reason, predicated on respectful social relationships and self-control. To them, happiness came by striving to live a virtuous life.

In eastern philosophy, Daoists thought the objective to live in harmony with the Dao; the underlying order, nature itself. Their concept of wu wei, effortless action or flow, comes about by acting in synchronicity with our nature.

Whichever philosophies we adopt, adapt or formulate, the power of a life philosophy is in its capacity to help us find our Way to inner peace.

But this doesn’t mean entirely disconnecting from the Matrix, with all its suffering, wars and disinformation. Far from it. A life philosophy worth its salt empowers us to be active participants in reforming it, while recognising what we can and cannot control.

While we cannot control outcomes, stop wars or rebalance the wealth of billionaires, we can act within our own capacities. For example:

• Educate ourselves: set aside time to read books, and switch news sources to independent media

• Support democracy: choose parties that promote democratic reform (the Green Party being our primary option in England), or independent candidates

• Engage: join local political groups, form People’s Assemblies, work with pressure groups, support local groups like food banks, write to our MPs

• Spend locally: choose local, independent produce, and where possible, reuse rather than buy

• Be curious, and speak the truth

The Matrix can’t sustain a “post-truth” dystopia without our acquiescence.

It’s our decision to scroll through social media, or read a book. To buy from Amazon, or a charity shop. To drive, or cycle. To consume BBC News, or independent media. To watch TV, or contribute to our local community. To stay silent in the face of disinformation, or to lodge a complaint with the regulator. To go to the cinema, or to a protest. To make excuses, or to act.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done”

Nelson Mandela

“To live your brief life rightly; isn’t that enough?”

Marcus Aurelius

The Jar, The Monkey and The Why

I sit here with my tea jar, reminiscing on my Spine journey, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction with my newfound sapience. That monkey crashing cymbals is a very distant memory, at least 268 miles away. Instead, there is a peace, assuredness and unity that comes from my own personal philosophy.

That wu wei flowing descent from Auchope Cairn still flows within me.

I’m retracing my steps alongside the River Aire to Malham. Revelling in the pitch black ceiling over Sleightholme Moor. Leaping apprehensively over deep bogs. Bathing in photons atop Cross Fell. Fracturing my hand on the ice. Learning brain chemistry in Keld’s Winter Tearoom.

Stumbling upon the Flintstones’ car. Sleeping behind a peat mound in a gale. Delighting in meeting the shopkeeper from Mr. Benn. Breaking trail through waist-deep snow. Dancing on the Cheviots. Leaning into the Helm Wind. Connecting with the wizened mosses.

And I recall so vividly how I wrestled with those confounding questions: why did I swallow the red pill?

Why did I rerun the Spine?

In The Republic, Plato tells the Allegory of a Cave.

Imprisoned and shackled within a dark cave, only able to see a theatre of shadows cast by unseen actors unto the cave wall, these prisoners have no reason to believe there is any worldly reality other than the shadows cast before their eyes.

When one of the prisoners is released and shown the theatrical setup, he is confused and disbelieving. And when he is dragged out of the cave and shown the outside world, his eyes are immediately blinded by the light.

At first he instinctively recoils toward the safety of the cave. But on second thought, he musters his courage, turns back toward the light, and allows time for his pupils to constrict. And he begins to see the sun, and the earth, and life for what it really is.

Now he must tell his friends the whole story.

The humble story.

The story of a jar.

And a monkey.

And a why.

Last year, my late evening stop at Byrness had been a simple, utilitarian affair, where I’d been furnished with a bowl of instant mashed potato by volunteers valiantly straining to keep their own eyes open. I’d expected similar this time around, but instead I was welcomed in by a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed team who had everything arranged down to a tee.

There was hot vegan chilli ready and waiting for me, which was just delicious, and I really do mean delicious: a standard of cooking that matched my friend Jandalf’s level of culinary prowess. That was washed down with a delicate, flavourful coffee, and throughout I was given time-checks at a regular internal so I could comfortably plan my departure within the 30 minute limit. I couldn’t have asked for more, and felt so very much better when I departed.

Now it was time that played on my mind. The data on both of my watches was up-the-creek, but my best guess was that I was 20 hours behind where I ought to have been. In which case I was staring down the barrel of a Saturday finish; well outside the window I’d planned for, and potentially a problem for my logistics. I couldn’t remember when I’d need to checkout from the hotel I’d booked in Berwick-upon-Tweed, nor when my last train home was. Would I even have a way home?

So I needed to get a move on. There was no time to pop into the church for a sleep, though this left a bitter taste in my mouth. The church was one of those things I’d missed experiencing last year.

Conflicting Memories

I had jolly good fun on the slightly scrambly climb up Byrness Hill, despite wearing far too many clothes for that level of exertion. I expected a fierce wind at the top, which there certainly was at first. It howled past my ears so violently that it gave me a headache. But to my surprise, when I climbed further up Houx Hill toward Ravens Knowe, the wind cut out and a calm settled over the Cheviots. It was rather pleasant up here now.

And that became the rub. It shouldn’t have been.

I remembered most vividly what I’d experienced last year along the first stretch of the Cheviots to Hut 1, and it hadn’t been anything like this.

Last year, I’d run this in the dark, in horrible weather, over ground covered in snow and ice. It’d been hard to get a good read of the lay of the land, but it’d felt utterly remote, and inhospitable, and alien. Infuriatingly complex to navigate, with its multitude of divergent trails and trods. And I was quite sure I was high atop a mountain, standing proud of all the low-lying land around it.

But what I could see on this mild afternoon bore no resemblance to any of that. For a start, the Pennine Way trail was obvious. There was a line of flagstones snaking into the distance. In these conditions, it literally couldn’t have been any easier to navigate without Mr. Motivator bounding alongside me screaming “You feel good! You’ve got this!”

And then there was the geography. I wasn’t all that high; not yet anyway, at the southern end of the Cheviots. This was more of a fell ridgeline than a mountain. There were valleys either side, and parallel hill ranges beyond. It was visually impressive, but in a calm, gentle, soothing way. Like High Cup Nick without any of its rocky crags and brooding shadows, and only its sweeping curves.

It did look remote though, with absolutely no signs of life. I struggled to find a single tree. That aside, the landscape looked friendly and accessible. This wasn’t at all what I’d experienced last year, in the dark, in the midst of the weather and the arctic temperatures, and the snow, and the ice.

Wasn’t this what I’d come back for, to get a true feel for the race? Perhaps. But surely not like this. I knew what I’d experienced last year, and this felt worryingly close to a contradiction.

An Afternoon Stroll

I set it all to one side as best I could. Right now, the going was easy. “Too easy!” I bellowed on autopilot, while grinning from ear to ear. But the fact was I was knackered. My left Achilles was wrecked from the bogs. My feet were in agony in my tight-fitting Cyklons with their torturous gaiter zips. My left knee was intermittently flaring up, and I couldn’t shake this incessant ‘Spine cough’.

So without any bad weather to push me along, and while starting to recall that I did indeed have a second train booked for Sunday, I simply shrugged my shoulders, listened to my body, and slowed to a walk.

While slightly dispiriting, it gave me a chance to reconnect with the outside world. I fired off a message to Steve, shot some video logs, and fielded social media. When all that was done, I settled down to the business of contemplation.

“I feel quite pleased with what I’ve done, in terms of building a better picture of what happened last year, learning more about the Spine itself, and the people who run it. You get some really quite interesting people doing this race (present company excluded) - some really quite accomplished athletes, mountaineers, climbers, all sorts.”

“There is an inherent appeal to a big challenge, as people see the potential for personal growth, learning, new experiences, stories; all that interesting stuff that we don’t tend to get if we just go for a regular run, or sit in front of a TV watching Netflix. That’s a big draw for people: to live life, and experience new things”.

Rocking the Cheviots

My journey over the fells proceeded quite uneventfully, with the only excitement being my vain attempts to locate Hut 1 on the horizon. But all the while, my situation was unravelling. It’d been 30 hours since I’d last managed some meaningful sleep; my only sleep, in fact, aside from those 9 minutes dozing in a bog. And over the past five and a half days, I’d only slept for about 3 hours in total. Perhaps I ought to have caught some z’s in that church, I reflected, as my eyelids began their all too familiar routine of edging their way closed, uncommanded.

This was doubly frustrating because I was beginning to recognise some of the features of the trail from last year. That was where I’d sprinted and leapt across sketchy ice sheets on my frenetic mission to bring back medics from Hut 1. In that little dip, I’d skidded off the ice. That was where I fell, and there I’d taken the wrong turn.

It was all here, all the the little twists and turns and climbs that brought memories flooding back. Gosh; it all looked so very different today, in the light, with no wind, or cold. What had been a survival situation back then was just a pleasant afternoon bimble today.

But my eyes kept closing, ever more frequently, and they became harder to re-open. I couldn’t continue like this.

I thought about breaking out the sleeping bag and bivvy. After all, while there wasn’t any shelter here, the weather conditions were absolutely fine. I could happily sleep out in the open. But the hassle of unpacking and repacking my gear didn’t appeal one iota. Instead I resolved to try to manage the situation to Hut 1, where I’d take a short nap.

How best to navigate this level of sleepiness? I tried caffeine, but that had no effect. So I broke out my phone, wherein I was entirely baffled to find I had some limited phone signal (was nothing as it was last year?) I fired up Spotify and found a playlist of 90s rock classics that I hadn’t heard in decades. In no time I was transported back to the heady days of my youth, singing my guts out on the Cheviots, safe in the knowledge that no other soul would have the misfortune of hearing my tone-deaf screeches.

Many of the songs had such an innocent charm. Youths expressing their basic frustrations and desires amidst an out-of-kilter world. It was honest and genuine in a way that seemed lost in so much of the modern, mass-produced music developed to a standard formula. That’ll only get worse with increasing use of AI, I reflected. Genuine, heartfelt human art seemed at risk of becoming a rare commodity.

But even blaring tunes, singing at the top of my lungs and contemplating the downfall of human culture was not cutting the mustard. I still had a couple of kilometres to Hut 1, and I wasn’t going to make it like this. So, seeing a fence and gate, I saw an opportunity to play my last card. I perched my phone on the fencepost, and attempted the one thing I’m least capable of doing - dancing.

Try to picture, if you can, a lone man, in the middle of the remote Cheviot hills, wearing a pack larger than him, stuffed with enough layers to clothe an army crossing the Antarctic. With his phone perched on a fence, blaring rock tunes from his youth, singing wildly out of tune and fudging most of the lyrics, failing his limbs around like a robot on the fritz, in a comical attempt to emulate dancing. That was me.

But I’ll tell you something - it got me those last couple of kilometres to Hut 1!

The Blurry List

Inside the glorified shed that was the mountain rescue hut, the first thing that struck me were the sheets of A4 paper neatly tacked to the facing wall. A handwritten list extended all the way across them; clearly the work of many different people, although two distinctive writing styles stood out. I guessed two team leaders had done most of the scribing. The list looked like a record of each runner’s visit: their name, arrival time, duration of stay and any notes on their condition, such as whether they’d presented with injuries, accepted any medical treatment, what they’d eaten and how long they’d slept.

There were an awful lot of entries. This couldn’t have just been the full Spine, it must have included Challenger North too. But even so... I pursed my lips and grimaced while my name was written in, right at the bottom, a very long way down the list.

A group of Spine Safety Team members poured into the hut, returning from a resupply mission. It was mid-afternoon, and given the great weather, they were understandably in high spirits. I accepted some tea and vegan biscuits, but I found all the commotion a bit much for my sleep-deprived brain to handle. Only 3 hours of sleep in the last 130 wasn’t enough.

I felt bad asking whether I might be left alone in the hut for 10 minutes, knowing this would effectively confine everyone to their tents, but it had to be done. Everyone filtered out, leaving me alone, with only the grating sound of some monotonous pop music crackling from a portable speaker.

I couldn’t be bothered to remove my muddy shoes, so I laid down on the hut’s wooden bench, kinking my hips so that my feet remained on the floor. I had no pillow, so I crooked my neck to allow my head to rest upside-down on the bench. For a professional contortionist this position might’ve been alright, but for me it was diabolically uncomfortable.

But after five minutes my sleep deprivation won over the discomfort, and that long list of names on the wall began to blur. Finally, I could feel sleep coming. I was drifting out of consciousness now, into that sweetest of states of peace and tranquillity. A state of deep, relaxing sleep… a state of deep, relaxing whispers… chatter… louder… laughter…

Oh, for the love of mother nature, let it not be so. The five stages of grief flashed through my mind at breakneck speed: this can’t be happening, this isn’t fair, can I ask them to leave, I’m so screwed; and, finally, there’s no point remaining in this painfully contorted position. I drew myself up to a sitting position, opened my eyes and brought the hut back into focus.

The Debonair Conversationalist

Another runner was in front of me, engaged in animated conversation with two members of the Spine Safety Team. He seemed so unfathomably happy. He was telling jokes, making witty puns, eliciting raucous laughter, and grinning from ear to ear. I felt really pleased for him. The only problem was it happened to be the polar opposite of what I personally needed.

Then he turned to me, and did the very thing I desperately wished he wouldn’t. He asked me a question. And he stood there, beaming; along with the Spine Safety Team members, staring directly at me, waiting patiently for my entertaining riposte.

But my brain wasn’t in my head. It was still down on that hard wooden bench, asleep. I wasn’t mentally capable of interpreting the question, let alone composing a response.

My mouth frantically searched for some words. Any words, anything at all. Even a mumble would have sufficed. But nothing came to mind. So I made some grunting noises, and meekly diverted my attention to those biscuits I’d been nibbling on earlier, willing the others to resume their conversation so that I might be left alone.

It must’ve been the timing, I thought. The precise second I’d slipped into unconsciousness, I’d been jolted back awake. And then required to join in some ripping banter, leaving me looking like a brainless fool.

This entire situation wasn’t working. Just as I had at Bellingham, I felt I had to get out of here, stat.

I mumbled in pidgin English that I was heading off, then rose to my feet, lost my balance and clumsily toppled into the debonair conversationalist. But he looked like he was preparing to leave too. So… I supposed that meant we were going to leave together? Right after I’d made a total fool of myself? While I couldn’t yet speak in full sentences?

We got underway, and quite understandably he began asking me questions. At first I struggled to respond, and could only mumble an apology and explain that my brain was still asleep. But in time it whirred back into life, my conversational capability returned, and we struck up a genuine conversation.

I found I was running with Andrew Heaney, the same chap I’d encountered very briefly back at Horneystead Farm. I learned he was one of the founders of the charity Into Ultra, which I made a mental note to investigate later. And we ended up having a lovely chat, discussing past races, future plans, and our shared desire to get this thing done.

In no small part thanks to Andrew’s company, my tiredness was behind me now, and so I figured it was time to break away so I could focus on sorting out my nutrition, hydration, layering and planning the journey ahead to Hut 2. I wished him well and shot off down the muddy descent, setting a clear intent to make good progress from here on.

The Sisyphean Time Warp

It was a beautiful night on the Cheviots. Almost perfectly still, and a great temperature for running. At least, it would have been were I not so preposterously overdressed. And I could only de-layer so much since my pack was full to bursting. I had to keep a close eye on my overflowing side pockets lest any gear fell out.

While I was comically overburdened with clothes, I was almost out of food and water. I’d just used my last caffeine gel, and could only find one regular gel remaining. I decided to save that for later. I’d stop at Hut 2 for water and a coffee anyway.

Ground conditions were much milder than last year over Windy Gyle, but nonetheless. This was the high section of the Cheviots. Up here, the snow was back, and it was often quite deep. The flagstones were not without occasional ice, and they offered little protection against the monstrous bog.

“We use the word bog”, I mused, “but… there’s ground at all levels, flagstones floating at weird angles on unpredictable amorphous substrates; deep water, deep sticky mud that claims your shoes, your shins, your knees, and threatens to eat you alive. Some of these bogholes are deep, and for shorter runners like me, the risk of entrapment feels quite real. Every step, every jump, is a leap of faith. There’s no parallel I can think of in southern England; certainly not our XCs, not even the Arc of Attrition’s notorious Pendeen stretch comes close to this.”

My flashbacks grew stranger. The course was starting to feel very familiar; not just like I’d run it once before, but like I’d run it many times, like I was in my own backyard.

“Ah yes, back here again - I always love this stretch!”

I’d felt the same last year too, when I’d never run it before it my life. The sense of déjà vu was powerful and made absolutely no sense.

The really big climb began. Running low on food and battling tiredness, the increasingly deep snow and the resurgence of high winds, I repeatedly checked on my distance remaining, seeking validation that I was making progress toward my goal. While my Enduro 2 was actually working for once, it was as if it were stubbornly refusing to advance its digits. Its empirical data showed I wasn’t advancing at anywhere near the rate I felt I ought to be given the effort involved.

It was all coming to a head. The night sky was pitch black. I was on an extremely remote fell. I had no visual context outside of the beam of my headtorch. The landscape was alien; inconsistent, multi-layered, rocky and covered in snow. Every step was a puzzle to solve, and fraught with risk. I was out of supplies. I needed to sleep. I needed this to be over. But the climb continued endlessly, minute by minute, hour by hour; days became months and months became years…

Perhaps I was trapped in a spacetime glitch. Decades of my lived experience would be spent climbing this infinite mountain, while for people on the outside, going about their ordinary lives, it would be but a fleeting moment. As if they were travelling near the speed of light, and I at a snail’s pace. Would I ever escape this time warp? Was this to be my fate until the end of days? Would there be a society left when I finally re-emerged into civilisation?

When I spotted the snow under my headtorch beam levelling out, I breathed a sigh of relief, and whooped in glee. I wasn’t stuck after all - I had been moving!

Wu Wei

I stood proud atop Auchope Cairn. From here, I could see it all. I could see dots of warm light down below, a very long way away. Perhaps that was Kirk Yetholm, or Coldstream, or Kelso. It didn’t matter; it was evidence of civilisation, and it was such a relief. More than a relief, it was over! The whole ordeal, the whole shebang!

My broken hand, my friends’ DNFs, my searching for a reason that I could never fully grasp. It was all over!

And just like that, the land fell away before me, opening out into that long, steep descent down to Hut 2. I flowed down that mountain like water, my feet barely kissing the snow. My surroundings flashed past at breakneck speed; and I couldn’t have told you how I knew my footfalls would hold as I sprinted down that steepest of fellsides, but this was the most secure I’d felt in the entire race, and the most in tune with the Cheviot, nature, and The Way.

Where the descent levelled out, I was met by a volunteer who ran me into Hut 2. It was mightily cosy inside, with steaming brews and cheery bearded folks lining the benches. They implored me to stay for a while, or at least have a drink and refill my water - “it’s still at least 4 hours to Kirk Yetholm” they warned, pointedly. But I’d been here before. In the flow state I was in now, it’d take me less than 2.

I hastened back outside, where my chaperone ran with me for a kilometre to guide me around the most dangerous bog holes in the vicinity. “We don’t want to have to come back and dig you out”, he explained. But sensing my straining at his reins, he soon waved me off into the darkness.

The Last Morsel

The ground rose up before me, which I knew must signal the start of the final climb up The Schil. The very last one! How far it was exactly, I couldn’t recall, but I was going to dispatch it as efficiently as I could. I powered up through the snowy mud-bog, leaping and bounding and sinking and swearing, though firmly with my eye on the finish.

But the boggy climb just kept on coming, and coming, and coming. My whole world, contained within this narrow cone of light, felt like it was being subsumed by the encircling darkness. My space-time warp was returning. Like a bad dream where your legs move but you do not, I wasn’t advancing through space as per conventional physics. Time had taken on the stickiness of the bogs.

My motivation was fading, so I made the last play I had and ate my very last item of food. Eat, and hang in there, I instructed myself. I was holding out for that fabled summit.

When it came, relief flooded my body. The ground dropped away abruptly once more, and I commenced my second effortless flight down toward Kirk Yetholm.

Neither my lack of food and water, my many suffocating layers, my overweight and oversized pack, nor my two shins screaming ‘shin splints’ could hinder me now.

Crossing the finish line evoked many emotions. First and foremost, there was relief - that the ordeal was over. There was a sense of justice - that all my suffering would be recognised with a finish. There was pride - in my courage and perseverance.

There were also reflections - on the friends who’d had to DNF, the damage I’d done to my body, my slowness, purposelessness, and an observation that this was essentially my second consecutive DNDNF - ‘did not did not finish’.

But I shoved all that to the back of my mind; for, right now, I was finishing. I ran through the routine of kissing the Border Hotel wall, giving a finish line interview, and heading inside to the finisher’s room, where I made my final spotlight - Amnesty International’s most recent appeal to the international community:

While I stood there holding up my little cardboard sign, it dawned on me that I’d rather have turned over my final spotlight to individuals. Perhaps the sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors, so many of whom were standing up and making their voices heard. People like Agnes Kory, Ursula Blumenthal, Stephen Kapos and Haim Bresheeth.

While I didn’t share their voices then, I will do now:

As survivors and descendants of survivors of the Holocaust who condemn Israel’s genocidal actions, we feel our views are not taken into account and neither are those of many Jews who oppose the actions of the Israeli government.

The UK has a duty to comply with international law and to support the international organisations that uphold it; the failure to take such action risks making the UK itself complicit in these crimes

The UK should have the courage to act independently and to take a lead

In doing so, it would regain much of the respect and moral standing that it has lost by its failure to comply with its obligations under international law so far. It is not too late to act.

With my last spotlight complete, I felt I had at least achieved something here. Even if nobody else were to see or read what I’d reported, I had shared meaningful moments with the volunteers who’d acceded to take my photo in each checkpoint. Every one of them had connected with me in some way - from a simple nod of the head, up to a full-blown emotional outpouring about the horror they felt at the inhumanity of the situation in Gaza. Every single one had shown empathy, and that gave me hope.

It was time to sort myself out. I started with tea, water, and food (the first plate of which I managed to tip all over myself), before taking that steaming hot shower I’d so wanted back at Bellingham.

Then I caught a taxi to my hotel in Berwick-upon-Tweed, where I hauled my drop bag up to my room, boiled the kettle, and prepared the last dehydrated meal I’d been saving for just this moment.

The White Rabbit and the Jar

There was nothing else left to do but toast my finish with one of my favourite teas. I’d brought a nice big jar of it in my drop bag. It’d been transported from start to finish, from checkpoint to checkpoint, all the way up along the Pennine Way.

I popped the lid off my tea jar, wherein the smell of jasmine petals infused my nostrils and delivered me unto a state of tranquillity. My thoughts drifted back to my metaphorical box at the end of the Spinebow. Pandora’s Box.

It was funny, I reflected, how the myth of Pandora’s Box came from Hesiod (the ancient Greek poet), while Hesiod himself had never written of a “box”. The idea of a box had only come about from a popular mistranslation of his work.

In Works and Days, Hesiod had recounted the myth of Prometheus giving fire to humans against the will of the king of gods, Zeus. Zeus then sought revenge by creating Pandora and delivering her to Epimetheus with a “pithos” - a jar - that she wasn’t to open. When Pandora opened the jar in violation of Zeus’ instructions, she unleashed his revenge upon mankind, leaving behind only hope.

So it wasn’t Pandora’s Box, it was Pandora’s Jar.

I stared down at my hands. My right hand was holding the lid, and the left was holding the jar.

I hadn’t just found my box at the end of the Spinebow, I’d opened it.

“I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”

It was time.

Continue reading Part 9:

I’d been freezing cold since turning north from Hadrian’s Wall, so I was mightily grateful to receive a steaming cup of tea and a nice hot meal at CP5 Bellingham.

My spotlight here came from the human rights organisation Amnesty International’s report: You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians In Gaza.

Amnesty’s extensive 296-page report was just one of many forensic analyses of Israel’s genocide. A genocide that Netanyahu himself described as a ‘war’ between “the children of light and the children of darkness”.

His supposed ‘war’ comprised a medieval-style siege and an aerial barrage on an historically unprecedented scale. Using this strategy he had killed 2% of the residents of Gaza, in amongst which were 18,000 dead children. A success for supporters of Israel’s genocide, I assumed, on the basis that they were Palestinian, hence “children of darkness”.

Standing there holding my recycled cardboard sign, I couldn’t help but cast my mind back to the 1990s when Hutu leaders dehumanised their neighbours by decrying them as “cockroaches”. One of many polarising acts that led to the Rwandan genocide in which at least 500,000 Tutsis were massacred by the Hutus.

The Palestinian death toll since 7th October 2023 was approaching 50,000. How many more had to be slaughtered before we in the UK joined South Africa, Spain, Ireland, humanitarian agencies, charities, academics and so many principled intellectuals in calling a spade a spade, Israel’s so-called war a genocide…

Borrowing a phrase from Omar El Akkad, “one day, everyone will have always been against this”.

The Anti-Spa

I’d been on the Spine for 112 hours and had clocked just 3 hours’ sleep. If I hadn’t felt tired and numbed before I held up my cardboard sign, I certainly did now.

Should I sleep here? The only other opportunity I’d have would be a draughty little church in Byrness with no facilities to speak of, and that was probably half a day away. Anyway, I hadn’t slept here at Bellingham before, so in the interests of getting the full Spine experience I felt I ought to.

A counterargument was that this checkpoint’s sleeping quarters were renowned for being floor-based and as cold or colder than outside. Having just battled through a freezing miserable stretch, I struggled to convince myself that curling up on an ice cold floor was going to make me feel much better.

I came up with what sounded like a sensible compromise. I’d have another lovely hot shower instead! I collected some dry-ish baselayers and my dripping wet handtowel, pulled on my camp slippers, and found a volunteer to show me the way.

To my surprise and displeasure, the way to the showers was back outside into the arctic. Wearing only shorts, a technical t-shirt and my camp slippers, in the freezing cold temperatures of midnight, the journey at least woke me back up. The volunteer showed me inside the shower block that was no warmer than outside, warned me that the water might take some time to warm up, and left me be.

Inside a cubicle, I stepped out of a slipper, screamed “F*** ME!” and promptly leapt back into it. The floor tiles in this shower block were as cold as ice. Very delicately I manoeuvred myself into the shower avoiding the ice sheet floor, shedding mud all over the cubicle in the process.

The shower hung dead-centre over this bafflingly oversized square shower tray. The shower was a simple push-button operation, but the button was offset in a far corner, quite a distance from the showerhead. I moreorless had to depress the button and then walk back under the shower.

The water was ice-cold just like I’d been promised, and only ran for a second or two before stopping. I walked back to the button to trigger the next short burst, and then walked back under the shower head only for the water to stop before I could reach it. This felt like it ought to be a Laurel and Hardy sketch.

I repeatedly pumped that cold-hearted button, tried to launch my body under that fleeting stream of water quickly enough to catch a few ice cold drips, and just couldn’t make the situation work. I gradually came to terms with the fact the lovely steaming hot shower I dreamt of was simply not going to be. I wasn’t able to raise the temperature of the water even so far as lukewarm, but that hardly mattered since I couldn’t get the water to run long enough to place my body under it anyway.

I got stuck in tunnel vision, doggedly trying to effect my steaming hot shower despite the mounting evidence that it would not be possible, and entirely lost track of time in the process. The only outcome in the end was covering my muddy body in a light sheen of ice-cold water droplets.

I stepped back out onto the ice cold floor, which caused me to scream, leap back up and onto my slippers. I picked up my dripping wet handtowel, which was also plastered in mud from the chaos earlier. Drying myself probably transferred more water to my body than the shower had managed, and did a stellar job smearing the mud all over me too.

Finally, to polish off my spa experience, I spent 5 minutes shivering uncontrollably while attempting to clean the cubicle of all the mud I’d plastered it in. Then there was the task of navigating back to the checkpoint, feeling my way along brick walls through the freezing darkness, wishing I’d had the foresight to bring a torch.

Back in the checkpoint, I pulled as many clothes as I could back over my shivering mud-plastered body, and tried to recover from the whole ordeal with mugs of tea, the only hot liquid I’d managed to find here at Bellingham.

Running Away

I checked on Steve’s progress, hoping for good news to buoy my spirits. He’d have made Alston, I knew he would. He’d be heading north toward Greenriggs, putting daylight between himself and the cutoffs. Perhaps he’d be powering along Hadrian’s Wall, or passing Horneystead. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be bounding up the road to join me at Bellingham. It’d be Steve and I to the finish! Huzzah!

But he wasn’t about to join me at Bellingham. Nor was he approaching Greenriggs.

And as I scrolled back down the table of runners with a growing sense of dread, I could see what I really didn’t want to see, that Steve hadn’t made Horneystead, or Greenriggs, or Alston. Steve was no longer a participant.

I leant back in my chair, dropped my shoulders, and my heart sank. Everyone I knew in the full had DNF’d. I closed my eyes, and held my head in my hands.

I didn’t want to be here.

I felt overcome with tiredness, and I needed to sleep, now. But I was too crestfallen to sleep. Nothing about my being here at Bellingham was as I’d have wanted. I’d wanted Steve and the others to finish. I’d wanted to enjoy the experience, to feel proud of what I’d done, to grow, to develop, to evolve. None of it was happening.

I remained slouching in the chair, feeling numb. I couldn’t let myself sleep like this. I ordered teas and coffees back-to-back, downing each one, trying to drug myself into a state of alertness that would enable me to leave the checkpoint. Because that was all I wanted to do, leave. Not to complete the race, but just not to be here.

I pulled on multiple upper layers, stuffed my pack full with clothes, and then kept stuffing it with more clothes until it bulged, and still more until it looked like it might explode, and then crammed my belt with even more. And then I left.

9 Minutes

It was the early hours of the morning and biting cold. I struggled down the road under the weight of what was an absolutely preposterously overladen pack until I found myself down in the heart of Bellingham village. There was no hint of life on these quaint streets, its residents no doubt snug in their beds, dreaming of summertime.

It was here that my refusal to sleep in the checkpoint caught up with me, for I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I stumbled around Bellingham’s little alleys like an inebriate, struggling against the odds to move in the right direction, even to remain lucid, upright, awake.

I tried to find a sheltered spot to doze off out of sight, but I couldn’t find anywhere suitable, and before I realised what I was doing I’d left the security of the town behind. I was out onto Hareshaw Commons; an expansive, boggy, waterlogged fell, completely exposed to the elements, where a rocketing wind began hurling me around like a ragdoll while chilling me to my bones.

But not even exposure to these blistering winds could counteract my tiredness. Sleep was no longer optional; it was inevitable, but where?

I was giving up hope when my headtorch’s high beam picked out a 50 metre wide peaty mound some way off-trail. Hardly an obvious bed for the night, but it was the only feature I’d seen on this desolate landscape that looked as though it’d offer any sort of buffer against the wind. I hacked my way through gorse, leapt over bogs and crossed streams to carve a path to its rear where the wind was indeed slightly calmer.

I turned off my headtorch, lay my bulbous pack against the peaty mound, set my alarm for 10 minutes, balanced it on my forehead and closed my eyes. Colours swirled around in a vortex, leading me down a black hole, and to the rest I so badly needed.

I came to feeling groggy and confused. Why was I starting at a starry sky, why was I lying in mud, and why was there a gale blowing over the top of my head? And why was my forehead vibrating, and beeping? Ah; yes, my phone. I checked the time, and found I’d slept for 9 minutes.

As I hacked my way back across the streams toward the Pennine Way’s flagstones, I realised I felt far more compos mentis than before. My power nap had done its job, and I seemed to be back in business.

Sunrise

The Pennine Way’s flagstones were sporadic here, with bog being the predominant surface. For the first time in days I deployed my poles, finding them invaluable for testing depths, leaping over wider bogs, and stabilising myself against the often overpowering force of the sidewind.

Passing a cairn at an intermediate summit, I paused to admire the sunrise behind me. It was simply majestic, and I hoped some of those hardy villagers of Bellingham, most doubtless still enjoying their slumber, would get to witness it.

The wind only grew in its ferocity as I climbed, until I was fully dug in, bracing myself against a roaring wall of air that strained every sinew to blast me off the fell.

I leant my body into the wind, finding the angle of equilibrium where I could drop my poles to the ground and hold my arms out wide, embracing the full force of the wind. It was like I were standing proud on the bow of the Titanic.

I was wearing all the upper layers I’d brought with me; quite a feat in and of itself, and I didn’t feel chilly in the slightest. I felt warm and comfortable.

And I knew that wasn’t a good sign. For in not too long, I’d enter the woods and find protection from the wind. Temperatures would continue to rise, becoming quite warm by midday. So if I already felt warm now while moving slowly in gale force winds; by far the coldest conditions I’d face, how hot would I feel later in the day? I thought of my exploding pack and bit my lip. I’d brought way too many clothes on this leg. Not just one or two extra garments, but an entire wardrobe too many. What had I been thinking when I’d packed all this stuff back at Bellingham?

Quantum Flintstates

Under the rising sun, I still felt quite groggy. Up ahead, I could see the strangest thing: a small car, parked in the middle of this vast bog. I screwed up my eyes, trying to make it out. A Mini Cooper, perhaps? There was a campervan beside it too. A Mini Cooper and a campervan… how very odd.

While I drew closer, I became less sure about the Mini. It looked crude. Kind of… blocky. In fact, it looked like the sort of car Fred Flintstone had. And the campervan was undergoing a similar transformation, taking on an altogether rockier, Flintstones-style form.

Of course, I was used to this sort of thing by now. But there was something fantastically romantic about finding a collection of imaginary Flintstones’ vehicles nestled within Northumberland’s remotest bogland. I slowed my pace to a crawl, to delay their probable transformation back into earthly objects.

It was still mind-bending to watch it happen: to observe one object morph into another right in front of your very eyes. My groggy mind tried to form rational explanations in the most irrational of ways. Was decoherence breaking down at the macro level, and the superposition of matter collapsing into multiple states? After all, it was freezing cold, which would reduce entanglement; but alas, the wind was wild, and then there was all the sound, and light, and cosmic rays… No, of course this wasn’t quantum effects… come on, wake up!

Just like the disappearing photography studio atop Old Cam High Road, the Flintstones car demonstrated just how fallible our observations can be. Something we prefer not to admit to ourselves.

I saw it in the Matrix all the time; for it was principally a disinformation space, where billionaire interests leveraged their practically infinite resources to form and promote alternative realities to suit their needs, using any means they desired: troll farms, shills, faux journalists, cyberwarfare.

Navigating this maze of disinformation required constant vigilance, as Winston would have corroborated before his visit to Room 101. The task was made infinitely harder by the technology platforms’ promotion of emotive clickbait, echo-chamber algorithms, tolerance of faux accounts and personalised targeted adverts.

In the Matrix’s post-truth era, doublethink reigned supreme. War is peace. Genocide is defence. Defunding is levelling-up. Trickle-down economics is plugging the inequality gap. Migrants are both lazy and taking our jobs. Ceding rights is taking back control. Climate tipping points are being passed but we can safely delay climate action. Oligarchy is democracy. Reform UK is for the people.

It was enough to give anyone a headache, and anyway, I still felt groggy and tired. I really needed to sleep. My thoughts shifted to the church at Byrness. Sheltered from the wind. Pews to lie on. I could lay down my sleeping bag and get some proper shut-eye. This might be the first time in my life, I reflected, where I felt an urge to go to church.

Reflections

I stopped in my tracks, because I recognised this landscape. The fellside I was descending was where I’d skated down the ice last year, out of control, barrelling through gorse and landing head-first in mixed vegetation. Ahead of me, the route continued up the facing fell, just to the right of the wood, where I recalled struggling up its icy rock climb, half-asleep, fending off hypothermia.

I stood still, soaking it all in. And in that moment, I felt I understood a little more about why I was here, why I’d re-entered the Spine 11 months ago.

I had needed to see it again, to see it as it really was. Unsullied by the darkness, pain, tiredness, hallucinations and clouds of mental alchemy. To build an objective understanding of what I’d actually experienced. Of what any Spiner experiences. Of what the Spine is, and is about.

Because, truly, why does anybody run the Spine? What are we collectively seeking? Is it merely external recognition, or is it more of an internal revolution?

Was I experiencing an internal revolution…?

Pain from the soles of my feet tore me away from the ethereal realm back to the physical, wherein I lost my thoughts down another rabbit hole: was rerunning the Spine really the best way to gain any of those insights? After all, I’d just been using a broken hand to bury a pole in a bog in order to brace myself against gale-force winds, just so I could admire an imaginary campervan parked next to Fred Flintstone’s rocky jalopy…

If I wanted to see part of the route again, perhaps a brief holiday might have worked better? If I wanted time to reflect, maybe a library or coffeeshop might have been a more effective solution?

The awkward rocky climb beside the forest was mercifully ice-free this year, through not entirely without challenge thanks to an abundance of slippery clay mud and polish-smooth rocks. It opened up at the top into a gateway to a Chamonix-esque playground of easy trail, shielded from the weather by alpine-style conifers, surrounded by colourful vegetation.

This was fantastic running territory; but alas, the knee problems that had afflicted me earlier returned once more, forcing me to a hobble. It took all my mental fortitude not to become too disheartened by this. I tried to enjoy the present moment in this wonderful location, and held out hope that my knee would improve.

The Boiling Descent

I popped out onto the road I’d been waiting patiently for, the forest descent road. From here, it was just an easy run down to intercept an easy riverside trail into Byrness.

I couldn’t hobble down a descending road, that’d have been totally unacceptable. So I tried swinging my left leg around in an arc to reduce the impact on my knee. This seemed to work, and I found I could sustain a run of sorts using this unorthodox gait.

Under the protection of the trees, and with the sun rising nicely, it was turning into a lovely morning. And this led to my next problem - now I was running again, while I was wearing more layers than the Inuits, I wasn’t just hot, I was boiling-in-a-bag.

So I began the lengthy process of stripping off layer after layer. I crammed the first few into my pack, until it was straining at the seams so much I worried whether it’d hold together, and then I filled my belt. I didn’t know what to do with the rest. I tied two tops to the outside of my pack, hoping they’d stay attached.

I was still wearing a couple more layers than I ought, but there simply wasn’t anywhere else to put them. So I accepted I’d continue to overheat, and hauled the enormous pack onto my back, feeling its weight and heft. This was utterly ridiculous, but I didn’t know what else to do.

At the bottom of the road, I tentatively praised my Enduro 2 for not crashing for an hour or so, while also eyeing it with suspicion: what was it scheming? Right on cue as I was inspecting the map for the way ahead, its screen went blank before flicking over to the ‘Enduro 2’ logo. What a relief, everything was normal!

Last year, I’d become very confused here. The GPS route had led me through woods to a river, from which it seemed like I ought to track alongside it, where in reality this was impossible. The situation had deteriorated until I became ensnared in a gargantuan bamboo-like plant.

I’d emailed Lindley about it, and while I didn’t think he’d updated the GPX route, I wondered whether he’d try to help us in another way.

So this year I was on high alert for any indication I was deviating from a trodden trail. And that indication came rather unsubtly in an assemblage of luminous signs with phrases like “Straight ahead” and “Ignore GPX!!!”. I gave a metaphorical hat-tip to Lindley as I passed.

Sitrep

That concern behind me now, my thoughts shifted to my physical state. I was carrying so much weight in the pack that it was bouncing around terribly and doing my back some real damage. There wasn’t much I could do about all the unnecessary clothing I was carrying, but I realised I was also carrying almost all my water from Bellingham, which was 1kg right there. So I drank some and sprayed the remainder into the trees, which helped a little.

Something felt badly wrong with my left foot. A building pain just above the foot where the top of my La Sportiva Cyklon’s gaiter sat. The pain seemed to be coming from the zip. I unzipped the shoe’s gaiter, which helped considerably; but without that locking my foot in position, my foot began shifting around the shoe, which I worried would exacerbate the pain in my soles.

My Achilles was in distress too. That was easy to explain - it’d been destroyed from dragging my foot out of all the bogs, which exercised quite different muscles to a standard running gait. There was nothing I could do about that.

My toes were obviously swollen, bulging against the toebox. And then I realised my right foot was also suffering with that gaiter’s zip too, and so I unzipped it as well.

“I’m in a bit of a state right now”, I concluded. I needed food, too. And for the thousandth time, I asked myself why.

I’d seen the course again, I’d experienced the bits I’d missed out on last year. I’d achieved my goals.

Pushing on further from Byrness, over the fearsome Cheviots, in this wrecked state; how would that help? My body was done. My mind was done. I didn’t need to prove anything, to myself or anyone else. Now it was time to go home, to heal, and to move on with my life.

Wizened Mosses

The entrance to Byrness village was truly delightful. An ancient stone church spoke to the history of its people through its weathered though carefully tended tombstones.

Then an enticing footpath led through an ancient woodland bedecked with wizened mosses that looked to have been entirely untroubled by their human neighbours. It suggested a close relationship with the people of the town.

Its inhabitants had obviously loved this patch of native woodland through the ages, just as I loved it now. This was Zion, in all its majesty. Its beauty, its mutualistic relationships, its yin and its yang.

It was moments like this that we runners run for. The connection. The symbiosis. The unity. The truth.

I am because we are.

Namaste, Spine 🙏

Continue reading Part 8:

One of my biggest regrets from 2024 was missing out on the opportunity to enjoy Spine’s most iconic dish, the famous Alston lasagne.

I’d been unlucky. I’d caught the checkpoint team just as they were serving up the last of their vegan batch, and while they gave me some scrapings from the tray, it barely amounted to a mouthful. When I departed the checkpoint I felt as though I had unfinished business at Alston.

This year I stormed into that same Alston checkpoint on a high. I’d just broken my 3 hour target for descending from Greg’s Hut, and I hoped to ride that wave by tucking into a generous portion of the Alston checkpoint team’s finest vegan lasagne.

Well, I hit the jackpot. The team told me they were overflowing with it, and presented me a breezeblock-sized portion. With a whole Spine 2024’s worth of lasagne to make up for, I chowed through it, followed by another serving, and another, and another, and another, until I couldn’t stuff another morsel of lasagne into my mouth. That was Alston’s delicious lasagne, well and truly ticked off my Spine bucket list.

Since I was on a winning streak, what else hadn’t I experienced here at Alston? Aha, the showers! They had to be tried and tested too. My third hot shower of the race was wonderful, and I sought to polish things off nicely with a lovely relaxing sleep.

The Calm Before The Storm

I hardly cracked the dorm door by a smidgeon when the handle vibrated violently, and the ear-splitting sound of a foghorn emanated from within. What on earth? I pushed the door open and inched inside inside the darkened room, which by now had fallen silent. Goodness knows what that’d been. I used a small light to find an empty bunk, and took great care to unpack my sleeping bag as quietly as I could. Out of nowhere, the jarring sound of the foghorn erupted again. This time I could clearly comprehend the source of the offensive noise. On the opposite bunk was sleeping quite possibly the world’s loudest snorer.

It was so powerful & discordant that it physically hurt my ears. There wasn’t a chance in hell of sleeping through that. So I tried some earplugs, but faced with such violent thunder they proved to be absolutely useless. It wasn’t just the eruptions themselves, but the wildly inconsistent interval between each one that made it worse. Would the next come in 5 seconds? 10? 20? It was an ordeal in itself just trying to predict how many seconds remained before the next prodigious explosion.

As I lay there contemplating how similar this might be to sleep deprivation techniques employed in Guantanamo Bay, the knee I’d struggled with earlier began locking up. Every time I reacted instinctively with a full-body twitch that somehow always involved me whacking my broken hand, which rocketed the pain level right up to ten. Then the foghorn blared, blasting air around the room with the power of Cross Fell’s Helm Wind. I tried to sleep for hours, but not even Rip Van Winkle could have caught 40 winks in this house of horrors.

Back in the main room I felt surprisingly groggy given that I’d just been subjected to hours of auditory and physical torture. My eyelids persistently inched their way closed, so I glugged mug after mug of teas and coffees, and somehow managed to spotlight part of South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice:

It was appalling to think that a year after South Africa’s 99 page document with 574 references was presented to the court; not only had no effective action been taken to forestall Israel’s genocidal campaign, but throughout the US and the UK had materially enabled it.

If nothing else, that thought helped place my night of auditory torture into perspective.

Preparations for Bog Warfare

There were a handful of other runners in the room with me. Among their conversations, I was disturbed to hear occasional mentions of time cutoffs. Was I really on for a Friday or Saturday morning finish like the anonymous volunteer in Greg’s Hut had reassured me; or was I, in fact, much further behind than that? Some of the boggiest sections of the course still lay ahead of me. There was no telling how slow they might be after all the rain and snowmelt.

At that moment Leif (one of my fellow compatriots during the Pen-y-Ghent downpour) arrived. While he wore his trademark smile, there was something missing from his usually bulletproof demeanour. He wasted no time in explaining how he’d become injured over Cross Fell and would reluctantly have to bow out. It made sense as a precautionary strategy, after all he had his Arctic Spine race to think of in just a month’s time.

So, another DNF. Apart from my brother, everyone I knew was DNF’ing. What about me? I was running hours, days, who knows how long behind schedule. I might even get timed out. I was carrying injuries, fighting my tech, and still struggling with a why.

But there was also much to be positive about, I reflected. I was in better mental shape than earlier, and today’s weather forecast was much better. So much so, we had an unseasonably balmy ‘feels-like’ of positive 4°C ahead of us. Moreorless summertime on the Med!

So, to business. I started to prepare my gear. After all that rain and snowmelt, the next section could be outrageously muddy. What shoes to wear? My Mudclaws would have given me an significant advantage, but I had to consider the swelling in my feet after 300km of Spining. It made sense to prioritise comfort and breathing room, so I returned to my Mafates, whose modest 5mm lugs would have to deal with the mud as best they could.

Too Easy!

I left not long after sunrise. The sky was a bright blue, and it was calm, warm, and overall a thoroughly glorious winter morning up in north England. As someone who considers himself practically allergic to the cold, this felt like the turning of a page, and my day to shine.

The Pennine Way trail tracked parallel to the valley. Blue skies up above contrasted with the vivid greens of forested fellsides, while grassy uplands enjoyed the warm amber embrace of the morning sun.

And then the mud started. “Oh, bloomin’ heck!” “Woah; flipping hell, foot’s disappearing here…” “Wooooooah, oh my God!” The mud was both hopelessly slippery and incredibly sticky. I never quite wrapped my head around the physics of that.

Respite from the mudfest came on a 2km sprint alongside the South Tynedale Railway line, which is probably the easiest stretch of the entire Spine. I made excellent time here, in no small part due to my maintaining a solid fuelling regime.

After Slaggyford the deep, sticky mud kept coming; but in above-zero temperatures and with the sun for company, I didn’t care one iota. “What a great day! Come on!”, I exclaimed, flailing my arms while floundering through a sticky patch. “Too easy, too easy!”

‘Too easy’ is my friend Jandalf’s trademark battle cry. Today, under the glorious winter sun, I used it in jest; for the quagmire certainly was ridiculous, but in these unseasonable conditions, who cared? Keep it coming!

The route climbed up onto moorlands and traded the mud for waterlogged trods, where my squelching turned to splish-splashing. Then, at the intersection with the A689, I found a couple of plastic boxes full of goodies for hungry Spiners. Life couldn’t get much better than this!

Gazing far into the distance, I spotted a line of distinctive undulations in the landscape that had to be Hadrian’s Wall. That landmark was such a significant milestone in the race, and now it was in sight!

After 20km of solid mud-running, my legs began to tire. I’d fuelled pretty well, I reflected, just not quite enough for my effort level through the quagmire. And I had to bear in mind I didn’t have that much food remaining. So I decided to dial it back for a little while; after all, there was no particular rush.

So I checked on Steve’s progress. He was overtopping Great Dun Fell, just two minor summits from Cross Fell. Given how few dots I could see behind him I surmised he was running close to cut-offs. I sent him a message of encouragement, but I couldn’t shake the idea that something might be going horribly wrong for him. I really hoped he was OK.

Now I was travelling at a more modest pace, I was better able to immerse myself in my surroundings. It all looked so vivid. Deep navy-blues from the waterlogged trail. Maroon puddles, perhaps from iron leaching into the water? Luscious green grass. Injections of warm browns from unfamiliar vegetation. Light yellows from inexplicably parched grasses. Sheep added the odd puff of bright white. Old tree trunks balanced the scene with lines of rustic grey. Then, a roofless ruin, still standing, as defiant as it was dilapidated.

“I’m not having to worry about falling on ice, or whether I’ve got enough layers to fend off hypothermia. I’m not juggling multiple pairs of gloves and mitts over my broken hand. I can see around me. I’m able to focus on my running. I’m loving this!”

A Disobedient Digital Twin

I well recalled the little footbridge crossing over Hartley Burn, for it was nestled within a enticingly cosy depression in the landscape. Climbing out of it I spotted a chap up ahead, and conceived the idea of using OpenTracking to find his name so I could greet him when I passed. But when I did pull up abreast, I could see he wasn’t in the frame of mind for a chat. In fact, his eyes appeared closed, he was barely awake, and I found it remarkable he was still upright and moving.

A quarter of an hour later, I reopened OpenTracking to check how my sleeprunning compatriot was getting along, but OpenTracking still showed my dot in the same place it was 15 minutes ago. I kept checking periodically, and my dot steadfastly refused to move. My phone had mobile signal, so the GPS tracker ought to as well. I checked the tracker unit, and couldn’t see any lights blinking. Had it malfunctioned, I wondered? That’d be weird, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a Garmin device…

Eventually I gave race HQ a call to make them aware something was up. They reassured me they’d look into it, and asked how I was doing.

“Fantastic!” I yelled, far too loudly into the receiver, as I barrelled down a boggy hill with a beaming smile. “The sun’s out!”

It wasn’t long before my dot took an Olympic leap up OpenTracking’s map, and HQ called me back to tell me the problem had been resolved. My dot was back on the move, and nothing could stop me now.

And nothing did for a while, until I reached the little banked descent linking Haltwhistle Golf Club to the B6318. I stood with my hands on my hips, laughing out loud. This mudfest would’ve been a dream for a Tough Mudder course. “Dig in with your hee— Woa! Bloody hell!”

Mysterious Pauses

The past couple of days, I’d experienced a frustrating phenomenon. Alongside all the other baffling problems with my Garmin watches, on a few occasions I’d found my Forerunner 955’s activity had paused.

I felt fairly confident I hadn’t done it, either on purpose or by accident, though it was admittedly impossible to be certain. My 955 was buried under many sleeves and subject to activity such as the removal of mitts and gloves. I could have been hitting the pause button by accident.

This had kept me in a mild state of paranoia for days. With every vibration of the 955, I’d felt the urge to roll up my sleeves to check whether that buzz signalled the pausing of the activity. But even when I did roll up my sleeves to check, the act of rolling them back down over the watch itself risked an accidental pause. At that rate, I could have gotten myself into an infinite pause-checking loop. The situation had been driving me potty.

I was a couple of kilometres out from Walltown and the start of Hadrian’s Wall when I made a crucial breakthrough in the Mystery of the Pausing Garmin. I had both sleeves rolled all the way up my arms and I wasn’t wearing any gloves, so there was nothing anywhere near my watches. I’d been looking directly at the 955’s watchface, reading the map, when I watched it pause and drop to the resume screen. All by itself, entirely uncommanded.

Seeing it happen in front of my eyes felt such a relief. It meant I hadn’t been imagining it! I hadn’t suddenly started to hit watch buttons accidentally. The Garmin was quite simply f***ed.

Not ten minutes later, navigating alongside a golf course using my other watch, the Enduro 2, my jaw dropped to the fairway when I witnessed the Enduro do exactly the same thing.

Both of my top-end Garmin watches had, within 10 minutes of each other, paused their activities uncommanded. Borderline unbelievable, but true.

Borderline

Walltown car park marks our entry point to Hadrian’s Wall. To my complete surprise, the Walltown visitor centre was open to us, which it hadn’t been last year (at least, not at the time I’d passed it). A member of Northumberland National Park staff ushered me inside in hushed tones. A runner was sleeping by the fire, she explained. Indeed; he looked pretty snug, curled up like a cat.

I definitely could have used some food to augment my dwindling supplies; but alas, this wasn’t a food stop, and the few offerings that’d been kindly donated by locals didn’t look particularly vegan. While I would just as well have run on, I reminded myself of my promise to engage fully with the Spine experience, so I decided to stay a while for a tea and a whispered chat.

I also used the opportunity to check on Steve. He’d only just left Greg’s Hut, and he seemed to be one of the two last runners on the course. I crossed my fingers, willing that he and Heine would motivate each other to remain ahead of that looming cut-off.

In the short space of time I’d been inside, the wind had picked up and the temperature plummeted quite unpleasantly; but as I rose up onto Hadrian’s Wall itself, Helios used the last of his influence to calm the wind, while casting his waning magic rays down onto me. In his pleasant company, I felt content once more.

It looked glorious, Hadrian’s Wall, under the sunset. The drystone snaked its way far into the distance, over serene rolling undulations counterposed with harsh crags of dark rock. The warm glow over its grassy hills evoked images of summer picnics and frolics while, edging in as the light faded, cool shadows cast over forsaken rocks surrounded by untold miles of desolate bogland and dark, dense woodlands.

O’er the wall I could just spot the southern edge of Kielder Forest, England’s largest. I hoped to reach there soon.

6km along the wall’s mythic journey brought me to the car park at Cawfield. This wasn’t yet halfway along our Hadrian’s Wall segment, and already it had worn thin. The endless route choices, climbs and dips; the falling temperature, and at 340km, over 100 hours into the run, my feet were growing increasingly painful. I had to knuckle down for a long, arduous slog along the remaining 8km of the wall.

When I finally reached the turnoff, I whooped with delight! I felt certain that faster terrain lay ahead of me. Besides which, from here, I’d stop heading east toward Newcastle, and instead turn north, to Scotland. Which was excellent news, because Scotland was where the Spinebow ended.

Quest for Chunky Broth

Alas, my elation was short-lived. Mere seconds from Hadrian’s Wall, I found myself engaged in yet another battle through Gaia’s sticky, squelchy, mud-bog-quagmire-mess. I could see this was going to be the general theme all the way to Bellingham.

The strangest thing, I found, was how the climate had transitioned on a dime. It was as though turning north from Hadrian’s Wall had signalled the start of ‘North England’ proper, where the temperature was colder and the conditions harsher. My feet started crunching over frosted mud, and I paused to add whatever clothes I had left.

Following a long climb away from Greenlee Lough, I encountered a style that afforded an excellent vantage point for me to perch atop and really take in my surroundings.

The sky was pitch black, just like it had been at Tan Hill and Cross Fell. I looked far out to the horizon, and rotated 360° to build a complete picture. Across the infinite inky void, I could spot but two pinpricks of white light, two little red dots on what I presumed to be a pylon, and a hazy glow from what I suspected must be a city far, far beyond the horizon. Out here in the blanket bog, it was just Gaia and I.

That bog remained challenging, with only subtle alterations to mud, or frosted mud, or water. And in the now freezing temperatures, I was coughing that good ol’ ‘Spine cough’ again. Being almost out of food, the best I could do was break out a pair of handwarmers to help raise my spirits.

I’d been eagerly counting down the metres to the only reprieve along this stretch, an outbuilding at Horneystead Farm. A place a lonesome Spiner can be assured of a roof over their head and some hot chunky vegetable broth, no matter the time of day. And after last year, I knew what I was looking out for: a style atop a wooded fell that overlooked a gully, beyond which would lay this haven of respite.

When that style finally came, it was with a sense of deep satisfaction that I stood tall astride it, as if I were a rancher surveying my herd, beaming at the sight of that humble hospice across the ravine. It might not be much, but in the middle of England’s largest area of blanket bog, in negative whatever °C it was, Horneystead’s voluntary provision of love represented more than help. It represented hope.

There were no volunteers outside the farm to welcome me inside like last year, but that was probably because it was approaching 9pm, and besides which it had grown so cold that I’d not have wished such a role on anyone.

I found someone inside the little outbuilding though. A runner, outstretched on a chair, swaddled in blankets, sound asleep. I tried my best not to disturb him while I retrieved a mug from beside the sink and ladled in vegetable broth from the slow cooker.

After my first mug of chunky vegetable broth, Andrew stirred, bid me farewell and headed back off into the arctic bogland. I stayed for a while, just as silently as I’d been in his presence, enjoying another mug of chunky broth and reflecting on the epic journey that’d brought me to this point.

It was at CP1.5 where I’d most seriously questioned why I was back here on the Spine again. That was days ago now. So much had happened since. Everyone I knew had either dropped or was struggling, and whilst I’d developed some thoughts on my why, I still didn’t have a clear answer.

I wrapped my hands around the hot mug, leant back and cogitated.

Hardy People of Bellingham

It was on autopilot that I navigated the remainder of my way to Bellingham, through bog and over ice, through temperatures that felt just as cold as last year, though I knew they probably weren’t.

When I finally summited the last hill overlooking the town of Bellingham, I beamed triumphantly at the town’s lights. Steadying myself against the ripping wind, I bellowed like a town crier: “Hardy people of Bellingham! Surrounded by bogs, tolerating arctic temperatures - I salute you!”

It was with a sense of heavy resignation that I ran down into the Bellingham checkpoint.

The last two legs of the Spine - overtop to Byrness CP5.5, and then over the Cheviots to Kirk Yetholm - are each such serious undertakings in their own right.

And for what? There were no more Keld Tearooms or Tan Hill Inns to visit. There was no more of Alston’s lasagne to devour. Nothing new to experience from now on.

I was running hours if not days behind last year’s time. I was tired, battered, injured, freezing bloody cold, 365km in, and I still had no f***ing idea why I was here.

I should have quit days ago. But I couldn’t quit now. The sunk cost fallacy was playing out: I’d already been through too much.

Everything rested on this illusory box waiting for me at the end of the Spinebow.

The box holding all the answers.

Holding the monkey.

Holding the why.

This box had better f***ing be there.

Continue reading Part 7:

The fire in the hearth was beginning to die down, but even in its diminished state it maintained a mesmerising charm.

Its flames and embers coexisted in a complementary state of yin and yang. The embers foreshadowed the flames’ demise, but were themselves living on borrowed time. Time... wasn’t it time to go home? Home… wasn’t that where the hearth is?

After the double Garmin watch meltdown, I’d mentally disconnected from the race and had little to no interest in continuing. My only remaining focus was on food, and all the more since Langdon Beck was the curry checkpoint. I had to restrain myself from asking for mine very, very, very spicy!

Then I settled on a nice hot shower, and finally to sleep.

I was directed to a 4-bunk bedroom that, as luck would have it, I had entirely to myself. With no need to worry about light or noise levels, I could spread out, inflate my pillow and settle down comfortably for a proper sleep.

I clocked up 3 hours of fruitful recuperation, my first successful sleep some 70 hours into the race. Then I refuelled with some beans on toast. I couldn’t decide between tea and coffee, so I went for both.

It was time for my third spotlight: a statement from Charles Birch, Chief of the United Nations’ Mine Action Programme in Palestine:

Right. It was time to decide what I was doing. Was I going home, or was I continuing?

I left the question hanging while I proceeded down my checkpoint checklist; rattling through it at pace, without giving it much thought.

I kept it hanging through kit check and departure. Then I was running again.

Much like my ‘observer’ status at the start of the race, I wasn’t committing to anything at this point. It just made sense to start running the next leg, while I made up my mind...

Finding My Way

We were diverted around Cauldron Snout for the second year running. Signage had been installed to point the way. I did vaguely recall the diversion route from last year, but for extra reassurance I fired up my Garmin eTrex handheld GPS, upon which I’d loaded the diversion routes.

It took so long to coax the antiquated brick into life, get a GPS fix and load the course, that I’d already run half the diversion by the time it started working. Then I found basic operations like zooming in so aggravatingly slow that I just threw it back in my pack. I didn’t need any more of Garmin’s provocations to throw in the towel and quit. Anyway, in the daylight, the physical signage was quite simple to follow.

The morning weather was favourable (though chilly, requiring 4 layers and a buff over my face), and the underfoot conditions much improved. There was hardly any snow remaining, other than some festive dusting on the felltops. Shafts of sunlight teased between distant clouds. It showed promise, and gave me hope that today might be a better day.

“I want to make sure I get the full experience this time; see it all, because I doubt I’ll do it a third time”, I mused.

“I’m trying to get as much out of this as I can”.

The diversion rejoined the official route to cross the dam above Cauldron Snout, after which I entered what felt like a strange place. I’d only seen this section of the course in thick snow, either in poor visibility, or darkness, or both. But today the visibility was great, conditions were good, and instead of snow there was just green, tufty grass and muddy bogs.

The lay of the land didn’t look anything like I’d imagined it from those long slogs illuminated only by a little cone of light, and so I found it difficult to reconcile what was in front of my eyes with the mental map I’d built up.

High Cap Knee

From this point, the route has no phone signal. Even the Spine’s GPS trackers can’t ping out location beacons (since they use the mobile networks). Until High Cup Nick, Birkdale Farm was our last opportunity for emergency communications, and even that was only possible thanks to the temporary satellite link and WiFi access point that the Spine team installed there. So, if I were to break a leg, all things considered, it’d be best to do it right here.

One moment my left knee was normal, and the next it wasn’t. I could hardly bend it, and was in considerable pain. I didn’t know what I’d done exactly, but it involved the kneecap and surrounding musculature. This was the same knee I’d injured 6 months ago in the Pyrenees, and had never fully managed to repair. Now, after pluckily surviving 260km of the Pennine Way, the poor thing had finally given out.

I remained in fairly good spirits, because it didn’t matter; whatever my why was, it wasn’t time-dependent. I’d just keep moving as best I could, in the form of a slow walk featuring a massive lumbering limp. In some ways this was quite similar to my shoulder episode near Middleton, I reflected. I was on pretty runnable terrain, yet I couldn’t physically run.

I kept positive by admiring the scenery, praising the weather, trying to reimagine this landscape as it was under the snow covering of yesteryear. Anything I could to distract from the pain in my knee.

As it had before, the wind picked up when I climbed away from Maize Beck onto High Cup Plain, and I began to suffer in the cold. My sloppy kit preparation hadn’t accounted for this wind chill on top of an injury. It raised the question of just how well-equipped I was for Cross Fell, which is renowned for some of the strongest winds in the country.

Rounding over the slightly boggy plain, a vista I’d been eagerly awaiting emerged in front of me, in all its majesty. Behold, High Cup Nick.

Every time I see it, it draws me in and holds my attention like a vice. It’s unrealistically dramatic, as if it were an exaggerated landscape painting. At the heart of the drama is the harmonious dissonance between the grace of the valley’s gently sweeping sides, alongside its ominous shadows and foreboding rocky outcrops.

Today, High Cup Nick was especially atmospheric. The late afternoon sun was setting dead-centre, its light heavily diffused through layers of cloud and mist that wrapped the valley like a blanket. While the howling wind pressured me onwards, I stayed firmly put, absorbing the grandeur of the scene before me.

Had I Been Framed?

Into the descent down to Dufton, I became aware of a runner approaching, though still a way behind me. I couldn’t accept them sprinting past me while I limped down like an invalid, so I gritted my teeth and insisted my knackered knee submit to something resembling a run. Within seconds, my fast hobble met its match on a slippery mudslide, and I wiped out impressively, rolling and sliding down through mud, rock and scree.

Both my leggings and my legs took a thorough beating. Even more self-conscious now I was plastered in mud and blood, I staggered on with my limping run, hoping the other runner hadn’t witnessed my You’ve Been Framed moment. I was grateful when he passed without making comment.

Funnily enough, the more I forced the knee to run, the more all its musculature loosened, and the easier it became. By the time I reached Dufton, my knee was much improved. I felt incredibly lucky that I could now continue with good speed, where I could so easily have been forced to retire.

My arrival into Dufton brought with it another opportunity to build purpose into this year’s Spine. Last time, I’d run straight past the Post Box Pantry café, my head at right-angles, lustfully gazing through its windows at the cosy interior. I thought I saw the shopkeeper smiling back, eager to welcome me inside. I’d deeply regretted not stopping there.

So, while my racing brain knew I ought to keep on going; to make the best of the setting sun, and to keep the blood flowing around my knackered knee, my why overruled all that.

Nobody Mention The Spine

I edged discreetly inside the Post Box Pantry, painfully aware it was full of diners enjoying their afternoon teas, who would likely not appreciate a Spine runner invading their space, leaving a trail of mud and blood in their wake. I tried to stay under the radar, choosing a route to the counter that allowed me to hide my legs behind other diners, tables and chairs.

Trying to appear as normal as possible under the circumstances, I ordered a vegan breakfast and tea, then made a beeline to a spare table, shoving my legs underneath as quickly as I could. That’d gone fairly well, I thought. I didn’t think the other diners had noticed me.

I spotted a TV in the corner of the room, and was surprised to see it showing the Spine’s OpenTracking map. It was focused on the descent from High Cup Nick to the Pantry. I looked around, and could see some of the diners watching it. It began to dawn on me that they’d watched me descend. They’d probably seen my name. Perhaps they’d been waiting for me to come in.

Then someone from the next table leant over to me and asked “How’s it been so far, Adrian?” And when I looked around I could see the eyes of everyone in the café staring straight at me, waiting with baited breath to hear runner 122 tell their story of Britain’s most brutal race.

It took a while to extract myself from my attentive audience in the Pantry. I only had to travel a few hundred metres up the road to reach the next stop, CP3.5 at Dufton Village Hall. There I availed myself of the opportunity to add my spare baselayer, expecting that I might suffer from exposure over Cross Fell in my relatively lightweight upper layers. And if my knee failed again; well, things could become thoroughly miserable up there. It was best to be prepared.

Blown Away

By the time I departed, light was fading and I had to add my headtorch. I thought I could remember pretty well the ascent route up Knock Fell, but its many false summits still took me by surprise.

I’d traversed Cross Fell twice before. The first time it’d been dark and foggy with very low visibility, and on the second the whole range was plastered in deep snow. Tonight, for the first time, I could see the ground as far as my headtorch could illuminate. The Pennine Way’s flagstones stretched out before me, snaking their way over the undulations of what was at present a pretty boggy and waterlogged moor.

While initially buoyed by the flagstones’ presence, my enthusiasm for them waned as I began to slip and slide. Wafer thin, hard-to-spot patches of ice seemed to be the cause. Also, the flagstones often vanished beneath 50-metre-wide pools of water.

Given all the hazards, I chose to avoid the flagstones entirely. Instead I hopped and leapt through the bog, and occasionally I misjudged it and sunk in.

I’d forgotten the strange way the Helm Wind works over this particular ridgeline of fells. You might, like me, assume the wind would be strongest over the summits. While it’s rip-roaringly wild up top, it’s actually in-between the summits in the cols where the wind blasts through at its fiercest. Tonight was no exception.

It hit me hardest in the dip between Great Dun Fell and Little Dun Fell. The Helm Wind shrieked past my ears and tore through my windproofs as if they just weren’t there. My ears and nose froze, my core temperature plummeted, and I hammered the climb as furiously as I could to generate body heat.

The summits had a totally different microclimate. Despite the wind, they felt warm in comparison, so much so that I felt quite comfy up here in my layers. The wind was still strong enough that I could tilt my body 30° into the wall of air and remain quite stationary, comfortably resting on my air blanket. In fact, I found I could do this while running too. I could close my eyes, and casually doze off, all while running and resting on my own Helm Wind airbed.

I See You

Cross Fell is the climax of the whole ridgeline. It’s the highest place in England outside of the Lake District, and one of the windiest. Despite the forces of nature working to blow one clean off the summit, I’ve always found it a place of wonderment and contemplation. And tonight, it didn’t disappoint.

As soon as I set foot on its expansive top, I felt a sense of calm spread through my body. I positioned myself behind some rocks to shield my body from the worst of the wind, took off my pack and rested on a rock. The view from here was divine. Perfect visibility afforded me a line of sight that ran for tens if not hundreds of miles, with the most distant pinpricks of light appearing indistinguishable from the stars in the sky.

That large cluster of lights to the north - could it be Carlisle? That was some 20 miles as the crow flies. To the east and west, there wasn’t so much, just odd pinpricks of light here and there. Some diffuse glows on the horizon hinted at the possibility of urban centres further beyond, but they would have been far, far away. A monumental distance across a vast expanse of terrain. Days of travelling.

Even the closest light I could see was rather far below and quite far away. I really was all alone up here. Just me, the boggy ridge, a pile of stones, and the Helm Wind for company. Up here, I was on the top of the world.

I had with me a bivvy, sleeping bag, stove and water. I thought about setting myself up here for the night. I’d have been quite comfortable. Far away from all the exigencies and trappings of modern life. From all the invasive technology platforms and their divisive algorithms. From the politics of division, hate, power and greed. From the wars and genocides, the trickeries and deceits, the megalomanias and socio-psychopathies. There was none of that up here. None at all.

My breathing had slowed to a meditative state. I was absorbing the tiny beams of light from the homes far below and the stars far above. Each beam of photons distilled something so complex into something so simple. My existence depended on all of it, be that Jupiter’s vast gravitational force bringing order to our Milky Way, to the worker at the water company making sure there’s drinking water for me to refill my bottles at the next CP.

But I’d been here a while, and it was probably time to bid Cross Fell farewell for now. I picked myself up, slung my pack over my back, gave Cross Fell one last hat-tip, and then launched into an frenzied, arms-flailing descent down to Greg’s Hut.

The Target

I was saddened not to find John Bamber in the hut on this occasion, but gladdened to find he’d left a jar of his homemade chilliewack on the table. So when I prepared one of my bland and unappetising dehydrated meals, I took great pleasure in introducing some va-va-voom to it by spooning on as much of John’s chilliewack as I felt I could morally defend. Because John’s chilliewack was bloody marvellous!

One of the volunteers struck up a conversation with me, asking how things were going, and so I offloaded what was on my mind that minute: how contented I felt that my brother had successfully completed Challenger South. She asked his time, and I reiterated what I’d been told at CP2, that it’d been within an hour of the final cutoff. “He must have been under such pressure”, I reflected.

She asked his name, and when I told her, she raised an eyebrow. “I saw him at Hawes. I’m sure I did. But he didn’t finish in 59 hours!” She explained he’d arrived around the same time as one of her friends, and that had been much earlier.

Both of us were confused now, so she double-checked my brother’s result for me on her phone. And there it was, in black and white: not 59 hours, but 54. Five whole hours earlier than I’d thought. Awesome! We both shared in the joy of that realisation, while I savoured the last dollop of spicy sauce.

Just before I left, the volunteer caught me and, with a beaming smile, she framed the remainder of the race in her unique, enheartening way. I’d be down at Alston CP in just a few hours, and then on to the finish on Friday - or early Saturday morning, at the very latest, she explained.

She said it all so assuredly that I couldn’t help but believe her, even though her estimates ran quite counter to my own. I’d made such slow progress and was so far behind where I ought to be that I’d entertained the thought that I might not finish before Sunday, or even before the final cutoff… But who was I to argue with such certitude?

So when I left Greg’s Hut and hit the long, runnable track down to Garrigill, I had her conviction playing in my mind. I ate more food, dropped a mitt and backtracked a bloody long way to find it, and all the while I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps she was right.

I considered my context. My knee was OK right this moment. Alston was about 18km away. 3 hours was the target she’d set. That meant I’d need to exceed 6km/hour.

6km/hour mightn’t sound like much. After all, that’s just 10 minute kilometres, which is basically a decent walking pace. But the Pennine Way at the height of winter is not a 10 minute/km walking route. Consider that the winner of the Spine, an elite runner and seasoned veteran of the Pennine Way, would travel slower than 11 min/kms over the duration of the race.

That said, I still had 7km of descent ahead of me down to Garrigill, and I remembered it being a decent, runnable track. I stood a chance at least.

So I pushed hard on the descent, flying over all those jutting stones that carved into my sore feet, guided by the lure of Garrigill’s lights below.

I recalled that Spiners talk about Annie in Garrigill, someone who often appears to offer food and water. However I hadn’t seen her last year, and so wondered whether she might be helping out today.

It just so happened that I was overtaking another runner (the first I’d seen in hours) on the main street through Garrigill at the very moment Annie came out of her house and waved to us both, calling out offers of tea and supplies. I was surprised the runner I was passing didn’t respond, but when I looked at his face I saw an expression so tired I doubted he’d either seen or heard her. So it was for both of us that I waved back, smiled, and thanked her for her generosity.

It wasn’t until I’d passed that I realised I’d broken my own purposeful rule, to experience everything to the fullest. Should I have availed myself of a cup of tea and a chat? But I considered I was temporarily engaged in a new purpose, to reach Alston before 1:20am, within my 3 hour target. I had to keep up the pace, and so felt I could forgive my transgression.

Last year the Pennine Way had an official diversion around the South Tyne River path, cutting an astonishingly awkward route through outrageously muddy quagmires that’d make our southern cross country races look like road runs. Not to mention the awkward styles every 50 metres, squeezes alongside barbed wire fences, and other such nonsense.

I was nonplussed to find the diversion still in place. I thought I’d remembered how dire it was from last year, but this year seemed so much worse, probably because last year’s icing had mitigated the worst of the abominable mud. It wasn’t what I fancied dealing with after 300kms of Pennine Way carnage.

But I was acutely aware that time was ticking and my 3 hour target was fast approaching, so I gave that last awkward stretch to Alston everything I could. I banned myself from checking the time, lest its proximity to my target of 01:20 caused me to lose hope and back off the pace.

The Moment of Truth

It was with a duality of celebration and trepidation that I spotted the trail’s turning into the YHA up ahead. I couldn’t have exceeded 3 hours, I just couldn’t. There deserved to be a good news story here.

Only when standing in the entrance to Alston YHA did I finally allow myself to check the time. I grimaced, expecting the worst. Nothing else had gone right, why should this have?

I did a double-take when I saw the time, and I paused to double-check my calculations, but they were correct. I’d taken a couple of minutes under 3 hours. I’d made it! Something I’d done had worked!

And it’d all been thanks to an anonymous volunteer back in Greg’s Hut.

I cast my mind back to Cross Fell, where photons visited me from near and far. Even in that most remote of locations, I’d felt the strongest sense of unity and community.

As the volunteers at Alston cheerily welcomed me in, despite my muddy, smelly and practically punch-drunk demeanour, I smiled in appreciation of how immensely fortunate I was to be partaking in this crazy event once more.

How fortunate I was to be back in Zion.

Where the stars shine brightly, and our community shines brightest.

Continue reading Part 6:

30 incredibly long hours after setting off from CP1, I finally reached the youth hostel in Hawes. Thirty hours, that was 25% longer than it’d taken me last year. It showed just how difficult it’d been to hack paths through the snow.

The checkpoint’s L-shaped room was configured similarly to last year. I was even directed to the same chair in exactly the same position. The vibe of the room felt different though, and not for the better. The air of despondency was deeper.

I overheard one of the volunteers muttering “Challenger South had the slowest winning time on record”. That made sense, I figured. The deep snow had been challenging for us on full Spine, but it would have been even worse for those who’d started a day earlier in the Challenger South race. I could only imagine what its frontrunners had gone through, both the formidable task of breaking trail and the difficulty of navigation.

This felt like the right time to spotlight my second quote, from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council:

With that off my mind, I could attempt to unwind. As a volunteer handed me a steaming mug of tea, I enquired after my brother. “Has he finished?”

There’d just been a shift change so my volunteer didn’t know offhand, but he checked the tracking website for me.

“Yes, here you go - he’s down as a finisher”.

Woohoo! Good news at last! And just like that, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I really hoped he’d enjoyed it; well, not all of it, obviously, but parts of it. That he’d experienced some of the deep introspection that exceptional undertakings like the Spine can provoke. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience after all - well, supposedly…

I ordered some soup, and followed that up with vegan chilli. All the eating gave me time to take a deeper read of the room. People’s injuries looked particularly severe this year, with the frosted snow taking its toll on people’s feet and legs. There were some challenging scenes as people tried to process what they’d been through. I’d seen and experienced enough to need a break.

Last year, when I’d felt particularly wrecked at CP3, I took a lovely steaming hot shower. That’s what I ought to do now, I decided.

My shower was pleasant, but it didn’t feel the same as last year, because it didn’t feel like the right thing to be doing. In the context of a race, this was plain timewasting. Was I racing? If not, then what exactly was I doing here?

Why was I here?

Should I sleep here? I didn’t feel particularly tired, but I reasoned I probably would soon, and so I made the executive decision to sleep anyway. The bunkroom I was assigned to was full aside from one top bunk, where I lay, fiddling around with the alarm app on my phone, trying to set a 90 minute alarm that wouldn’t piss off everyone else in the room.

I closed my eyes expecting to fall asleep on a dime like I had last year, but my hand was in pain, throbbing relentlessly. I tossed and turned to no avail. For ages I tried, growing ever more frustrated, while nerves fired pain signals up my arm and thoughts crashed around my mind like that monkey with its cymbals. After 2 hours I cut my losses and headed back to the main room for another bowl of chilli. What a total failure that’d been; not only hadn’t I slept a wink, but I felt worse for totally wasting another couple of hours.

Packing for the next leg was a monumental task, for there wasn’t a dry or unworn item in my pack. Absolutely everything needed to be replaced.

And while I ran through the motions, sorting out each kit item one-by-one, I felt just like I had back at Malham Tarn. That I had no purpose being here; no DNF to correct, no poor time to improve upon, no novel strategy to bring to bear. All I had was quite possibly a broken hand.

With no insightful thoughts of my own, I allowed myself to become distracted by the chap next to me who was busy toasting his mobile phone with a cigarette lighter. A pretty risky strategy just to dry out one’s USB charging port.

By the time I’d finished packing my gear, volunteers were furnishing that chap with a lender phone. It seemed he’d taken his toasting a little too far.

A Great Emoshunal Rollercoaster

I’d been in the YHA for almost 7 and a half hours, very close to the 8 hour checkpoint limit. Where on earth the time had gone was quite impossible to discern.

I genuinely didn’t care though. Any sense that this was a ‘race’ had long since dissipated. Frankly that’d happened shortly after CP1, when I’d internalised that the snow would make for a slower time than last year.

All that aside; now it was daylight, the weather was fine, I was on a road, and it was clear of snow and ice. This was not normal! Should I use the opportunity to do something? I decided that shooting a segment of video made sense, so I pulled out my phone and started a vlog.

I was mid-diatribe when I noticed I was climbing up Great Shunner Fell. It looked so different in the light, without any snow. Instead I was trotting up a most agreeable dirt/stone track that had meltwater gently trickling down it. The conditions were pretty good too, just some mizzle and a light breeze. I didn’t mind this at all.

In fact, when snow reappeared higher up the fell and reminded me of the cols I’d crossed with my friends in the Pyrenees last summer, I really started to enjoy myself once more. Picking routes around icefields, those little gambles with the tufty bogs, all in fair weather - this was rather good fun!

When the sun broke through the clouds, I grinned widely. This was more like it! I properly let myself go on the descent, catching a couple of SSTs by surprise on the road into Thwaite. Given how far back in the field I was, I figured they expected to find someone rather less spritely and carefree than I was at that moment.

The sharp climb out of Thwaite caught me off-guard, until I was able to join the dots and comprehend where I was. This was the start of the sketchy singletrack I’d remembered so vividly from last year. It was a slither of angled trail that wrapped around the side of Kisdon Fell, and last year it’d been covered in slick ice. In my hallucinatory semi-conscious state, it’d been absolutely treacherous. The sound of water crashing over rocks far, far below had only added to a looming sense of doom.

This year, it looked very different. Under a glorious daytime sun and free of ice, it was no longer a death trail, but rather a marvellous stretch of singletrack boasting an incredible view over the valley.

It was still the Spine though, so the trail soon became trickier. It rambled endlessly up-and-down, over rocky protrusions, through mud, bog and more snow. It was impossible to develop any sort of rhythm here. Just as soon as I got up to speed, I’d have to slam the brakes on to pick my way over something else. Adding to my frustration, rain teased throughout, and so I fell back into my earlier despondency. Why was I putting myself through this again?

A Purposeful Tearoom

Hearing the sound of a waterfall, I sensed I was nearing Kisdon Force. This meant the end of this semi-technical section. Here the trail split in two, with the Pennine Way breaking right down into the valley, and a sign advertising Keld’s “Winter Tearoom” pointing along the remaining path. Last year, I’d desperately wanted to follow that sign and avail myself of warmth and shelter, but for some reason I didn’t and I’d regretted my decision for hours after.

Well, here I was again at that sign. Keld Winter Tearoom. Warmth, shelter, tea and cakes. It was a shame I didn’t need to stop this year, for the weather was fine, and I had ample food supplies. Frankly, the only thing I needed was a why, and I certainly wasn’t going to find that in a Winter Tearoom.

But this time around I remained standing beside the sign, an invisible force preventing me from running on. It might just be a tearoom, but I’d seriously regretted passing it by last year. Now I had another opportunity. Somehow it felt important that I complete the visit, irrespective of whether I needed a cup of tea or not. It just felt like the purposeful thing to do.

It took a good few minutes to reach the village of Keld, but I quickly assessed it to be a most pleasant looking village community, and so I readily entered its quaint tearoom. Inside I found a cosy room bedecked in wood panelling, strewn with travel magazines and burgeoning under the weight of homemade cakes and pastries. Here I met volunteers and village folk alike, with whom I engaged in some excited discussions about the eccentricities of the race.

One volunteer, John, an academic specialising in brain chemistry, recounted the hallucinations he’d experienced during last years’ Spine, and his self-analysis of them. I found learning about the science behind our madness fascinating. But my tea was drunk, and I’d been standing chatting in the tearoom for a half-hour. Spine HQ would dispatch a Safety Team if I stayed here trading stories any longer.

Running back toward the trail split, I reflected that in concrete terms, I’d wasted 40 minutes diverting to Keld, all for a cup of tea I didn’t need. But somehow it didn’t feel like time wasted. It felt like time well spent.

A Purposeful Inn

It was late afternoon, and the last of the sun bedecked Tan Hill in an effervescent light. The scene had for all the money in the world the look of a warm autumnal evening, with straw-coloured grass blending into deep oranges and punches of dark shadow, as though harvest were coming due. The only hint to the month of January came from the occasional punctuations of bright white snow.

If only the going were as dreamy as the mind’s eye, for despite appearances, the trail was unrelentingly waterlogged and boggy. I scanned the horizon for the Tan Hill pub, certain I should be able to pluck it out of the fellsides, but I could not. Instead tiredness tested me, offering up the odd hallucination - that branch, seemingly a man reclining - but; alas, no sight of Britain’s highest pub.

As I moved through this anti-oasis; my feet sloshing through water that was indistinguishable from desert from afar, my brain retreated back to the existential question of my why in the race. “I’m here reliving the experience, the emotions. Putting the jigsaw together. But what that means in terms of what I ought to do out here - how hard I push myself - who knows?”

There were also my logistics to consider. I had post-race accommodation and trains booked, and at this rate I might miss the lot. Perhaps I should push harder? But if this was the last time I’d be here, perhaps I should ease off and enjoy it? But what about the logistics… The arguments were circular, and I grew tired of my inane deliberations. Instead, I set myself a tangible goal of reaching Tan Hill Inn before dark.

While I didn’t quite make it before darkness set in, the revelation of Tan Hill’s lights was a sight for sore eyes. Just like at Keld, I had no need to avail myself of a rest here, but the same logic I’d employed at Keld rang true here as well. This was another stop I’d regretted passing by last year, and thus the only vague purpose I’d found - to experience everything as best I could - dictated that I must stop. So I did.

The inside of Tan Hill’s function room reminded me of a chalet in the Alps. Wooden throughout, furnished with quaint knick-knacks, boasting a well-stocked bar and a roaring fire that kicked out enough heat to burst the mercury out of your thermometer. It made me want to head straight to the check-in desk - “a single room for a month, please. Oh, go on then - make it three!”

Here I enjoyed an unexpected tomato soup and roll, and I sort-of set up shop here, with my feet up & phone out, taking care of social media. I checked on my friend Steve’s progress, and hummed away to the music, quite content in this little haven of tranquillity.

Hitting the 30 minute time limit, it was with some reluctance that I collected my gear and headed back out into the night. I supposed all good things must come to an end.

A Purposeful Bog

Over Sleightholme Moor, planets, constellations and a full moon popped against the otherwise pitch black night sky. This is probably the boggiest section of the Pennine Way. Flat, desolate and entirely isolating, it’s notorious for playing mind-games. Save the discordance of Tan Hill Inn’s rainbow lights fading away to the rear, there was nothing on the horizon to indicate humanity’s existence. Just 5km of pure, uninterrupted bog.

A lonesome danger sign warned to keep to the right to avoid disappearing into bottomless bogs. But, out here in the darkness with nothing to orient on, stay right of what, exactly? Poles were key to gauging the consequences of each step.

While I find myself reluctant to reflect too positively on a bog crossing, beneath that ultra-black starry sky, I found a strong sense of connection to the earth and cosmos that feels tangible to this day.

Sleightholme Moor Road offered a brief respite from the omni-bog, before the black hole that was Wytham Moor swallowed me up once more. Now the distant horizon teased me with an illuminated line running perpendicular, with dots of light skimming along it like aeroplanes. Was it real, or a hallucination?

After eons squelching through that bog, the illuminated line had developed into a road, and the dots into boxy little vehicles. Soon I could hear it, and then I was there, standing beneath it, cars rocketing overhead. People. All in their individual containers. Propelled through the landscape like rockets. Did they have any idea of the remarkable landscape they were hurtling through?

The Pennine Way crossed under the A66, before heading straight up onto the next barren expansion, Bowes Moor.

By now, mizzle had set in, the wind had picked up, and the temperature had plummeted, making the going extremely unpleasant. Here, the Pennine Way existed more in conception than reality, borrowing indistinct trods over this undulating omni-bog, criss-crossed by marshy streams that were best tackled with a hearty bound. It was all I could do to keep my head down and my feet pointed in the general direction of that most heavenly of refuges, Clove Lodge.

Tea by the Bale

The barn at Clove Lodge had proved an essential pit stop last year, when the bogwater had been even icier, and the weather even harsher. This year, while milder, the journey from Tan Hill had been wetter underfoot, and the bog tougher to traverse. My feet and I fancied another break.

Clove Lodge Tea & Coffee Stop is a sizeable barn of breezeblock and corrugated metal construction. The front is wide open, inviting one into the first half of the barn where long tables and industrial shelving creak under the weight of an eclectic range of chocolate bars, crisps, energy mixes and other edible wonders of broad and unusual origins. Drinks bottles and the all-important tea and kettle round out the nutritional offering, while a multiform collection of garden furniture and beachfront sun loungers offer space to relax with a view of the outside.

The barn was busy today. Two volunteers were seated, looking very comfortable with their steaming mugs of cocoa. Across the way, two runners stood over their chairs, grinning from ear-to-ear and gossiping excitedly like it were a school reunion.

It was lovely and wholesome, but the sunny disposition of my compatriots was in conflict with my own mood after such a wet & difficult stretch. After all, I’d been running for 62 hours and awake for 65, without so much as a jot of sleep. I was cold, wet, hungry, aching, a bit miserable, and only had proper use of one of my two hands. I still couldn’t clearly articulate why I was doing this silly thing. So I didn’t fancy putting on a happy face and chatting about how amazingly awesome everything was. And that made me feel like a killjoy, which made things even worse.

So, possibly slightly discourteously, I kept my head down and busied myself with my own activities. I boiled the kettle, hydrated my food pouch - a 5 Bean Cassoulet - and ate in silence, only nodding and smiling politely when called upon.

The two runners left, ushering in a peace within the barn. Feeling warmer, fuller, happier and much more communicative now, I struck up a conversation with the two volunteers. In no time I was engrossed in discussion, learning about their why for volunteering, what they’d been up to, what their aspirations were, all the while searching for my own answers. I drank at least two cups of tea during this discussion, though it could easily have been more (I wasn’t counting).

An hour had passed at Clove Lodge, wherein I’d principally chatted and drunk tea. It certainly hadn’t been a sensible use of time in racing terms, but it had very much felt like what I ought to do in Spine 2.0.

Realising it would be even colder now, I donned four upper layers before I left, refusing only my balaclava because it was still soaking wet from the previous night.

It certainly was cold back out in the bog. I shivered uncontrollably for quite some time, at a loss for ideas to warm up other than getting a move on. But getting a move on was easier said than done when the route consisted of a gate or style every 50 metres, linked by gloopy, sticky mud.

After such prolonged exposure to cold air, my respiratory system was really beginning to struggle. I pulled my buff up over my face to pre-warm the air, and was relieved to find this a gamechanger. I’d entirely forgotten about this aspect of last year’s race.

It was at the intersection of Pennine Way trail and B-road where I stumbled upon the strangest of situations. As if by magic, a miniature hay barn popped out of the darkness, illuminated by a warm orange glow. It was lined at the rear by a dozen stacked hay bales, and fronted by a folding stall and a lone gentleman, with his wares laid out before him. His shoulders were open, his hands were clasped in front and his face projected a genuine, welcoming, though slightly vacant smile. He reminded me of the shopkeeper from the old children’s TV show Mr Benn.

The shopkeeper waved, and called me over. I obliged, quite astounded to find this most peculiar of sights was no hallucination. It really was a miniature hay barn, and the shopkeeper turned out to be a volunteer. Well, I’ll be!

I didn’t need anything, since I’d recently drunk enough tea for a month of Sundays. But as I got talking with the gent, I learned he’d been awake almost as long as I had. He’d been waiting until I passed before catching some shut-eye, for behind me was a long wait until the next runner, apparently.

Knowing I’d kept him awake, I felt keenly as though I ought to have something, and so accepted yet another tea. But then I spotted his bowl of bananas, and jumped at the opportunity for my first piece of fruit for days. Rather a treat, that!

With a little more tea swishing around in my belly than I thought entirely wise, and a couple of bananas to the good, I set back off. Mercifully, the bogs were disappearing, the mud was reducing, and wonderful grassy, rolling fells were emerging. The going was becoming immeasurably easier.

But; alas, a new problem was developing. My GPS tracker (the beefy box taped to our pack straps) was digging into my shoulder, and it was cutting off blood flow, or affecting a nerve, or something. Whatever was going on, my shoulder was in agony, and it was damn near paralysing my left arm.

I could lift up the tracker to relieve myself of the symptoms, but as soon as I dropped the tracker back down onto my shoulder, I’d be in pain again. The rotational movement of running caused it to dig in awfully, though I found if I walked & kept my upper body rigid, I could avoid the worst of it. Then I discovered that adjusting my running gait into a non-rotational robotic waddle-run afforded a fair compromise between speed and pain reduction. It was all very awkward, and to make matters worse, my robo-gait seemed to enrage my tibialis anterior. Short of cutting off my GPS tracker, it seemed I couldn’t win.

So over these last couple of runnable grassy fells dropping down into Middleton, the best I could do in the end was walk. Which was ridiculous really, given how runnable this stretch was compared to everything that had come before. But instead of losing myself in frustration, I pottered along quite happily, gazing down upon the lights of Middleton and imagining what the residents might be up to at 2am on a wintry Wednesday morning.

I passed straight through the town, turning left to join the 13km riverside stretch that torrential rain had made so thoroughly miserable for me last year.

Shielded from the wind down here, I felt much warmer, and mercifully my GPS tracker seemed to have shifted into a position that felt immeasurably more comfortable, allowing me to command a decent running pace once more. I’d be able to enjoy this stretch this year, and take in the sights - High Force, for instance, widely regarded as one of the best waterfalls in England. It all felt correct. This must be what the return to Spine was all about.

The Great Unraveling

I checked on the distance to CP3, but as usual my Enduro 2 was rebooting, as it had been roughly every half-hour for days now. Like at the base of Fountain’s Fell, I decided to roll up the sleeves on my other arm so I could access my Forerunner 955 and take a distance reading from that instead.

But when I finally revealed my 955’s screen, I could tell something was up. I had it on a clock screen to save battery, and I knew that wasn’t the right time. I furrowed my brow, unwilling to entertain the implication. I tried to scroll the watch to its navigation screen, but the 955 didn’t respond. It just sat there on the clock screen, showing a static time that I knew to be wrong. The watch had frozen.

I stood motionless, disbelieving the situation. Here I was, in the middle of the Spine, sporting two top-end Garmin watches. Both of them were broken. What was the f***ing point of these things if they couldn’t even manage basic nav?

I’d used both of these watches last year, and they’d both performed perfectly. This year; well, look at me. Thousands of pounds of Garmin gear, and I had nothing.

I Googled how to soft reset a 955, but when I followed the instructions it only rebooted my 955 to a blue Garmin triangle, where it stayed. I stood around drumming my fingers for 5 minutes, but nothing changed. The watch seemed to be bricked.

That was the last straw. All my frustrations about Garmin came flooding out. The bugs they’d introduced over the past year. Their focus on headline features over stability. I started listing all the whacky problems these two watches had manifested for the very first time during this race, but the list was so long I couldn’t retain them all in my head without a pencil and paper. I pulled out my phone and recorded an irate rant, which I then edited down; but then I ditched that and recorded a longer one, and edited that. Somewhere in the middle of all this my Forerunner crawled back to life, hanging its watchface in shame.

When it came to publishing my video, I first looked up and around, and drew breath. When I’d started making this video it was totally dark, and now there was enough light to make out features. I was surprised to discover I was standing in the middle of a muddy field in a valley. What on earth had I been doing?

It was getting to the point when HQ would be thinking about dispatching a team to check on me. I’d better move my dot, pronto! Not because I cared about being DQ’d for failing to report in, but because there might be other people who needed the Safety Team’s help more urgently than I, who had, somewhat inexplicably, been standing around in a field filming a documentary about Garmin watches.

Back on the go, my mind was tied up in knots. Had Garmin just pushed the most disastrous software update in the history of wearable devices? It hardly seemed plausible. Maybe they’d been sabotaged by a rival company - this wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination, considering their debilitating ransomware attack back in July 2020.

The remaining 10km to Langdon Beck was not the pleasurable sightseeing tour to High Force that I’d hoped for. I was busy mentally unplugging myself from the race. I’d had enough of Zion, I decided. My moving forward had nothing to do with the Spinebow any more. I would have happily ripped off that tracker and thrown it into the river. I was quite simply showing a middle finger to Garmin, the Spine’s Sentinel, and its continual efforts to frustrate me.

Arriving at Langdon Beck YHA, I maintained a deadpan expression as I shuffled past a courier van blocking the driveway, and weaved between piles of drop bags lining the pathway to the entrance.

I didn’t even bother trying to put my worthless Enduro 2 into rest mode, but instead rolled up my sleeves to reveal my Forerunner 955 and hit its rest button, which had worked earlier. But all that did was start a new lap. Err… what?

On Garmin watches, the rest button doubles as a lap button. All I could think was that after its freeze and reboot, the 955 had mistakenly automatically resumed the activity in ‘regular’ run mode rather than ‘ultra’ run mode (which switches the lap button to function as a rest button).

That was it. I’d had enough.

F*** Garmin.

F*** the Spine.

F*** the box.

F*** the monkey.

F*** the why.

I had reached the end of my tether, and the end of my story.

It was time to call it quits.

I wanted nutritious food, a hot shower, a good night’s sleep.

And then I wanted to go back f***ing home.

Continue reading Part 5:

The snow was so severe that the Scout Centre in Hebden Hey (our usual CP1 venue) had been snowed-in. So the Spine hired the Birchcliffe Centre in Hebden Bridge as a last-minute replacement. It’s an imposing building; a stone mansion, fronted by a series of concave arches held aloft by Tuscan pillars. Inside its foyer, it felt like I’d entered an ancient place of worship. Then I was led through its mezzanine floor, down into the bosom of the great hall.

I was surrounded on three sides by wooden stands rising steeply toward lofty windows. A smattering of spectators gazed down toward me.

This felt more like a Colosseum, and I was in the arena. I imagined a lion being released, the audience goading it, and a brutal fight to the death.

It felt like an appropriate moment to make the first of my statements, this one originating from the global anti-poverty charity Oxfam:

That sobering business taken care of, I moved on to tackle my new-for-2025 laminated checkpoint checklist. Feeling many pairs of eyes boring into me from the stands, I tried my best to look like a competent professional while I worked through it.

I hit the ‘rest’ button on my Enduro 2, which inexplicably crashed. Then I hit the ‘rest’ button on my Forerunner 955, which also acted up, but after some perseverance it did eventually enter its rest mode. A minor success there.

Next, I couldn’t get either Garmin watch to charge. I’d prepared for this eventuality by bringing 5 USB-C cables and 10 Garmin adapters in my drop bag; but it seemed that none of them worked, which made no sense whatsoever.

After 5 minutes of frantic cable switching and heightening frustration, I flicked the Enduro 2 onto its settings screen so I could see the battery percentage. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the number tick upwards by one percent. What…?

I threw my arms up in the air in disbelief. It turned out both my Garmin watches had been charging, they just hadn’t been showing their charging overlays like they usually do.

“F***ING GARMIN!” I muttered under my breath. Well, I’d certainly intended to mutter it under my breath; but the runners, volunteers and spectators all seemed to be staring at me. Perhaps I hadn’t muttered it, so much as bellowed it across the whole hall… after spending half a day battling the Enduro 2’s crashes and locational myopia, something had to give.

I moved onto charging my phone, but that turned out to be suffering from the most terrible of afflictions: a moist charging port. It took quite some perseverance to get that going.

With all the technical challenges keeping me occupied, I straight up forgot about the 12-24 hour deluge ahead. It slipped my mind to switch my lightweight waterproof jacket for my heavy-duty Phase Nano, and to replace my lightweight waterproof trousers with my rugged Montanes. While I switched to larger shoes, I forgot to fit them with gaiters. I accidentally left behind my hooded windproof. And as for the extra midlayer I’d intended to pack, that too become just another unfulfilled intention lost in the mists of technological despair.

In need of some good news, I fired up the Spine’s OpenTracking webpage to check my brother’s progress in Challenger South. I found him close to Gargrave, which was pretty good going for the heavy snow conditions, and bode well for his completing the race.

I was almost ready to go when I noticed my Enduro 2 hadn’t built up much charge. When I kept an eye on the charge percentage, I realised it’d actually stopped charging. There’d been no easy way to tell without its usual charging overlay. The f***ing thing!

That ended up delaying me for quite a while longer while I twiddled my thumbs waiting for it to charge back up. (Usually I’d have charged it on the go, but given all the trouble I was having with it today, I preferred to wait).

With the Enduro finally sufficiently recharged, I made to leave for the second time. I was pretty nonplussed to see I’d spent 90 minutes inside CP1, basically the same sluggish turnaround time as last year. But I took solace from the fact that most of it was due to Garmin malfunctions.

Thumbs Down To Colden

It was a long way back from the Birchcliffe Centre to the Pennine Way. Just like the runners from earlier, I too returned in silence, evading the eyelines of those still on their way to CP1.

A couple of them asked me how far it was. I smiled back and tried my best to meld honesty and encouragement into the phrase “it’s a little way yet, but it’s worth the wait”. What else could I say - “a few kilometres further, then drop down a near-vertical road, traipse along the river, through the town, dodge the raving drunkard, and climb up the other side of the valley?”

By the time I rejoined the Pennine Way, I calculated that this leg would be about 7km longer than usual, making it at least 106km! Rather a long way before I could resupply. Especially with deepening snow, another diversion ahead, and that weather forecast predicting a half day or so of rain...

First things first, I still had to get myself along the Pennine Way to Colden (where CP1 would usually be found), so I could properly begin the second leg. I needed to drop back down into the same valley I’d just clambered out of, then climb all the way up the other side, through a mix of Hebden’s cobbled pathways, narrow stone-walled alleys, fields and river crossings, until I reached Colden.

That was easier said than done in this snow.

With night setting in, the wind picking up and temperatures plummeting fast, I had to raise my hood and add my fleece-lined mitts. I’d have added more layers, but there was nowhere suitably sheltered to stop. The snow continued to deepen, and slippery ice cropped up ever more frequently, all contributing to my steadily slowing pace.

It was a tricky little climb away from the river. In the darkness, it wasn’t easy to spot the patch of black ice on the path. My Mafates’ Vibram Megagrip soles were my last line of defence, but they were no match for such a supremely slick surface. So my feet simply shot out from under me, and I came crashing down onto the ice. I softened my landing by outstretching an arm, which certainly benefited my hip, but not my thumb.

I writhed around on the ice, simultaneously trying to right myself and distract from the splitting pain in my hand. Try as I might, with just two legs and one hand functioning, I couldn’t get enough purchase on the ice to stand. So I sat myself up, and paused, taking stock. My thumb was injured, and it was too painful to remove the glove to take a look at it.

My headtorch was skew-whiff, so I righted that, and looked around for the energy bar I’d been eating. I found it wedged in the snow behind me. My waterproof mitts had been dangling by their cords at the time, so my gloves were soaked through and my hands were freezing. I needed to get my fleecy mitts on, but without a functioning left thumb that was really difficult. So I did the only thing I could, and gradually worked each mitt up over my gloves using my teeth.

Using the rocks by my side for balance, I managed after a few attempts to haul myself up and safely onto solid snow.

I’d injured a thumb last year too. But this time the injury was worse, and it was still very early on in the race, with most of the course ahead of me. How would I manage with only one functioning hand?

How far was it to Colden from here? I looked at my Enduro 2 for answers, but that thing still hadn’t managed to recalculate its waypoint distances since Hebden. I might as well have been carrying a chocolate teapot. At least I could’ve eaten that.

The Wrong Spikes

Between all the snow, and wind, and one immobile hand, it was nearly midnight by the time I reached Colden. I hadn’t been able to look after myself properly, so there was much to sort out here. Out of the wind, I delicately worked a windproof jacket over my immobile thumb, and removed some food from my pack.

I ate while hiking up over snowy cobblestones, and used the opportunity to run some calculations. Originally I’d estimated 22 hours for the CP1 → CP2 leg. Factoring in an extra 7km from the relocation of CP1, the worsening underfoot conditions, my broken hand, and the approaching weatherfront coupled with the bad weather gear that I’d forgotten to bring, that 22 hours was starting to look mightily optimistic. I just hoped I had enough food and power to make it to Hawes.

A sharp climb away from Heptonstall Moor brought me to a large glossy ice sheet. It angled down into a darkness my headtorch couldn’t illuminate. I rested a foot on it, intending to gauge its friction. But my foot slid straight away from under me, down toward the precipice. I lost my balance, though I just managed to launch my bodyweight from my other foot, angling my body away from that cliff edge. I came crashing down, landing half on that slick ice sheet; but fortunately, half on a layer of thick snow, which was just enough to halt my slide down into oblivion.

A near-death experience amply met my threshold for microspikes, so I hauled myself up into the snow to put on my Yaktrax. Feeling much more confident in these clunky contraptions, I bounded along quite happily - for all of 60 seconds, until the trail spat me out onto a tarmac road.

I sighed and stopped to take off the Yaktrax, spending a couple of minutes stuffing the awkward things back into the little black bag I’d brought for them. Not 20 seconds afterwards, my grip faltered again as more ice materialised on the road.

I glared at the bag with my Yaktrax. I couldn’t play yo-yo, taking them off and putting them back on every couple of minutes. They probably wouldn’t be much use on these razor thin layers of ice anyway. This needed nanospikes, and I didn’t have any of those.

It was with a heavy heart that I delicately picked my way up the slippery road. If I couldn’t make good progress through the deep snow, or the ice sheets, or now even the roads; then where, exactly, could I make good progress? How bloody long would it take to get to Hawes at this pace?

Why was I putting myself through this nonsense again?

Arctic Explorer

Reaching Walshaw Dean Reservoir brought memories flooding back from last year. I remembered standing right in this very spot, clasping my shoulder in agony, reckoning that my race was run, and wondering how I’d even make it to a place of safety in those freezing temperatures.

At least it wasn’t as cold this year, and there wasn’t nearly so much ice. My shoulder was alright too, even in spite of my sewing faux-pas. But the snow was deeper, my thumb was buggered, and my lack of a why was dragging me down. Why… why do this again?

Conditions deteriorated further over Top Withens, where the snow deepened to waist height. I was immensely grateful that the Challenger South runners had broken trail yesterday, leaving half-metre deep footprints and chasms. Even so, just to land my feet in those footprints, I had to raise my legs up to my chest with each step.

Then there was the curiosity of the thaw. It had begun, and was resulting in meltwater flowing beneath the snow. With every step I took, I could never be sure if the snow layers would hold, or whether they’d fail, and plummet me down to the ground beneath. I used poles to help mitigate the worst of it.

From Ponden Reservoir, the long climb over Bare Hill revealed how the fell had gained its name. Fully exposed up here for a long and arduous trudge through the deep snow, the wind howled something silly. And when the footprint chasms grew even deeper, they diverged from our charted GPX route, leaving me forging new paths in places and gambling with the off-GPX trodden route in others. It felt like a scene out of a movie where an Arctic explorer battles a storm in a fight for his very survival.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I recognised the hillside descent to Cowling. I remembered that it was in the little bus shelter down below that I’d stopped to add a jacket last year, and had frozen my hands in the process. I’d stop there again now, add more clothes and eat some food, because all that poling through the snow had left me ravenous.

But somehow I talked myself out of stopping at the bus shelter, and instead continued straight through the town of Cowling. Hungry and cold, the respite of Lothersdale while within 4km still felt an awfully long way away.

Freddy Krueger and the Face

I was descending a track dusted with a layer of snow just slight enough to obscure whatever was beneath it. So I never saw the ice that caused my body to swing acrobatically in three-dimensions. One minute I was a runner, and the next a passenger on a gravity-fuelled voyage of forces, vectors and motion.

My face made impact first, followed by the rest of my rag-doll body. I lay there, spread-eagled, with my face buried in the ice. What had just happened? I could feel pain, but couldn’t tell where from. Was my nose broken? No, I didn’t think so. If my nose was broken I’d know it. I’d nose it. Ha! Nose. What a funny word.

My thumb, the same thumb from earlier, that was firing a few neurons for sure. Throbbing violently, like Popeye’s arm after popping a can of spinach. But if I was mainly feeling my thumb, then my nose couldn’t be too bad, could it?

I hauled myself to my feet where I held myself in a bent-over pose with my hands on my knees. Where I just slid further down the ice until I lost my balance again and tumbled back over in slow motion. There ought to be a night vision camera here streaming live to YouTube, I thought. I’d be a hit!

If I’d been unable to remove my glove to inspect my thumb earlier, I certainly wouldn’t be able to remove it after this. So there really wasn’t anything else to do other than crack on.

The rest of the journey to Lothersdale was fairly fresh in my memory from October’s recce with my brother, which helped me calm my frayed nerves and build back into a steady rate of progress. However, I was a bit concerned my face might look like it’d undergone the Freddy Krueger treatment. This wasn’t just a question of vanity. Medics were on the lookout for head injuries, as concussion could call into question one’s fitness to proceed. But I had remained conscious throughout, and if I remembered correctly, that was usually the deciding factor.

From last year, I knew exactly what to expect from the tri tent, and when I arrived I needed zero encouragement from the volunteers to burst inside, shout “Honey, I’m home!”, order a vegan butty and a tea, and collapse into a chair swaddled in a melange of warm blankets and heat reflectors.

This was a good, good place to be. I wolfed down my butty, downed my sugary tea, leant back and closed my eyes. Peace at last.

Time dripped through my fingers, far too quickly. Drip, drip, drip. It was pouring off of my throbbing thumb and pooling beneath me. We were only permitted to stay here for 30 minutes. Without a why to draw me back out into the winter wilderness, I intended to use every one of those 30.

I pulled out my phone to check on my brother’s progress in Challenger South. I was hugely relieved to learn he was almost at Horton. There was only another 20km or so to the finish at Hawes. He was going to complete it!

My 30 minutes was up, so I stuffed some money into a protesting MRT member’s hand and thanked them all profusely. This tent is such an important respite along the incredibly long drag to Gargrave.

Frank on Ice

Outside the tent, night had been busy turning back to day. The wind kicked in with some ferocity as soon as I climbed over rooftop height, so I was mightily grateful that my windproof did such a stellar job repelling the worst of it. I decided to stow my poles to help me focus on eating.

Under the slightly warmer daytime temperatures, I managed to maintain a fairly positive disposition, though a low point came when I watched a runner tackle a slippery ice patch by confidently sauntering over it without a care in the world, all while holding an animated conversation on his phone. How on earth did he do that? Over that same patch I slipped and slid and flailed around like a clown. Compared to the consummate professional in whose footsteps I was following, I must have looked like Frank out of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

But the odd patch of ice aside, conditions really did seem to be improving now. Ahead, I could see a much flatter profile to the landscape. The fields were easier underfoot, with less snow and more green grass showing through. And my concern that snowmelt would turn the fields into muddy quagmires didn’t seem to be playing out, not this far south anyway.

On Cam Lane I picked up a drafter. His eyelids looked like they had 1 tonne anvils weighing them down, how he could see his way I didn’t know. He never spoke a word. I went through a cycle of holding gates open to let him catch up before pulling away from him again, but he always managed to stay within line of sight, and toiled hard to catch me back up before the next gate. I figured he was holding onto my coat-tails to save the hassle of navigating, and probably for some motivation too.

Since I’d started drinking caffeinated Tailwind after Lothersdale, my stomach hadn’t felt entirely settled, and I’d stopped eating. Now over the undulating fields toward Gargrave my chickens were coming home to roost, and it was I who was running low on energy. I slowed my pace to a run-walk, and after matching me for a while, my sleepwalking drafter decided to push on past me.

As I watched him disappear over the undulations, I scored a minor victory by finally managing to ease the glove off my injured hand. There weren’t any bones sticking through my palm, so that was a plus. Come on, mate. Gargrave isn’t far away. Shake a leg!

My arrival time into Gargrave provided a simple way to compare progress against last year. The Co-Op opens at 7am, and last year I’d arrived almost bang on 7am, in what could have been described as perfect timing. This year, I’d arrived at 10:20. I was three-and-a-quarter hours behind. I’d lost all that and more since CP1.

Sure, for a fairer comparison I ought to account for the 7+ kilometres of additional mileage from the diversion to the relocated CP1. But even that still left me an hour or so behind.

I plonked myself down on the bench seating in Gargrave’s semi-circular outdoor shelter, and carefully extracted my phone from its broken zip pocket to check on my brother’s progress. He was just 10km from the finish now. He basically had it in the bag!

Then I checked on Steve, my friend who was also running the full. He was on the approach to Lothersdale; so not all that far behind me, and about to enjoy a 30 minute break. Everyone was doing well! Everyone else, anyway. Goodness knows what I was up to.

Food-wise, I still had plenty of supplies remaining - in stark contrast to the first leg. But it still made sense to visit the Co-Op and scavenge some proper grub. There I found a jackfruit & rice bowl, a vegetable samosa, and a strawberry & banana smoothie, and carted the lot back to the outdoor shelter to feast.

In between mouthfuls, I checked the weather forecast, hoping the 12+ hours of rain might have faded away. But no, the forecast was upgraded to ‘heavy’ rain, and it was scheduled to run all the way from my arrival at Malham Tarn through the night and well into the following morning.

Since the rain was almost upon me, I used the opportunity to wrap myself up in my waterproofs. I really wished I’d brought my heavyweight gear with me, this ultra lightweight stuff wouldn’t last 5 minutes.

On the way out of Gargrave, while I was doing another Frank Spencer impression on an icy road, someone shouted my name. It was Mark Collinson, out walking his dog.

I’d run with Mark briefly during last year’s Spine. We’d met along the banks of the River Tees before CP3, during a torrential downpour that left us both soaked, shivering, and extremely appreciative of the crackling fire at Langdon Beck YHA.

After some reminiscing with Mark, I bid him farewell and trotted off, lost in memories of last year’s Spine. Glancing down at my Enduro 2, I was overjoyed to see it actually working for once, showing me the distance to the next checkpoint and everything!

But… wait a minute, where was my route line? I cocked an eyebrow and stared at the screen. Bugger, I was off course. I zoomed the screen out, and found I’d missed my turning a good half a km ago. And the Enduro 2 knew it, and hadn’t bothered notifying me…? This same watch had been perfect last year. What for the love of gadgetry was going on?!

The Valleys and Tarns of Yesteryear

Having righted my route, I soon found myself wending through a peaceful valley. The superb path meandered lazily around River Aire, neither hugging its banks nor veering too far from them.

I recalled this section well. Last year, I’d struggled badly with sleep demons here. I’d drifted in and out of consciousness, struggling to keep abreast of where real world ended and dreamscape began.

To see this section again, more compos mentis this time, felt meaningful. Also I felt relieved that it was mostly as I had remembered, despite my state of semi-consciousness at the time. Though I did find it curious how my memories were confined to the beauty of the valley itself, with no recollection of the resplendent fells to either side. Had I not looked up?

So why was I back here, pounding these trails again, I wondered? “I think part of it is reliving the trauma, revisiting the sites, and just making sense of what happened”.

I definitely felt a catharsis from this stretch of trail.

However, no section of the Spine leaves one entirely unchallenged. In the relative warmth of midday, with the valley protecting me from the wind and being wrapped up in not-very-breathable waterproofs, I actually found myself overheating.

So I removed my waterproofs, and then the rain clouds spat; so I re-added them, then the rain stopped and I removed them again, and so on and so forth, seemingly ad-infinitum. The ominous clouds seemed to take great pleasure in toying with me.

I breezed through Malham, acknowledging a couple of members of the Spine Safety Team, and turned my mind ahead toward Malham Cove. I relished the opportunity to return there, since I most fondly recalled the unbridled pleasure I’d taken from leaping over its organically-shaped boulders last year.

At the top of the climb to the Cove, a race photographer snapped photos and then pointed me in the direction he’d seen other runners head. Helpful, since navigating this boulder field is much easier said than done.

However, for some reason I felt I knew better, and made my way over the boulders. Just like last year, I went off in completely the wrong direction. And while I tried to extract myself from many tricky spots on treacherous snowed-in rocks, I imagined the photographer watching from afar, throwing his arms in the air, questioning how on earth this idiot had managed to get himself all the way up here from Edale.

After a much tougher boulder scramble than necessary, there was still a long slog to go over an awkward mix of rocks and tufty bogs to reach Malham Tarn, during which my feet were rarely out of water from all the snowmelt. My Dexshell waterproof socks had failed a long time ago, so in a practical sense the immersion hardly mattered, but it served as a reminder that I’d need to pay close attention to the state of my feet going forward.

Reaching Malham Tarn somehow felt like arriving back home. I kept staring across the dark waters of the lake, searching for the ‘mansion’ that I swore I’d seen from this vantage point last year. But try as I might, I couldn’t pick it out. It hadn’t been a hallucination though, since a kilometre out from the CP I finally spotted it on the approach.

I Should Never Have Re-entered

CP1.5 was located in one of the small outbuildings behind the mansion. I requested a tea and some hot water, in order to deploy one of my innovations for 2025: a dehydrated meal. That was a lesson I’d learned right here at Malham Tarn, from watching others tucking into their steaming hot meals, while I could only chew on a cold bar.

This time, I had a hot meal of my own, and my chipotle chilli with rice was delicious! I wolfed it down like a shipwrecked passenger might their first meal back on dry land. It was so good that I kicked myself for only packing a couple more dehydrated meals in my drop bag. What if there were more kettles than I had hot meals? If I found a kettle along the Pennine Way, I decided I wanted a meal to cook with it.

Before I left, I decided to give my feet the best chance to avoid trenchfoot by performing a full sock change. It was a gamble, given the next stretch was probably going to be boggy straight out the blocks and I only had a limited supply of Dexshells, but I calculated it was a gamble worth taking. “Use the good vanilla” - I couldn’t remember where I’d read that phrase, but that’s what I was doing. Using the good vanilla. (My Savage Trail friends will appreciate the sock-food metaphor, and if I’d had any Pasta alla Norma, I’d have certainly sprinkled that on too).

Amidst my refuelling and foot-culinary preparations, there was a sobering development in the checkpoint. Two chaps who I’d breakfasted with yesterday morning, Cedric and Ashley, were both here. They were both injured, and were both having to withdraw from the race.

I’d traded thoughts and places with Ashley on multiple occasions from Devil’s Dyke onwards, and had fully expected him to go on and perform well. And Cedric - I knew him from last year’s Spine, and knew what finishing meant to him this year.

They were both wishing me well, but I could see the sadness in their eyes, and hear a mix of dejection, frustration and longing in their voices. They’d have given their right arms to continue in the race. And that made me feel supremely awkward.

Because I’d already completed it. I didn’t seem to have any material reason I could put my finger on to run it again. I would happily have traded places with either of them then and there. I was taking a place from someone who needed the finish more than I. And, frankly, between my wafer-thin waterproofs and the torrential rain about to begin, this felt like an the ideal place to hang up my gear and duck out of the race.

I should never have re-entered.

“Make the most of it!” they insisted. It sounded as if they planning to live vicariously through me, as I had through my brother.

How could I possibly respond? If I’d told them I couldn’t have given a toss about the race; that I had no motivation, no why, and would much rather have quit, that’d have knocked the wind out of whatever sails they had left. But if I’d acted as though I were raring to go, that’d have been a brazen lie.

So I clammed up, unable to compose a suitable reply. In the end I diverted the conversation, wished them both a speedy recovery and hurried out of the CP with my tail between my legs.

Other people desperately wanted to run this while I desperately wanted not to. What on earth was I doing here? Taking up other people’s places, that’s what. I was an unwilling observer getting in everybody’s way.

I should never have re-entered.

Through the fading light, what had been a blue sky early in the day was now a mat of grubby cotton-wool. It grew dirtier, more ominous, and started to rain; light at first, but rapidly building into a deluge that had me soaked through in minutes. The darker and wetter things got, the angrier the scene became.

Yet there was someone else, or something else, out here on these embattled fells. A massive mechanical monster with an evil grin of high beams, tearing around the fellside like one of the Sentinels. Had a kid stolen a multimillion-pound tractor and taken it for a joyride in this f***ing storm? I needed this like a shot in the arm.

I should never have re-entered.

The Easy 10k to Horton

I couldn’t remember what was coming up ahead very clearly, but I figured the route would take me directly to Horton, and from there up-and-over Pen-y-Ghent to CP2 at Hawes. How long would I need to endure these conditions before I reached cover at Horton? In resigned hope, I looked at my Enduro 2, willing it to show me my waypoint distances; but of course, it was still as high as a kite, showing me simultaneously off- and on-course.

Never mind about the Enduro. Horton couldn’t be that far away, surely… 10k, perhaps?

I began my climb up Little Fell on a snowy, slushy, waterlogged trail. The higher I climbed, the more things deteriorated. Wind buffeted me from the side, and the rain ratcheted up until I may as well have been standing under a power shower. Underfoot, the slush was replaced by snow that grew deeper and deeper, until it overtopped my quads, forcing me to wade and then clown-walk through it.

The deep, deep footsteps left by the Challenger South runners made it so much easier than it would’ve been to break trail through this alien landscape, but the effort was still extremely weighty. Just lifting my legs high enough to clear the snow was a tall ask for a short chap like me, especially as I am most definitely not a yogi.

Bracing myself against the doof-doof of my foot falling through multiple collapsing layers of snow, down into the unknown abyss below, was both tiring and perilous in equal measure.

Then the footsteps and carved chasms began to deviate from the GPS course, like they had over Bare Fell. I investigated side routes that looked more accurate, only to find them veer further off course, or disappear entirely. I had to break fresh trails to get back to better paths, sometimes getting stuck in waist-deep snow I could hardly move through at all.

Meanwhile, the wind gusted, the rain poured, and fog set in. This bounced the light from my headtorch straight back into my face, blinding me rather than illuminating the way. It was another world up here.

I’d been fighting the fell and the weather for days, weeks, most probably decades. But finally, mercifully the angle of the terrain began to veer downwards. Over this side of the fell, sharp wet rocks peeked out of the snow, willing me to slip and impale myself. A cliff-edge emerged to my side, the pitch black beyond leaving no question as to the implications of a slip here. And the rocks by the edge were slippery, interspersed by deep snow whose behaviour was entirely unpredictable. Cautiously, I manoeuvred myself downwards, weighing a rapid descent out of the weather against the need to survive the scramble.

When the rocky terrain eased, the mud & ice began. Rain fired into my face like darts of ice, causing me to draw in my hood, though that offered scant protection. I just wanted to get down, and so I threw caution to the wind and hurled myself down the fellside, landing my feet as quickly as I dared such that they may catch me when I slipped.

But the ice darts were softening, and the wind was relenting, and quite possibly, the ground was gradually levelling out. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just overtopped Fountain’s Fell.

The trail popped me out onto Silverdale Road, into relative calm and quiet. There was only a light smattering of rain now. I stood for a moment, in awe of what I’d just experienced. The raw forces of nature, the extraterrestrial world, and the claustrophobic bubble of solitary confinement.

Gazing back in the direction of the fell, I spotted a headlight appear high up above, and gradually edge fractionally closer. I couldn’t believe it. That was the first sign of life I’d seen for hours.

I snapped back to the moment. I must be nearly at Horton now, which was probably just down the road, and thank goodness for that! After hours of freezing wet-through conditions, and hardly eating or drinking a thing, I desperately needed a place to recover.

My Enduro 2 still wasn’t showing any waypoint distances, so I zoomed around its map, trying to locate Horton and estimate its distance. This wasn’t easy on the Enduro’s little screen, but one thing became clear - it was bloody miles away.

F*** this for a game of toy soldiers. I invested a couple of minutes rolling up each of the four tight-fitting sleeves on my left arm to reveal my trusty Forerunner 955, and opened up its nav screen. See, this Garmin watch was working - why couldn’t the so-called Enduro 2 manage it? The clue’s in the name - Enduro - that’s literally the whole point of the bloody thing. Anyway, there it was, Horton. Just 9km away.

Huh - 9km? I played with it on my tongue. 9, nine, n-iii-ne. Such a funny word, n-iii-ne.

“How are there still NINE KILOMETRES to Horton?” I shouted in the direction of the speck of light descending towards me. “There were 9 kilometres to Horton 3 f***ing hours ago when I left Malham bloody Tarn!” At least, I had thought there were. Assumed there were.

“That f***ing Enduro 2! Why the f*** can’t it f***ing work for more than a f***ing minute at a f***ing time, that crash-looping waypoint-blind non-charging piece of sh**!”

The Pen-Y-Ghent Conundrum

I was growing cold, standing in the rain in my sodden clothes. And that headtorch was drawing closer, perhaps a couple of minutes away. Not fancying company at this precise moment, I turned away and set off along the road.

The road was flooded, and iced, of course. I picked my way around obstacles at a snail’s pace, no longer caring much at all. The runner from behind caught me up, though we didn’t exchange words. He didn’t appear very happy either.

I was going to let him go, but at the last minute decided to tag along behind him instead. Why not? Might as well, the faster I moved the sooner I’d reach Horton. But I soon found I didn’t want to run in his wake, and so I overtook him instead, seeking solitude up ahead.

A bright sign stopped me in my tracks. It was an arrow, pointing left. A diversion arrow?

I racked my brains. I knew there was a diversion, but that was around Pen-y-Ghent, and I thought Pen-y-Ghent came after Horton. Had I somehow missed Horton? Surely not.

The anonymous runner caught me back up, along with another runner who had his arm outstretched, holding a handheld GPS. This was the diversion, they both agreed, and set off in the direction of the sign.

I remained by the sign, still confused. If the diversion was left, then I had to be standing at the base of Pen-y-Ghent. So Pen-y-Ghent came before Horton, and I must have misremembered the route. Really? Argh, f*** it...

Still not entirely convinced, I extracted my Garmin eTrex handheld GPS from the depths of my pack. I’d loaded all the diversion routes onto it. But no sooner had I pressed the power button, I realised I didn’t have the patience to wait 5-10 minutes for this old Garmin device to boot up and, if I was lucky, deign to show me a map. I shoved the thing back in my pack, and shot off to catch up with the other two runners. F*** Garmin, I’d be better off following them.

The diversion started at 530m at the base of Pen-y-Ghent’s southern ascent, and forked us west down a direct 300m descent emerging in Horton in Ribblesdale.

Just like the descent from Fountain’s Fell, the rain continued unabated, the fog played unsporting games with the light from our headtorches, and in the deep snow, this technical, scrambly descent was borderline treacherous. We three kept our heads down and rotated the lead runner like a peloton, all the while pushing each other to move faster and faster over the terrain, regardless of the snow, the ice, the sheer drops; for we each needed to reach shelter.

Safely down in Horton, I pushed the pace even harder on the roads, dropping the other two until finally - finally - I reached the waypoint that I’d been searching for for the past 4 hours and 20 minutes. Horton’s public toilets.

In a moment of madness, I shrugged, said “f*** it”, and ran past, setting my sights on Hawes. But thank goodness I had enough sense remaining to re-evaluate; to stop, turn around, and retrace my steps back to the toilet block. I hit the rest button to track my rest time, which naturally crashed the Enduro 2.

Inside were my two sullen compatriots. The chap in the thick orange storm-proof waterproofs was Leif Abrahamsen, a Norwegian who was only running Winter Spine as a kit test before Arctic Spine in February (a race nobody had ever finished before, which he would go on to win). Leif looked relatively unflustered compared to us two, but I think it’s fair to say we’d all been through something out there.

With the dripping of our clothes, expansive puddles were emerging on the floor. I set some of my devices on charge, and then set about replacing my baselayers with my dry spares. Every item that went back on over that dry layer I could have wrung a puddle of water out of.

Before I left, I took a distance read off of my functioning Forerunner 955. There was just over 22km to go to Hawes. I couldn’t remember what the route entailed though... Pen-y-Ghent was obviously behind me now, so I just hoped it’d be flat and easy to Hawes.

The Battle with Poseidon

I set off in the lead, looking to put some distance between us. It was nothing against the other two runners at all; their company had been a great help on the scrambly descent, but I just wanted time alone to reflect on that last stretch from Malham Tarn.

The long, gradual, rainy climb through snow played right into my hands here. Its continual effortful awkwardness afforded me the perfect opportunity to take stock and place the last few hours into a wider context. And as I did, I began to stop fighting the rain, but rather accept and embrace it.

Both the rain and snowmelt fed into the rivers continually snaking across my path. Some had developed deep chasms of aggressive, fast-moving torrents that would have been quite dangerous to ford. It took some persistence and creative thinking to locate sequences of tufts, reeds and islands that I could string together into paths across, which was initially quite a fun, creative thought process.

Despite my success at building back some positivity, I was again falling back into a downward spiral. I’d started coughing incessantly, just like my compatriots had been back at Horton. Now my throat was growing sore, and I was starting to feel genuinely ill. Had I picked something up from them?

Or was it dehydration? I took a sip of my Tailwind, and was surprised to find I couldn’t stand it. Why? I’d drunk very little in the past 5-6 hours. My mind rattled through the contents of Tailwind, and stopped at salt. It must be the salt I was rejecting. I realised I was seriously dehydrated.

For some reason I hadn’t refilled my water in Horton. A quick assessment revealed that, excluding the Tailwind, I only had a few sips left. So I was badly dehydrated and basically out of water, with no idea of what lay ahead of me.

All things considered, of all the race mismanagements I’d ever orchestrated in my career, the last 12 hours felt like one of the worst. Not the worst; that dubious honour was reserved for my Cockbain Track 100 fiasco, a true masterclass in bumbling idiocy. But this was up there. The waterproofs. The nutrition and hydration. Misremembering the route. Technology failures. Then, not refilling water - what had I been thinking? Had that preposterous “observer” mindset been affecting my decisionmaking process?

I should probably turn back, return to Horton. Drink water. Sort myself out, regroup, and go again.

But that admission of defeat hit me like a blow to the stomach. I was not going to let a duff Garmin wristwatch derail me. I was a bloody ultrarunner. I’d sort myself out. Somehow...

I just needed water. Water. If only I could find some water.

I looked intently around me, determined to find an answer to my dehydration puzzle; but alas, there was nothing.

“Sh**”, I exclaimed, as I unexpectedly dropped down into a river of snowmelt. I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going. I stared down at my swimming feet, nonplussed. Then adjusted my gaze back to the sea of white all around me. Then up further, toward another river that I could hear gushing ahead.

Everything I could see. Everything I could hear. Snow. Rivers. Meltwater. Rain.

It’s all f***ing water!

Within seconds, I had a filter flask filled to the brim and was downing delicious, pure, salt-free water. I necked a litre then and there. Just like that, all my cognitive functions whirred back up. I took electrolytes, and plenty more water. Now I felt much better. There was a feeling of embarrassment that I’d let myself get so badly dehydrated while hardly being able to move for water, but at least I’d sorted it out in the end.

Climbing into Hell

Hours passed into the night and the climb grew no easier. Which towering mountain was this, for goodness sake? To deal with the cold, the building wind and the unrelenting rain, I put on all the clothes I had, down to my balaclava, buffs, and for the first time ever, a pair of disposable handwarmers (which certainly wasn’t very green of me).

While I was initially unimpressed by the limited effect of the handwarmers, I soon came to appreciate their subtle warmth. But my waterproof mitts were completely soaked, and it wasn’t long before this penetrated into the handwarmers, degrading their performance until they became nothing more than heavy bags of cold water flapping around inside my mitts.

It was only when the trail merged onto track (Cam High Road - a notorious stretch of climb almost universally hated by participants) that hazy memories of this stretch to Hawes started coming back to me. Yes… I’d pushed this one right to the back of my memory, hadn’t I. Repressed it. Had dreams about it. Nightmares. I hadn’t been sure if they were real or imagined.

Last year, the weather had been offensively awful, the cold indescribable, and the underfoot conditions preposterous, amidst an alien landscape that felt as remote as anything I’d ever encountered. It mightn’t be quite so cold tonight, but the prospect of reliving aspects of that experience didn’t thrill me.

I should never have re-entered.

Still with no waypoints to go by on my Enduro 2, and unwilling to zoom around its map for fear of prompting another crash, I kept climbing and climbing and hoping the summit would emerge at the extent of my headlight beam. “This must be it”, I kept thinking to myself. It already felt like I’d been climbing up this fell for days.

Now I remembered - I’d come to a left hand turn. An exposed track with a stone wall to the side. Wind. Lots and lots of wind. Freezing cold. There’d be snow, ice. Lots of it. It’d been bad, really bad.

It was at that moment of recollection that I misjudged a patch of ice on the track ahead. My body rotated, I lost my legs to one side, and my upper body came crashing down; saved only by my left hand’s trusty, reliable, self-sacrificing thumb.

There was far more pain than either of the previous two falls, so I knew I’d done something quite notable. But up here in these conditions, what could one do?

Between the resounding pain in my hand, the building cold, this never-ending climb to the heavens, my lack of situational awareness thanks to the Enduro 2, and the cumulative effects of 40 hours of running, pressures on me were mounting.

I raised an eyebrow at the photographer to the right of the track. Well; not a photographer, actually, but their complete photographic setup. Lightbox, camera stands, the works. Funny, really, that they’d have all that expensive gear setup here, in the middle of the night, in these extreme conditions.

I paused to observe it all, and smiled a wry smile. It wasn’t real. But; I was curious, and so I hiked off the track and down the fellside toward it. Just before I could touch the first lightbox, everything in front of my eyes disappeared. I knew it would, because it wasn’t there. I’d been through all this last year.

Why was I doing this again? I’d probably broken my hand, and I was dug into snow on the side of a high fell in negative whatever Celsius trying to touch an imaginary photography studio.

As if standing in solidarity with my situation, my Enduro 2 chose this moment to restore its waypoint functionality. And just like that, voila - I had situational context again.

Seeing the distance to Hawes triggered more memories from last year. This stretch must be Cam High Road. Various numbers stood out in my memory: 9, 8, 6, 4… there was something significant about each of these numbers. No doubt distances to CP2, each with a notable feature on the ground. I thought 9km might be the left hand turn at the summit, before that nightmarish exposed stretch.

So 9km became my target. And, indeed, as the waypoint distance ticked down to 9, the ground levelled off, and a track emerged to my left. Now I was getting somewhere.

That flat track deteriorated into deep snow that was hardly passable, so I hacked up onto the snowy banks to the right, where I found numerous trails of footprints meandering along these craggy banks. Here the wind howled something silly, and though one of my shoelaces came undone, this was not the place to pause and retie it.

My race number, which had been making one heck of a racket in the wind, broke free of its safety pins to be whisked high up into the sky, where it picked up a main wind and rocketed out of sight in a flash.

I kept dipping back down to the snowed-over track, vaguely recalling that I’d need to wind up on it eventually; but each time I returned to it I found it entirely impassable, and had to retreat back up onto the banks.

That point came at 6km, where the route veered off over felltop moorland. This had a bit of everything: bog, snow, ice, rocks. The bogs proved quite unpredictable. One caught me out wherein I disappeared up to my waist. Thereafter, I strongly suspected my bog-dunked voice recorder was only flashing its LED out of politeness, but was internally quite broken.

It was so exposed in the wind that with only one working hand, all I could do was plough onwards. It wasn’t until 1:30am that I found some overhanging ground that offered some shelter from the wind (though not the rain), where I could pause to eat and give my almost-dead Forerunner 955 a little boost of charge.

Bog Off, Box

I thought I remembered the descent to Hawes being a sharp, steep rocky downscramble. That never materialised. There was just a relatively gradual descent through mud and bog. It wasn’t long before I popped out of it into the familiar town of Hawes, where I felt totally confused.

It’d been an Odyssean quest to summit that fell. It’d taken hours, days, decades to complete; how could that little descent have returned me so much as quarter of the way back to ground level? There had to be more descending to come. There just had to be.

But apparently there wasn’t, for I was literally in Hawes. From here, the short run to the YHA was as bewildering for me as it was nostalgic. In some respects it felt victorious. I’d been put through the proverbial ringer today, and I’d more than prevailed - I’d turned Poseidon’s wrath into an elixir to restore my own strength.

At least, that’s the idea I tried to sell to myself as I limped my beleaguered body into the YHA. But it was my steamrollered mind, my sodden gear, and my broken thumb that told a truer story.

I wasn’t just an observer any more.

I was back down in the bowels of Zion, waging war against the Sentinels.

Battered and broken. Low on morale. Verging on defeat.

Why was I putting myself through this again - for that mystery box, right? That, and some bulls*** about a monkey?

You can’t be f***ing serious…

I should never have re-entered.

Continue reading Part 4:

The weather was just fine, a few degrees warmer than the -3°C forecast, and I was loaded with a whacking great brick of flapjack I’d bought yesterday in Café Adventure. The thing was so epically large it dug into my chest, so I extracted it from my pocket and gnawed my way through it, feeling its glucose course through my arteries. I would eat well today.

I had my poles attached to the front of my pack this year, which made them a breeze to deploy at the base of Jacob’s Ladder. I poled up the snowed-over cobblestones, while my brain jostled with the main question on my mind: was I an observer here?

It would have sounded crazy if I’d asked it out loud. For I’d prepared hard for this race; and here I was, wearing a Spine race bib, number 122, running up Jacob’s Ladder somewhere fairly close to the front of the field.

But it didn’t sound crazy in my head. I knew what this event entailed, and my chances of success were slim without a why. Being an observer, on the other hand - that I could do. Perhaps I’d record some documentary clips under the sun, conduct a few running interviews, before peeling off to a pub where I could edit them into a movie. That sounded pretty lucid to me.

Fortunately, James Elson caught me up on the climb, and distracted me from my madcap deliberations with a friendly chat about our preparations and kit.

Then at Kinder Low we paused and admired with the deepest of pleasure the sun-drenched snowy fells, poking through a dreamy cloud inversion. It’d been a year since I’d gazed awestruck over a vista like this.

James peeled off with another runner and disappeared into the distance, while I played out my observer role, snapping photos and attempting to livestream video clips over a flaky mobile signal.

Our route skirted the edge of Kinder Plateau, where the snow had been tamped down into a perfectly runnable path by yesterday’s Challenger South runners. Rocks poked through, adding just enough variety to keep things interesting, and the winter sun bathed us in its magic rays. I couldn’t help but reflect - what a day to be alive! I kept pulling out my phone and making video after video, like a good observer, keen for those back at home to share in this most magical of experiences.

It got even better when I reached Devil’s Dyke. What was usually a miserable slog was, today, anything but. Those parabolic gulleys, covered in perfect curvatures of snow, simply begged to be explored. What would emerge around the next bend? Only one way to find out! Even the race photographers were loving life.

Welcome to the Jungle

Things got more intense when visibility fell. Now there was only white to be seen; up or down, left or right, and the glaring monotone became disorienting. I developed a mild headache, and occasionally saw stars before my eyes.

Through Hern Clough and over Bleaklow Head, rivers of meltwater emerged, with wet rocks and icy tussocks alongside. Footprints spread out in multiple directions, requiring more careful navigation than before. And the snow deepened, requiring ever more effort to make progress.

Under these more trying conditions, I began to slow, and struggle. A steady stream of runners overtook me, seemingly unencumbered by the terrain underfoot. As more and more runners passed, I began to sigh, and turn within myself. Heavy packs, snow and iced rocks weren’t my speciality. I wasn’t observing very much any more, so why was I doing this?

The singletrack along Torside Clough grew more awkward still, with snow melting into slush, mud and bog. I ran it in a train, sometimes mid-packing and sometimes leading. The self-imposed pressure to maintain my position while not holding anyone up caused me to delay eating and drinking until I reached the water stop at Torside reservoir.

But the length of this meandering stretch always caught me out, and by the end my mouth was dry, my muscles were running on empty, and my mood was low. So I rushed the final descent to the reservoir, keen to make it to that refuelling point as quickly as I could.

On the approach, a chap with a relaxed demeanour cheered me on by name. It took me a second to process the face. That was Damian Hall, wasn’t it? Presumably tracking Kim up the course, but sticking around to encourage the rest of us well too, just like he had last year. Awesome chap!

I refilled a couple of my water bottles, added Tailwind, and hotfooted it out of there, completely forgetting - despite the presence of Mr. Tea himself - to revive myself with a nice cuppa.

Never mind, the reservoir crossing was a prime opportunity to take on nutrition and hydration before the climb up Black Hill. As the road began to incline I slid on some sheet ice, and my mood instantly soured. Last year I’d fallen hundreds upon hundreds of times on the ever-present ice. Given warmer temperatures this year I’d rather hoped I might avoid any icing conditions; but alas, it was not to be. Why would I put myself through that again? I had no desire to break a hip.

On this side of Black Hill most of the snow had melted, making for a muddy slog to the top. But at least I was alone now, and could focus on self-management: water, carbs, electrolytes. I stowed my poles to free up my hands, and downed PF gel 45 grams at a go to replenish my glucose stores. It was becoming apparent that I hadn’t brought nearly enough fast sugar nutrition on this leg, and at this rate of consumption I’d exhaust my supplies in just an hour or so.

Over the summit of the fell, the white mist set back in, and the snow returned for another entirely white viewport. With the trail cutting across a 30 degree slope, the unclear delineation between ground and sky made for an invigorating run.

When the terrain levelled out, the snow deepened. High snowdrifts made it hard to locate a path. Frequently I found myself breaking trail, a slow and effortful process. Though I willed trodden paths to emerge out of this white desert landscape, it also harkened back to those innocent winter snow days - sledging, snowmen, snowballs and assorted snow-based tomfoolery.

A brief respite came at the A365 crossing. I hadn’t realised there’d be volunteers here offering water top-ups. I emptied my last sachet of Tailwind into my softflask, and confirmed what I’d feared for the last hour, that I’d used all my PF gels. All I seemed to have left were slow-release energy bars.

I figured I had just about enough kCal to make it to CP1 without totally bonking, so long as I made my optional stop at Nicky’s Food Bar. But even with that, I was going to need to moderate my pace. I seemed to have completely screwed up my nutritional plan...

Agent Smith, We Meet Again

I checked on my brother’s progress using my phone, and was delighted to find him doing really well. But as I returned my phone to the front pocket of my pack and drew the zipper up, I noticed something amiss. The zip had sort-of separated from itself, about halfway up. I’d been quite lucky, I realised, for if I’d pulled it any further it’d have come clean off its rails. I would have to be mightily careful with this pocket from now on. With so much gear stuffed into my 20L pack, there simply wasn’t anywhere else to store my phone.

Feeling a growing sense of hunger, I checked my Garmin Enduro 2 watch to see how far I was from Nicky’s Food Bar. But instead of showing me my list of waypoints and distances as it ought, its screen turned off. I raised an eyebrow, stopped, and stared at it, suspiciously. The screen flickered back to life, and displayed the Garmin Enduro 2 logo. It’d just crashed, less than a marathon into the run. Spiffing.

I was becoming frustrated, and that allowed my physical niggles to bubble up to the forefront of my mind. I could feel the pads under both of my feet starting to complain; though after 6 hours carrying 7+ kilos on my back, that was no great surprise. I could feel my shoulders growing sore, which I hadn’t expected at this stage. Come to think of it, during the waterproofing incident last night, I’d sewn an extra top strap onto my pack to mitigate this. It’d been working surprisingly well, cinching my pack at the shoulders just as I’d hoped. So, why would my shoulders be sore?

I glanced down at my chest, where I found my handsewn top strap flailing around in the wind. My stitching had failed on one side. Damn! It’d been working so remarkably well. I could only hope my inability to sew wouldn’t cause too much of a problem.

Why was I putting myself through this again?

Conditions on the Pennine Way grew colder and windier, so I deployed my hood and my thick waterproof mitts. The track turned icy too. I saw a couple of runners deploy their spikes, but I held off, preferring to avoid that awkwardness for as long as possible.

The trail dropped down to run alongside Wessenden Reservoir. It was a dazzlingly picturesque sight, with the late afternoon sunlight dappling a distant fell, casting a beautiful orange lustre over the water. Coming after that succession of technology, gear and nutritional planning failures, I found it restorative to allow my mind to bathe in this harmonious coalescence of natural and man-made beauty.

As I picked my way down another iced decline, the gleaming water of the reservoir caught my eye again. It really was lovely. Worth recording, actually. That’d cheer me up. So I whipped out my GoPro, framed the shot, started recording, and began narrating. No sooner had I introduced the scene, my GoPro interrupted by beeping urgently, and switching itself off. Its battery was dead. Which made absolutely no sense, it’d shown 95% charge just seconds ago.

I stowed my GoPro back in my pack, stewing over yet another gear failure. What could possibly go wrong next?

Right on cue, my phone grabbed hold of that baton, and began speaking the distance to the next waypoint. I just threw up my arms, and sighed.

I had disabled navigation audio prompts. I had disabled any and every setting that could possibly be vaguely related to audio prompts, turn prompts, navigation prompts, any damn prompts. On my watches, on the Garmin phone apps, everywhere I possibly could. I’d reinstalled all the Gamin apps. I’d even uninstalled some of them entirely. Twelve months I’d battled with this weird phenomenon that’d emerged out of nowhere. Gamin called it a “feature” on its forums. Nothing I did, short of disabling Bluetooth, seemed to stop this infuriating bug. And now it was bugging me mid-Spine.

“F*** off, Garmin!” I shouted back at my phone. Sitting in the pocket with the broken zip, beside my GoPro with the dead battery, behind that severed top strap.

Less than a marathon in, things were not going well.

How far was it to Nicky’s Food Bar? I glanced down at my Enduro 2, but that was still showing the Enduro 2 logo. While I’d been getting pissed off at my phone, my watch had crashed again, and would need a few minutes to reboot.

Will Run for Food

When I popped out of the trail at Standedge Cutting, I got a much-needed mental boost from seeing Oldham Mountain Rescue and, once again, Damian Hall. I shot past without stopping though, feeling the need to keep making progress toward Nicky’s Food Bar.

For I’d been running more mental calculations, and had reached the conclusion that I hadn’t enough food to get me to Hebden Bridge, not at a good pace anyway. So my new strategy was to move efficiently and eat nothing more until Nicky’s Food Bar. I’d stop to load up on carbs with a proper meal there, and then continue moving efficiently, eking out my remaining reserves until CP1.

Finally, some good news - my Enduro 2 had rebooted and could tell me the distance to Nicky’s! I had 7km to go, apparently. How long would that take, with all this deep snow to hack through in near-whiteout conditions? I did some more mental calculations, and figured about 90 minutes (which might sound ridiculous for 7km; but honestly, that was a solid pace in these conditions). I put my head down and cracked on through the snowdrifts, growing hungrier by the minute.

I could hear the traffic whizzing along Ripponden Road long before I could see it. Nicky’s Food Bar is situated in a lay-by, inside a renovated shipping container. It might not look much from the outside, but for Pennine Wayfarers, it’s the proverbial oasis in the desert.

Pasta and a Carb-board Dessert

I creaked open the shipping container’s incongruous uPVC conservatory door and shouted a greeting to Nicky, who was as busy as a bee in her gleaming stainless steel kitchen. I placed an order for tea, and the all-important vegetable pasta, grabbed a packet of crisps, and delighted in taking off my heavy pack. My shoulders felt an immediate relief!

I hit the ‘rest’ button on my Enduro 2 to record the duration of my stop, but the stupid thing just crashed.

I was very grateful for Nicky’s vegetable pasta, which worked wonders to restock my depleted glycogen stores. I washed it all down with a hearty mug of tea and felt much better for it.

Back out on the trail, I couldn’t persuade my Enduro 2 to acknowledge I was back on route. Unless and until it did so, it wouldn’t show me my waypoint distances, which was pretty irritating.

It was just starting to get dark when I reached Blackstone Edge. I remembered this section well from last year, and was sure I’d been wearing my headtorch at this point. Given I wasn’t this year, that meant I was running slightly ahead of last year’s time. And that was with an extra food stop at Nicky’s. I couldn’t be doing too badly, then.

There was a further cause for celebration when I uncovered some Precision Hydration Chews in another pocket of my pack. Fast sugars! I ripped open the packet, eager to dose up on glucose; but try as I might, I physically couldn’t remove a chew from the packet. They had completely fused onto their cardboard backing.

“Oh yeah”, I recalled, sullenly. These chews were long past their best before date. I’d packed them anyway, not wanting to waste them, though not realising that product and packaging had amalgamated into something best left uneaten.

Well… I needed sugar, and I’d be damned if I was going to waste them now. I spent a couple of minutes prising each chew from its cardboard backing as best I could. The sugar still tasted great, albeit with an unappealing essence of wood pulp.

Underfoot, my trodden path through the snow had disappeared, and I was back to breaking trail once more. Perhaps it had snowed here recently? Either that or I was going astray. Sighting a headtorch up ahead, I put on a burst of speed to catch up with the lone runner. It turned out to be Will Robinson, whom I chatted amicably to while we trotted up to mountain rescue’s water stop at White House.

The Pap

We stopped in for a cup of tea, where Will explained he’d recently completed a 459 mile jaunt across India. It was impressive stuff, though the climate and underfoot conditions were very different to the Spine. I could see the cold had taken its toll on Will, as indeed it had me.

While we spoke, a race photographer snapped a stream of photos. “Could you move a little this way? MRT, if you can come in behind them. There, that’s good. Could you just gaze into your cup for me? That’s it.”

We tolerated the photoshoot for a few minutes, until Will grew tired of the paparazzi’s directions, and hit the road for the next stretch - the long flat track heading to Stoodley Edge.

I stayed put for another couple of minutes, cradling my mug of tea, musing over my why. Here I was, on a freezing cold night in northern England, double-gloved, held up in a mountain rescue tent surrounded by deep snow. Lost and abandoned in this desolate wintery wilderness, all alone...

Click. Click, click, click.

The photographer was holding his camera at 90 degrees, contorting his body into some sort of yoga pose, firing off shots like a machine gunner. “Could you look down into the mug… get that steam in front of your face. Perhaps if you blow on it, that’ll get it going? Just sort of gaze into it...” Click, click, click.

“Could you perhaps look a little more tired for me?” Click, click, click.

Look more tired? F*** that! I downed my tea in one, slung my pack on my back and charged outside, up the climb, hot on Will’s footsteps.

Running on Empty

Last year I made fantastic time along this White Holme Reservoir stretch, and I fancied repeating that now. I did feel pretty knackered, though, so I paused to take stock of my remaining food supplies. I found one flapjack, one energy bar, and one solitary cardboard-melded PF Chew. I chose the flapjack. I’d never tried this particular brand before, so I took a test nibble. Damn - the flapjack was good! I inhaled the rest of it in seconds.

At Stoodley Edge, the Pennine Way returned to snowed-under trail. Its pure, bright white reflected the light from my headtorch so perfectly that it was like driving at night-time, faced with approaching cars with their bright lights on.

I’d been out on the Pennine Way ‘observing’ (or whatever the heck I was doing) for over 10 hours now, so it felt like a good time for a self check-in.

My toes were being squeezed against the end of my La Sportiva Cyklons. The pads under my feet were sore. One of my shins was complaining. So was the opposing hip flexor. Something in my pack was jutting into my lower back (badly, that needed sorting PDQ!) I had only one energy bar left. I was rationing water, and should have taken electrolytes hours ago.

It was going to be important to reset properly at CP1, so I planned the key actions. Swap these Cyklons for a larger pair. Charge my devices. Switch out my lightweight waterproofs for heavier duty gear (remember - an epic rainstorm was fast approaching). And stock up on food. Lots of food, fast sugars in particular.

The Hunt for Checkpoint 1

How far it was to CP1, though, I had no idea. My Enduro 2 was still refusing to show my waypoint distances, and besides which, I didn’t know where the relocated checkpoint was anyway.

I got chatting with a female runner (who I couldn’t believe was using a paper map for navigation) when a checkpoint diversion sign caught me off-guard. I hadn’t expected that yet, before we’d even dropped down into Hebden valley.

The diversion took me along a soft, earthen trail overlooking the valley below. It was a beautiful route with an equally beautiful view, where twinkling lights from the far-below town glistened like fireflies between these ancient tree trunks.

Something wasn’t quite right, though. Faster runners returning from the checkpoint were passing in absolute silence, and even averting their gaze. That wasn’t a good omen. See - if a checkpoint’s close, we runners will normally call out “Almost there!” or such, by way of encouragement. When we don’t, that’s a sign that the path ahead is long, technical, or both.

Kilometres ticked by with no sign of a checkpoint, until the trail merged into a road and suddenly swung down an extremely steep drop to Hebden Bridge. “Christ, I’ll have to come back up this”, I thought. Down in Hebden, signage directed us along the riverside, through the town centre, and then back up a steep climb on the northern side of the valley.

I ran some mental calculations. The next leg was already the longest of the race, near enough 100km. This diversion had started quite a long way before our original CP1 location, and was taking me an even longer way off-course. I expected this would add at least another 2 hours onto the next leg. During which the weather forecast was, in summary, heavy rain. And I probably hadn’t enough food to sustain me either.

So that’s all good then, I muttered, mentally manifesting myself into a W1A meeting.

High above me, I spotted a couple of volunteers waving in encouragement. That had to be CP1. At last!

Zion, I See You

This had been a leg of two sides. Significant stretches of the day had been visually stunning, delightfully memorable and deeply satisfying. And in those moments, my return made total sense.

But much of my gear and gadgetry had already failed me, some of it in novel and inexplicable ways. I couldn’t begin to fathom how I’d underestimated my nutritional requirements so badly. And the next leg would be much longer and tougher, with deteriorating weather, in which I felt sure my missing why would play an increasingly important role.

Role… what role was I playing now, exactly? A steely, unbreakable runner, prepared to stick it out for all 12 rounds; or a happy-go-lucky observer, preparing to retire to the nearest pub?

Yes, I remember these mental tussles like it was yesterday. To DNF or to fight on. To bounce back into the comfy Matrix, or to grit it out here in the real world. This was what the Spine is really about. The internal war.

Agents, Sentinels - I see you, f***ers.

I’m back. For my box. And my monkey. And my why.

… perhaps. Or alternatively I could head to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over.

I still had to make up my mind on that point.

Continue reading part 3, CP1 to CP2: The rise and fall of Poseidon

Little did I know the evolutionary journey this would take me on.

Both Arc of Attrition and Dragon’s Back challenged me beyond expectations. Harsh winter conditions, tricky technical terrain, bogs, heights and exposure, over innumerable hours, days and nights.

I overcame so many challenges, and learned so much about running endurance races. And after each race, I grew into a stronger trail runner, ready and waiting for my next big challenge.

The Spine should have followed a similar path.

Except it didn't.

Spine 1

When I started the Spine last year, I had no idea what sort of physical and metaphysical rabbit holes it would lead me down. They proved to be deeper and weirder than I could ever have imagined. Hallucinations, phantasms, existential questions, physical breakdown and extreme sleep deprivation were some of many curiosities the white rabbit introduced me to.

I needed to DNF shortly after the first checkpoint, and only continued because there was no alternative. One section was so horrendous I erased it from my memory, though it would later return to haunt me in my nightmares. I broke waist-deep snow over Alpine-style peaks. I skated through frozen realms so fantastical that they couldn’t be real. I got blown up mountains, and slid and tumbled down the other side. I waved at people who were really trees, dodged beasts that were really rocks, and imagined thousands of unique Banksy artworks handcrafted out of snow.

Atop the Cheviots, I helped lost & injured runners to safety; while in any other context, in the condition I was in, I’d have been the one being rescued.

After 120 hours barely surviving in that incorporeal Pennine Wonderland, I smacked into the wall of the Border Hotel in Kirk Yetholm, and that was it.

Spine, and my Legendary Triad, was complete.

Or so I thought…

Because unlike Arc and Dragon’s Back, I didn’t celebrate, grow into a stronger trail runner, and set about planning my next big challenge.

I didn’t even celebrate.

I’d reached the very end of the Legendary Triad rainbow, but found no pot of gold. There was just one thing there. Pandora’s f***ing box.

And when I opened that box, out poured questions, emotions, psychological insight and trauma surrounding the Spine. It all reverberated around my brain like a monkey crashing cymbals. Try as I might, I simply couldn’t force it back inside Pandora’s sodding box.

So I spent weeks reliving the race, writing a blog that micro-analysed it minute-by-minute, but I couldn’t bring myself to zoom out to process the whole. What I’d experienced, what it meant, how to build from here. I felt like I was stuck in a state of mental purgatory with that blasted monkey crashing away in my head.

How could anyone reconcile life in a comfortable Orwellian plutocracy with such savage enlightenment? It was like Morpheus had shown me the Matrix, and offered me a choice between the blue pill and the red. It was the Matrix or Zion. The Big Brother cult or the Pennine f***ing Way.

The Red Pill

It was a few weeks later when entries for Spine 2025 opened. I had absolutely no desire to put myself through that again. I couldn’t even figure out how to recover from it. But equally, I didn’t see that I had a choice - I had to re-enter. The return was the recovery. More than that, it was the gateway to reality.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you return to Zion and I’ll show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I considered whether I was, ironically, being selfish. For some of my friends had felt inspired to apply for the Spine themselves, and given how oversubscribed Spine is, my repeat entry could come at the expense of theirs.

But that couldn’t be helped, I reasoned. I’d been unplugged. I’d swallowed the red pill. Zion may be hell, but it was also home. There was no question in my mind, I had to return.

And as if it were fated, I secured a Spine place for myself, while some of my friends did not. But as bad as I felt for them, I needed my place. It enabled me to shove all those reverberating questions, the hope of Pandora, the land of Zion, my crashing monkey, and even the resolution of Orwellian duality back into that unassuming little box. I could shut the lid and launch it all back over the Spinebow. For now, at least, I could resume my life as a prole in Airstrip One, a willing inhabitant of Big Brother’s comfy Matrix.

A Comfortable Life

But my life didn’t resume comfortably, so much as it drove straight into me and then reversed back over my writhing corpse.

I became unwell, yet somehow I hauled myself around UTS100 in what was a flagrant act of self-neglect. That caused me to deteriorate into a long period of illness, during which I fastpacked the Pyrenees and smashed my knee on a rock. I had to pass on what was supposed to be my first backyard ultra with my friends, and wasn’t able to run for most of the summer.

October brought me some respite. I built back into a respectable training cadence. I started upper body training, readying myself for the rigours of carrying a hefty Spine pack once more. And I began kit preparations, changing out jackets, shoes, nutrition, goggles, and replacing all the mandatory medical kit, in accordance with the Spine’s somewhat puzzling new requirements for 2025.

As it was emerging, my biggest concern now wasn’t so much physical as it was mental. I’d completely repressed my reason for rerunning the thing. I mean, I knew I had a reason. But it was locked in that sodding Pandora’s box I’d lobbed 268 miles back over the Spinebow. And try as I might, I simply could not remember what was in that bloody thing.

Having run a fair few big races now, I felt experienced enough to know that for a race as formidable as this, having no purpose, no why, was a recipe for disaster.

So I explored the situation in writing and vlogs, desperately trying to uncover what it was that might have persuaded me to re-enter. Why I was proposing to put myself through hell again? I produced various theories, but I never managed to answer the question. My why felt just as elusive as Elon’s capacity for empathy.

Finding my why evolved into a painfully insufferable itch I couldn’t scratch, so I was fortunate to be gifted with a fresh lens through which to view Spine 2.0.

Apparently inspired by my description of the Spine as ‘hell’, my brother had signed up for Spine Challenger South. This would be his first hundred miler, no less. So he appreciated (or perhaps tolerated!) the opportunity for a recce expedition with yours truly. We headed north to run a couple of stretches of the route, bookending each day by enjoying live performances at Marsden’s legendary Jazz Festival, something that had been on my bucket list for many a year.

My brother’s involvement in Spine 2.0 became a vector by which I could push my own looming car-crash into the dark recesses of my mind, and instead live vicariously through my brother’s infectious quest for adventure.

Friday

On race week, we travelled up to Hope Valley together, staying in probably the coldest youth hostel in the country. He sailed through his kit check, and in keeping with my usual pre-race tradition, I took my brother for a pre-race curry. “Very, very, very mild, please”, my brother pleaded with the waiter.

Over his very, very, very mild curry, we discussed our race forecasts. Challenger South would start in 12 hours, on Saturday morning. There was deep snow covering the course, and cold conditions were forecast to persist for the duration of his race. So it was going to be tough going, especially for those at the front, breaking trail through deep snowdrifts.

It’d still be snowed -over when I started on Sunday morning, though it’d probably be a little warmer. It would continue to warm up over the course of the week, meaning the snow was likely to start melting as I headed further north. Heavy rain for 12 to 24 hours from Monday would add to the snowmelt, giving a high probability of a muddy, heavily waterlogged, deeply boggy course. It was likely to end with some balmy warmth, though, so that was something to look forward to.

Saturday

In spite of his evening curry, my brother was in high spirits when he set off on his Challenger South race. He bounded off through the snow, forging trails through what looked like a picture-postcard winter scene. I was buoyed by his enthusiasm, and willed him to have as safe and enjoyable an experience as possible on this most demanding of 100M courses.

Back at our youth hostel, the heating still wasn’t working. Somehow it was actually colder inside than out, so I bailed, checked-out and crawled around the local coffee shops, stuffing my face with tea and goodies, feeling entirely at ease, passing time before my kit check slot.

At Spine HQ, my gear received the A-OK, meaning I got my hand stamped with the customary Spine stamp in the form of Lindley Chambers’ grinning face (in my opinion, this is one of the race’s little-known esoteric highlights!)

On the downside, in the race briefing, they threw me a curveball by explaining that CP1 had become snowed-in, and would need to be relocated. I was told the new location would probably be somewhere in the vicinity of Hebden Bridge; but where exactly, or at what distance, remained a mystery.

After receiving that little bombshell, I met up with my friend Steve, who would also be running full Spine this year. We’d both had a long day preparing for the race, and were ready for dinner. So, naturally, I took him for a traditional pre-race curry.

“Very, very, very mild, please”, poor Steve begged the same waiter who’d served my brother and I yesterday. Over Steve’s shoulder, the waiter fired me an interrogatory look, as if to ask why on earth I kept bringing diners who quite obviously didn’t want curries. I just grinned and gave him a double thumbs-up.

In return for my dubious hospitality, Steve hosted me at his youth hostel, which turned out to suffer from the exact opposite problem of mine. Instead of zero heating, Edale YHA had its heating on full-blast, resulting in a near-tropical climate in the bedrooms.

Adding to our heat-triggered delirium was Steve’s curious decision to re-waterproof his shoes with a spray that, as we quickly discovered, should have been used in a well-ventilated area, which our hermetically sealed dorm room was not. The fumes clouded the air and our minds alike, precipitating much laughter and some questionable last-minute decision-making, not least my self-reinvention as a tailor wherein I decided to make some “improvements” to my running pack...

Sunday

On race morning I met up with Cedric Castille and Ashley Ward. Cedric I knew from last year, and he shared some of his impassioned why for running the race, which turned out to be a thousand times clearer and more compelling than anything I had for myself. I sincerely wished him well.

Where was my why at, I reflected? Nowhere, that's where. I had nothing invested in this race. No why, no goal, no need to hit a time, to finish, or even to start. In contrast, I was invested in my brother’s journey; in Steve’s, Cedric’s, Ashley’s. Everybody and anybody’s except mine. Frankly, I was in denial that I was even running the thing.

Mingling with the spectators on the sidelines of the start line, I could sense the anxious buzz of nervous tension from a hundred and fifty fearful souls, trepidatious about setting off on their adventure of a lifetime. Some were here to rectify a past DNF, many were stepping up from the Challenger races, and some were Spine virgins, with absolutely no idea of the dark rabbit hole they were about to descend into.

Me, though; I felt exactly like I had yesterday when I’d seen my brother off. I wasn’t a part of it. I was more like a spectator. I even imagined myself a reporter, in a helicopter up above, gazing down on the starting field, introducing the start of the race. I was explaining the Spine’s history, the route, the highlights, the challenges, the weather forecast…

But my report was interrupted by a megaphone, which was making an announcement very much like a race briefing, and the runners around me were retying their laces and adjusting their packs, and the spectators were cheering, and those around me were running, and my little feet were pattering through the snow, casually cruising through Edale toward that sign marking the start of the Pennine Way; and I could feel the heavy weight of my pack on my shoulders, and I was questioning - am I doing this? - and I was thinking this stupid, and asinine, and irrational; and I was protesting, and telling myself I was only a spectator, or observer - anything other than a runner, though I was surely running, wasn’t I - and as I ran, I began to recall how indescribably hard this had been, how deep down the rabbit hole I’d had to go; and I knew, I really didn’t want to run this again, and injure myself again, and subject myself to all that trauma again - not without a reason, not without a why… but the run was drawing me in, and I had no choice in the matter, not really, because I’d swallowed the red pill, and I knew I’d swallowed it for a reason, and the reason was locked away in the box, at the end of the Spinebow, and I was going to have to get myself back there, to the end of the Spinebow, and find the box, and open it, and resolve Pandora's predicament… my predicament… for there was a crazed monkey crashing, and a white rabbit retreating, and Morpheus beckoning, and Big Brother brainwashing, and a f***ing war raging -

But it was all okay

Because I was only an observer

Dropping back into Zion

Nice and quickly

To find a box

A monkey

And a why

Continue reading Part 2:

The event took me a long while to process. I couldn't pull together all the pieces.

Where was this memory from? Did that vague recollection actually happen? What would those sections look like outside the halo of a headtorch?

What would have happened if I’d have diverted to Keld, or stopped at Tan Hill? Should I have used my spikes on the ice? What if I'd have been more disciplined with fuelling and hydration?

Should I have slept less, or more? Or napped on the trail? Could I have avoided the hallucinations? The sleep-deprived staggering?

What if I'd have taken warmer layers? Larger shoes? A bigger pack? Or could I have travelled even lighter?

What if I'd have fixed the issues with my pack and gloves? Taken more dehydrated meals? Had a better checkpoint plan? Slept well in the days before the race?

What if the weather had been wetter? Less icy? What if I'd have started slower? Could I get to Alston quicker if I had an extra spoon of John’s Chilliewack?

What if I was consumed by a bog? What if I miscalculated my layers and became hypothermic? What if rain continued for days?

Did everyone else suffer like I did? How did the frontrunners maintain their race discipline? How did the tailrunners keep going with the extra pressure of chasing cutoffs?

Could I become any better at the race? Could I ever enjoy it? Did I even want to find out?

When 2025 entries opened a few weeks later, my head was still spinning with a million questions.

I didn't want to run the Spine again, ever. But equally I had to unearth some of the answers. I couldn't leave it like this.

I entered again for 2025, and immediately felt a sensation of dread in the pit in my stomach like no other.

Over the following months, I recounted the events of my Spine in as much detail as I could into my Trail Explorer blog. It was all I could do to tell the story blow-by-blow, as it happened. As soon as I reached the finish in Kirk Yetholm, I drew the line there. I made no effort to analyse the whole. My brain was kaput, and I was done.

I shoved everything else to the back of my mind. I forgot about my questions. I forgot why I'd entered 2025.

As the year rolled to a close, I restarted my familiar training and kit preparations. But why I was doing this again, I no longer knew.

In the weeks before the race, I used a vlog on YouTube specifically to explore some of the possible reasons; but even that missed the mark, and I could sense it at the time. I'd genuinely repressed the reason I was going back, and I couldn't seem to unearth it.

When I started pounding a trail back along the Pennine Way, memories started coming back. Questions resolved down to concrete answers. And, gradually, I remembered why I had sent myself back here, to subject myself yet again to the indescribable ordeal that is the Winter Spine.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll craft a blog post that explores some of these questions about the Spine race. I hope it'll give a deeper insight than last year’s War and Peace epic.

For now, I’d just like to thank everyone who was involved in getting me from Edale to KY again, enabling me to indulge my curiosity and relive the memory of 2024.

When I really think about it, this couldn't have happened without the help of so very many people behind the scenes - not tens, or hundreds, but literally thousands of people. I was just the one with the running shoes on.

It’s as clear a reminder as any of our social nature as humans, and our interdependence on one another to both survive and thrive. Of the need for political and economic systems that support our ability to work together; and the dark risks emerging from subversive political groups like Reform UK, and so-called media like Talk TV, that are working to unpick this very social fabric upon which we depend.

It's in the deepest and darkest of places that the light becomes clearest. Perhaps the Spine will help show us the way 🙏

New for 2025, I’m excited to announce that in addition to this blog, I’m adding video updates via my Trail Explorer YouTube channel. Here I’ll explore topics in a relaxed, conversational format, allowing me to bring you ideas and insights more quickly than ever before.

I’m kicking things off with The Return of the Trail Explorer: a recap of my 2024 year in running, and a look ahead to what’s in store in 2025.

Hit the YouTube subscription button below to be notified when new videos come out.

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And rest assured, I’ll continue to use this Substack blog for my detailed race reports and publications. I’ve got some really exciting articles coming out soon, so stay tuned!

Happy New Year folks!

My original 7-part blog series covering Spine 2024 can be read below.

I believe this second report demonstrates modest progress, though there remain many opportunities for improvement. Many of my friends are leading in various areas, having switched to electric cars, heat pumps, second-hand purchasing platforms, and more.

Travel

I’m proud to say I slashed my private car miles by over a third in 2024.

This was mostly achieved through using the train for journeys I previously thought too awkward for public transport. Not only did I survive hauling my suitcase around the country, but the train journeys were more productive than losing time behind the wheel.

The reduction in foot travel was due to my prolonged illness after UTS, and injury sustained in the Pyrenees. I hope to be back to my usual perambulating self in 2025!

International Travel

I made 1 trip involving three countries (France, Spain and Andorra). I travelled by train (c. 2,800km), car share (c. 300km) and fastpack.

This was a similar amount of international travel as compared to 2022. Again, this was the result of a conscious decision to focus on local races and breaks within the UK.

To reiterate: my aim is not to reduce international travel to zero, but to favour local where possible. When I do decide to travel, I will use low carbon forms of travel where at all feasible.

Food

For the fifth year running, I consumed a 100% plant-based diet (even during the Spine, during the now infamous Alston vegan lasagne exhaustion!)

For the third year running, I grew some of my own food in my front garden. However, I had far less success this year, in no small part due to the strange weather patterns caused by climate change. The unusually wet conditions were a boon for slugs and snails who consumed many of my plants, despite my painstaking efforts to relocate them.

There were slim pickings throughout my crop of courgettes, lettuces, peppers, french beans and strawberries, while my tomatoes succumbed to blight for an almost total loss. However, I still had respectable results with runner beans, broccoli, loganberries, and of course my trusty perpetual spinach.

For the first time, I grew some of my crop from seed in a mini greenhouse. Results were mixed, with some rather hot days scorching my vulnerable seedlings, and the greenhouse offering little protection from the slugs. That said, it was particularly satisfying seeing crops mature from seed to harvest.

Energy

I use a 100% renewable electricity energy supplier. I achieved a marginal reduction in consumption by switching out some old, inefficient tech, and being more mindful of my use of central heating. A running midlayer and an OMM Core beanie can go a long way!

Running

I have maintained my membership of The Green Runners, as part of which I am renewing the following pledges:

• Prefer local races & training

• Make my journeys by foot, bike, train, bus or carpool where possible

• Be proud of & publicise kit longevity/repair

• Track and report my carbon footprint annually

Last year I signed off my climate report by showing a photo of my slightly knackered trail shoes with 2,190km on the clock. Since then, I repaired them following The Green Runner’s recommended protocol, and I’m pleased to report they’re continuing to serve me well. They have now chalked up some 3,312km.

Long may it continue!

Heading into 2025, I will continue my environmental progress, while advocating for those whose voices are marginalised. Both within the UK, and overseas, including the victims of the unimaginably horrific genocide being perpetrated in the Middle East.

Let’s all work toward environmental and humanitarian justice for all in 2025 🙏

I can’t remember seeing a Christmas ad reflect on the sustainability of all this, and the looming environmental disaster that awaits if we continue down this reckless path unabated.

The science is as clear as can be: we must reduce consumption, now. We need adverts reminding us of the 6 R’s of Sustainability, rather than the freshest 6 Running Shoes.

It’s not always that simple though, is it? Not in the real world, down at the level of day-to-day decision-making. Look, I’ll come clean. I bought some new running shoes last week.

Did I need them? According to the 6 R’s of Sustainability… it’s complicated.

The shoes were for an extreme race with pretty extreme conditions. I already had plenty of shoes that would have passed the race’s kit check. However, they weren’t ideal for the terrain & conditions, and might have risked me DNF’ing.

Perhaps I could have used one of the 6 R’s of Sustainability - Rethink - and found a workaround that didn’t involve buying a brand new pair. For example, perhaps I could have found a pair second-hand.

What do you think - am I a hypocrite, blogging about reducing consumption on the one hand, while placing online orders with the other?

Where do we draw the line between what we need and what we want? Upon who does the burden of responsibility fall to solutionise for sustainability, within the framework of a neoliberal market capitalist economy?

The best we can do is be clear on our values, and be critical thinkers every day. Question ourselves relentlessly, seeking to maintain logical consistency between our values and our actions.

As I sit staring at my contentious pair of shiny new daps, right next to them I can see a pair I’m rather more proud of. My Saucony Kinvara 12s.

I bought these back in March 2022. Since then, I wore them two hundred and twenty two times. They recently passed their third megametreversary for covering in excess of 3,000km.

As you might expect, after so many km’s, they were a little worse for wear. Their uppers had gaping holes providing more ventilation than the manufacturer intended. Their treads were, in places, flat. And whatever spring & cushioning Saucony’s PWRRUN foam midsole used to provide was long gone.

Rather than use the massive milestone as an opportunity to retire them into the bin (and buy some fancy-shmancy new ones with spring and cushioning and grip and all that dandy stuff in the adverts), I decided to use those one of those 6 R’s of Sustainability. I’d try to repair them.

Repairing shoes was brand new to me, so I needed some help. The Green Runners (of which I’m a member) have a neat guide to shoe maintenance, and that directed me to the Pair Ups upper repair process.

My primary goal was to consolidate and strengthen the uppers, stopping those huge rips that ran half the length of each shoe from spreading and tearing the shoes apart.

Pair Ups recommended some K-tape and some strong flexible glue. You might already have some, but I didn’t, so I bought one of their Lite Shoe Repair Kits for £10. It came in compostable packing and was quite clearly prepared & dispatched with love.

How cool’s that?

Reading through the instructions, I could tell that my old shoes were frankly a bit knackered to undergo the process as they were. They’d need some extra TLC.

I started by giving them a good scrub-up, so the glue would have a solid surface to attach to. They looked much more vivacious after their spa day! I left them to dry for about a week to make certain there was no residual water that could affect the repair.

Then I set about consolidating those large rips by sewing them together using a needle and thread. I figured this only needed to hold the material together long enough for the glue to bond; but nonetheless, I tried to do a decent job, to make the thread a structural repair in and of itself.

As you can see, I’m not an accomplished sewer (and in my defence, it can be quite tough to force a regular needle through a shoe’s upper). Fortunately the mess would get covered up by the patches anyway.

With all the prep done, I could finally get to the patching itself. This was really simple. Essentially, cut out a patch, squeeze glue onto the shoe and onto the patch, place the patch and use the scraper to smooth it out. The patches slide easily over the glue, and they also stretch, so they’re pretty forgiving of mistakes in placement.

Okay, so I made a bit of a gluey mess of this too. But the more glue, the stronger the repair, right?

After a couple days of drying, it was job done! My 3,000km+ Kinvara 12s were renewed, rejuvenated, totally unique & ready to run another megametre or so. Awesome!

Is this virtue-signalling? Am I a hypocrite for buying new daps?

What I do know is I’ll keep running in my newly patched-up Kinvaras. That’s something I’ll take way more pride in than any fancy shmancy new shoe.

Even if they do look like a five year old has had at them with their new art set 😊

#3000kmtoinfinity / #runwithjoy / The Green Runners / Pair Ups

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Running is one thing, but why run these absurd distances? I get asked this a lot.

Ultramarathons cause so much muscular damage, inflammation and endocrine disruption that they can take days, weeks or even months to recover from. If running provides a foundation of health upon which one can build virtue, then ultrarunning is a pneumatic drill attacking that very foundation. So why do it?

When adventurers are asked why they climb Everest, the most common response is “because it’s there”. That is no explanation. The white cliffs of Dover are there, but that’s no reason to jump off them.

Epic challenges are extreme examples of managed risk-taking. At their worst, they can be used as vehicles for self-promotion. But at their best, they’re one of the most effective tools for practicing self-development.

Specifically, they develop endurance and resilience. Together, these qualities breed courage: the ability to face down danger with confidence, in pursuit of one’s values.

To lead a meaningful life, one needs courage.

You certainly don’t need to run 100 miles over mountaintops to be courageous. Some of the most courageous actions I’ve seen have come from people who almost certainly didn’t have a 100 mile buckle, Ironman tattoo, Everest ascent or bungee certificate to their name. Actually, we all have it within us to rise to a challenge.

What ultrarunning does is demonstrate our innate capacity to endure, and to recover. It proves to us what we already have inside. In so doing, it builds confidence, which prepares us for challenges we may face ahead.

So while running builds a foundation upon which we could practice virtue, ultrarunning strengthens our confidence to actually do it.

• One who is kind - compassionate and empathetic, without being oversolicitous to the detriment of one’s own wellbeing

• One who values community - contributing to society locally, regionally, nationally and globally, while maintaining necessary independence & autonomy

• One who is courageous - approaching challenges positively & taking risks, while managing them judiciously

• One who inspires others - uplifting not just oneself but those one encounters, while maintaining self-awareness & humility

• One who is honest - both with others, and with oneself, in service of virtue

To develop these qualities, one must be healthy in both body and mind.

To be healthy, one’s basic welfare needs must be met: shelter, security, clothing, clean air, hygiene, water, food. The next level of health comes from the triad of activity, good nutrition, and mindfulness.

Activity demands good nutrition and enables mindfulness. So atop basic welfare, activity is the foundation upon which the house of virtue is built.

Human locomotion, moving using one’s limbs, is the purest form of activity. It is one of the most effective forms of cardiovascular exercise, and requires nothing more than the motivation to move.

Running is, in my opinion, the height of human locomotion. To run perfectly requires a musculo-fascial-skeletal balance throughout the body. It connects body and mind. It reinforces our connection with our environment. It inspires us to explore our Earth. It is humbling.

Running is the premier foundation of health, upon which we can build our virtues.

Not everyone is able to run, and many who can choose not to. Those of us lucky enough to be able to run, and who practice it regularly, understand this modest activity as one of the greatest privileges in life.

Now you know why I run, you may like to read my follow-up post Why I Run Ultras.

Yet crowds flock to Eryri in their droves. Its panorama is, in a word, epic. Whether bathed in sunshine, or immersed in menacing cloud, the brazen drama of the scenery draws one in like a moth to a light. It simply begs to be explored.

This enigmatic landscape is the theatre of dreams on which the 100 mile Ultra Trail Snowdonia plays out.

UTS describes itself as “the ultimate grand-tour of Eryri”, taking in the likes of Cnicht, the Glyders, Carnedd Llewelyn, Hebog, Siabod and Snowdon (twice, no less). You’d be hard pressed to experience more of this region in a single run.

Being a UTMB race, UTS does bestow on its finishers a number of Running Stones. Happily, I had an abundance of these little activity pebbles in my wallet already, so my interest in UTS was purely in the play itself.

Eryri’s theatre of dreams beckoned. The stage was set. Open the popcorn and ensure you’re sitting comfortably, because the first act of this aleatory farce is about to begin.

Everything Was Going So Unwell

Avid readers may recall I’d run the 268 mile Winter Spine just a few months prior. While I emerged fairly unscathed, I faced an uphill battle to rebuild fitness in time for UTS. Other commitments meant I couldn’t train hills or technical terrain, but I did at least build up to a few weeks of reasonable mileage, giving me some cause for optimism.

This only grew as, with a fortnight to go, one thing after another fell into place. My brother offered to crew me. I squeezed in a rollicking recce of Moel Siabod with my friend Steve. A cobbler resoled my shoes with Vibram Megagrip, giving me a fighting chance over those mighty slippery rocks. Fitness aside, I was really looking forward to UTS.

One week out, I fell ill with something particularly nasty. After enduring a horrific night, my body fought back swiftly, and by the following day I felt much better. But would I be well enough to race?

What I had going for me was having my brother as crew. He’d transport me to Wales, and get me to the start line. All I had to do between now and then was recover. There might be just enough time.

Two days before UTS, my brother called to say he’d contracted some sort of illness. From what I could hear over the phone, it sounded pretty nasty. He’d still be there to crew, he insisted, but thought I might want to travel up separately. Not enthralled with the prospect of fighting a second illness, I agreed that might be best.

I was well past the contagious stage myself, but I still felt less than 100%. With my crew now on half duties (and I wasn’t too confident about that), was running UTS this year going to be a sensible move?

Nonetheless, later that evening, I started planning my kit, and drafting a crewed nutrition plan. This dragged on late into the night, until headache fused with fatigue, and many questions went unanswered.

The following morning, I woke feeling both tired and poorly. I’d planned to leave for my B&B by 10am, and it was already past that. I hurriedly rebooted my gear and nutrition preparations, but under time pressure, I had to draw the line and just pile everything into the car.

I couldn’t think of anything I fancied less than the 4+ hour drive ahead of me.

Many hours late now, I was about to depart when my brother called. His sniffles had gotten much worse, and he wasn’t “entirely confident” he’d still be able to crew me, he expressed through an explosion of coughs and croaks. Never mind driving to Wales and crewing me for 30 hours straight, it sounded like he’d struggle to roll over in his sick bed!

The news didn’t come as a great surprise, but it did leave me standing in my driveway, at a loss for what to do. Questions spun around my tired, headachy brain. What should I do with all the crew bags I’d prepared. Should I just transfer all the nutrition into my race vest? Where on earth would it go, I’d surely need to take a larger pack? What about the real food I’d planned, and what did it all mean for my nutrition strategy? What kit should I to move into my drop bag? Hadn’t I registered for race parking using my brother’s car numberplate?

I glanced at my watch, and fortuitously that draw all the questions to a neat close. It was so late that if I didn’t leave now, I needn’t bother at all.

I dashed back inside to grab yet another box of gels and threw it in the boot, as if that’d solve all my problems. Back in the car, I ran my hands around the steering wheel, feeling its stitching. What did I think I was doing? I couldn’t run 100 miles feeling like this.

Maybe not, I thought. But I could at least run some of it.

Mountain Recrew

As I wended my way along the windy Welsh roads, head slightly throbbing, I found it strange that the car in front of me bore a striking resemblance to my friend Jan’s. Come to think of it, he had mentioned he might come to spectate.

It wasn't long before my car speakers crackled into life to read a voice message: “Are you behind me?” We pulled over in a lay-by, and celebrated the implausible coincidence of our meeting like this.

I explained to Jan that I was down a crew; that I was still feeling under the weather, and might not actually run the race. Jan, being all too familiar with my determined nature, didn’t think it likely that I’d just travelled up here to twiddle my thumbs and spectate. He immediately offered to crew.

Seconds later, like military commanders planning a counter-offensive, we had paper maps draped over our car bonnets, and were frantically annotating them with checkpoint details and ETAs. In the space of 5 minutes, a fresh crew plan had emerged, and the race was back on.

Jan scooted off to Snowdon to catch the sunset from the peak, while I settled into my B&B and headed to bed. I felt immensely fortunate and privileged to have picked up a new crew. But what exactly were my intentions here?

I’d just run the first checkpoint or two, I concluded. I’d experience some of the UTS atmosphere, enjoy the glorious weather that was forecast, and DNF before I made myself any worse. It’d be the best of both worlds.

The morning did indeed bring the most fabulous weather. The latest forecast showed scorching conditions lasting the entire duration of the race. This was exactly what I’d dreamed of for UTS, before my illness…

Race registration was a breeze, after which I met back up with Jan, and my friend Steve, with whom I’d recced Moel Siabod a fortnight prior.

While waiting for the start, I reiterated my plan to myself. I was going to run for a little while, and then DNF somewhere between CP2 and CP7 (the midway point). I’d enjoy some of the UTS experience, without impacting my recovery. It sounded sensible enough to me.

The Race Is Half On

I positioned myself four or five rows behind the starting line. The UTMB arch loomed large ahead of me, while the imposing form of Llanberis’ Slate Museum screened the rear. I spotted Mark Derbyshire a couple of places in front of me, but a few rows back from the starting line. Modest as ever.

The countdown started, and we were off. Boy, were we off!

Compared to many UTMB races that head straight into long singletrack climbs, where it’s easy to get caught behind hoards of slower runners, UTS was a breath of fresh air. The streets of Llanberis are wide and traffic-tree, affording plenty of room to manoeuvre and find one’s place before the long climb up Snowdon via the Llanberis Path, which is almost as wide as a track itself.

I attacked the climb at a decent clip. There were a few reasons for this. First, I wanted to make good progress before the sun hit its peak & things got too toasty. Second, I knew I'd struggle over the more technical terrain, of which there was going to be plenty after Snowdon. And third - I was going to DNF shortly anyway, so there was no point in hanging around.

I climbed up to Bwlch Glas, the turning onto the Pyg track just shy of Snowdon summit, in 65 minutes. Not bad going for the start of a 100. I didn't feel too bad at this point, but conditions were already getting pretty warm. Especially in my present state, I could tell this was going to be a complicating factor.

I’d climbed up the Pyg track a couple of times, but never descended it before. I found it really runnable in this direction. Nonetheless, coming from the flatlands of Hertfordshire I still class this as mildly technical in places. I was unsurprised to see a steady stream of runners overtaking me on the descent, flying over the rocks like the mountain goat I dreamt I was. 

I paused briefly at Pen-y-Pass to refill a water bottle, and dashed straight back off. As soon as I’d left, I realised I'd screwed up: I’d left CP1 half a litre short, and hadn’t added my Tailwind powder.

Also, my throat was slightly sore. That wasn’t good. With a dodgy throat, I really didn’t fancy guzzling down more sugary gels and bars. Yet, that was what formed the bulk of my nutrition strategy. I began to fall behind on my eating schedule.

I felt a bit uneasy climbing Glyder Fawr, as I couldn’t find any of UTMB’s route signage for a while, and the GPX didn’t match any of the trods I could find. Runners behind me followed my lead; so either the signage was missing, or half the field followed a clueless guy with a headache.

The descent took us down Devil’s Kitchen, a particularly steep scree slope. I tried to skid down as efficiently as I could, but my quads still took an absolute pounding.

We skirted Llyn Idwal before cutting back to climb up the saddle between Tryfan and Glyder Fach. The views were absolutely stunning in this glorious weather, and I tried my absolute hardest to enjoy them. After all, these were the UTS conditions I had dreamt of.

But things were quite simply going to pot. I had run out of fluids, and was dehydrating fast. My sore throat was getting worse. That coupled with an unsettled stomach meant I was eschewing all my nutrition, and that was tanking both my energy and my mood. My light headache wasn’t helping matters either.

My decision to start this race was looking more questionable by the minute.

Glan DNF

As I rounded a bend, the welcoming party for CP2, Glan Dena, came into view. I could see a crowd of people atop a small hill politely encouraging the runners down below, exhibiting that typically bashful British disposition and comportment.

Standing proud on a rock in front of them all, gazing out like Columbus from the bow of the Santa María, was a chap occupying an entirely different plane of existence. He was bellowing so loudly that London, Britain, and indeed the whole of the old British Empire could have heard him - except his voice was actually being overpowered by another sound, a clattering of such ear-splitting volume it could have summoned a serpent deity. By shielding my eyes from the sun, I could just make out a wooden rattler in Jan’s right hand, which he was waving around with all the vigour he could muster. If this was a music concert, they’d have shut it down for exceeding the decibel limit. That was my mate, Jan!

Jan is a force of nature, rarely doing anything by halves. If he’s there to support you, then boy is he there to support you, and everyone else. He bounded down to sort out my Tailwind, dowse my cap and try to stuff nutrients into me.

In between bites of a banana, which was something I could actually get down my throat, I ran a sitrep.

I had a headache, sore throat, could hardly eat, was already dehydrated, and was finding it difficult to distinguish my body’s signals between nutritional needs and illness.

While common sense directed me to DNF, that was never seriously on the cards. Not at CP2, not when I was physically capable of continuing. It’s an endurance race, after all. I’d DNF a little farther on, when I was commensurately more broken. That made more sense.

There was no need for me to restock any gels or bars, since I’d hardly eaten any. Instead, I left some of the gels I’d been carrying behind. I might as well save the weight, I reasoned.

Parched on the Carneddau

There was a particularly steep climb up Pen Yr Ole Wen onto the Carneddau ridge, with a decent little scramble around 600-800m a notable highlight. Thankfully this one was really well-signed.

The ridge continued over Carnedd Fach, Dafydd and Llewelyn in a series of gentle undulations. Bathed in the evening sunlight, the ridgeline was a sight to behold. Glancing over my right shoulder, I could see Tryfan looking absolutely resplendent. I recalled seeing the very same sight during Dragon’s Back, moving in the reverse direction.

On this clear day under the setting sun, I should have loved every minute of this stretch. But instead I struggled despondently along it, very low on energy having eaten so little, and growing increasingly dehydrated as I rationed my 1.5L of water in the heat. I knew this would be a long stretch without an opportunity to refill, since CP3 had to be moved out a few kilometres this year. So I just tried to keep some fluids trickling in to ameliorate my throat.

Another change for 2024 was a stipulation that UTS had to avoid the summit of Pen Yr Helgi Du. The route deviation took us along a minor trail cutting across the southern side of the fell. I'd heard this would be one of the more awkward sections of the course.

I found a couple of safety team members waiting at its start, one perched in what looked like a thoroughly precarious position. Squeezing past without knocking him down the fell was the first trick, and the second was safely navigating this little slither of a trail. In places it was worn away entirely and needed a hearty bound to span the gap. This kept my full attention for the duration, which did at least take my mind off of my various ailments.

Finally, the trail rejoined a proper path, before broadening into a wide & dreamy grassy descent. I swigged the last of my water while I floated down the hillside, to intercept a pancake flat path at the bottom.

This was where CP3 should have been. Since they’d been unable to secure land permission this year, I'd have to persevere for a while longer without water.

The first half of the stretch to the relocated CP3 was as simple as they come, with only a series of metal gates to interrupt one’s flow. The second half took us around Llyn Colwlyd. While this had looked fast & flat on the map, the path actually undulated continually through a mix of mud and bog. It was a long old slog, while I and my throat willed this CP3 water stop into existence.

When it came, I was pleasantly surprised. We’d been told this temporary CP would only stock water, but there was a range of Naak nutrition here too. Not that I needed any of it, mind. I was still carrying nutrition from Snowdon. I was just glad for the water refill.

Into the Night

The route south to Capel Curig kicked off slowly with more climbing & thrashing through grassy bogs. As light faded and a runner passed me, I commented that we’d need to don our headtorches pretty soon.

“No, we’ll make it to Capel Curig”, he stated authoritatively.

I raised an eyebrow. While I didn’t know this section of the route, I did know Capel Curig was miles away.

“I’ve recced this”, he explained. “There’s a stretch of technical descent to get through, then a short wood section that might feel a bit dark, but then it’s open and easy. No need for headtorches.” Unconvinced, I let him speed on, while I did my pitiful best over this section with all its rocks and roots.

By the time I reached the wood he’d spoken of, it was properly dark. Under the tree canopy, which supposedly “might feel a bit dark”, it was totally pitch. I shook my head in bemusement, and used the little spotlight on my Garmin watch to illuminate a few metres ahead. After bashing through this heavily rooted path for a few minutes with my arm outstretched, I passed my friend ferreting around in his pack, obviously searching for his headtorch. “Need a light?”, I quipped, stifling a grin.

After the forest, we did indeed reach a road, and then a wide, easy footpath. It looked like my perspicacious compatriot had been right about this, at least - from hereon, we’d enjoy a veritable Autobahn to CP4.

I thought I heard some unusually enthusiastic support up ahead, and sure enough this turned out to be Jan, cheering on runners with gusto. On seeing me, he flailed his wooden rattler with all the energy of a child at an ice cream shop. The vibrations might well have triggered earthquakes in Osaka.

The manicured footpath continued down into Capel Curig. This was a major checkpoint, and one I knew I’d need to utilise if I was going to make any more progress in this race. I simply had to force some food down my throat.

Tunnel Vision

Despite my clear and cogent plan not to leave CP4 before I’d properly refuelled, I pretty much rushed through the aid station. The only thing I stopped for was a piece of bread and a cup of Naak’s “Ultra Energy Salted Soup”, which really was hopeless: an ultra-processed concoction that appeared to be little more than flavoured warm water.

On my way out I spotted a vat of hot food that looked like it could be vegan. I hesitated momentarily… but with my pack back on and already halfway out the door, I made the call to head back on out.

I was keen to get going, I suppose, because I was looking forward to this section over Moel Siabod. I’d recced it a couple of weeks ago, both solo and together with Steve. It’s a simple climb up, followed by a fun, tricky to navigate rocky downscramble, finishing with a boggy trail down to Dolwyddelan. An awkward section; but an exciting one, and even in my poorly state, I was keen to experience it in the dark.

The climb up Siabod went on forever, though. Fuelled exclusively by that thimble of Naak’s weird lukewarm water, I had absolutely no energy in my legs. Meanwhile my sore throat was causing me some confusion. Was it sore because I was under-hydrating? Was it sore regardless, and was I now over-hydrating trying to calm it down? Expecting to DNF, I hadn’t even bothered tracking my electrolyte intake this race.

The night was warm and humid, with very little wind at the summit. I was able to dial in my temperature simply by rolling and unrolling the sleeves on my baselayer. I had to admit, it was a truly awesome evening to be out running.

I struggled to locate any route markers for the downscramble, so relied on my GPX. I tracked it as closely as I could, all the while trying to spot those subtle signs of a travelled route over the rocks.

Being so nutritionally exhausted, my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. So I just took it slow and steady down here, keeping on track and ensuring I didn’t do myself an injury.

I managed fairly well (see the track in red). It was pretty close to my recce with Steve (shown in green), and a huge improvement over my solo recce (shown in blue).

From Llyn y Foel, things got easier. We descended through the bog, crossed the river, and skipped down a singletrack over all the tree roots. Taking it easy on the descent had allowed me to regenerate some much needed energy, just in time to put in a shift on the road leading down into Dolwyddelan.

I desperately needed to fuel myself. The only way that was going to happen was with real food, and I just didn’t have any.

Jan met me at the aid station, where I explained my nutritional predicament in more detail. I could see the cogs whirring in his brain. There wasn’t a great deal we could do to manifest ‘real’ plant-based food into existence, not at 1am in the little village of Dolwyddelan. We made do with the solitary bagel I’d included in the crew bag, and a foraged PB&J sandwich from the aid station buffet.

I also took the opportunity to perform a bit of foot care. I’d been trudging through bogs pretty much non-stop since Pen-y-Pass, so my feet had been wet for 10 hours straight. They were beginning to feel uncomfortable, so a 10 minute airing and a change of socks was just the ticket.

There was a long gap until our next scheduled meeting point at CP9 Beddgelert, assuming I made it that far. So I suggested Jan catch some shut-eye. Jan was having none of it though. Instead, he flipped my suggestion 180° on its head, committing to meet me at the very next checkpoint, CP6 Blaenau Ffestiniog. I was too absorbed in my own problems to argue.

When I left the checkpoint, I checked my progress against my own time estimates, which I’d calculated pre-illness (based around running sub-30 hours). I was surprised to see that, despite everything, I was actually running to schedule. That was a mere curiosity though. I’d DNF soon.

The climb up Y Ro Wen went on for longer than I remembered. For the first time in a while, I found myself alone, with no other runners in sight. This is what I prefer, especially at night. An opportunity to be at one with my own thoughts, and have my own unique experience.

At the top, the terrain transitioned back to grassy bogs, and my feet started swimming once again. Keen to get ahead of the deterioration of my feet, I texted Jan to ask for a change of shoes and my waterproof Dexshell socks at CP6. I soon thought better of it, reasoning that we’d be facing another boiling hot day when the sun rose, and thick knee-length socks would be just about as welcome as a knitted jumper and scarf.

It was still dark when I reached the slate quarry to the east of Blaenau, following which there was a short and fast road descent down into the town itself, where CP6 was located.

I still had all my untouched sugary nutrition, and wasn’t drinking much in the relative coolness of the night. Left to my own devices I’d have run straight past the CP, but Jan met me in the car park to funnel me inside.

He’d been busy since we last met. Somehow, at 3am in the middle of remote Snowdonia, he’d managed to find and prepare a plate of rice. A little bland perhaps, but it was real food, which my body and throat was crying out for. Perplexingly, he’d also found a jar of gherkins.

Another sock change and I was back off. There was a road climb up to Llyn Cwmorthin, before I skirted the lake on trail, and wrapped around for the climb up Rhosydd quarry. In daylight this section’s a sight to behold, with the lake behind backed by the Moelwyn range. There wasn’t much to see tonight.

Once up there, it’s easyish going through the abandoned quarry tips, over moorland and onto a thin trail just above Stwlan Dam. Here, the route cuts back onto a steep scramble up to Craigysgafn and Moelwyn Mawr. I’d run this on my recce, and in reverse during Dragon’s Back. Routefinding up the scramble was much harder in the dark though, and I clocked a 25 minute kilometre here.

I knew what was coming next, too. A really steep, direct descent down the west side of Moelwyn Mawr. This proved to be no more fun than it had been on the recce, but at least thereafter there was just a downhill road sprint into CP7 Croesor, where my drop bag was waiting.

Halfway: A Respectable Place to DNF

At 87km and 5300m v+, Croesor is marginally over the halfway point in both distance and vert. I was 17 hours 40 minutes into the race, and 2 hours behind schedule. By the time I ate, aired my sodden feet, sorted out my drop bag, charged my devices, and decided whether to continue, that could easily grow into a 3 hour deficit. That meant I was on for a 36 hour race. Not a time I’d be remotely happy with.

It was time for some serious reflection. I was not entirely well. I couldn’t fuel properly. I couldn’t hydrate properly. I was carrying a miserable pace over technical terrain, mainly because my headachy brain was working too slowly to plan my foot placement far enough in advance. I wasn’t performing well over the short sections of non-technical terrain either, due to my nutritional deficiencies. I was having an objectively unpleasant experience. I couldn’t articulate what I was hoping to get out of this. And I was wasting Jan’s time - although, he seemed to be loving every minute.

Yet, just like at CP2, pulling the trigger and throwing in the towel felt like a really big decision. I decided to eat first.

The aid station staff brought me a bowl of tinned vegetable curry and rice. This was a huge improvement over Naak’s ‘Salty Soup’ from CP4, but still a far cry from the freshly cooked food you get at many of the independent British ultras.

Behind me, another competitor was DNF’ing, and enquiring about transport back to Llanberis. I bit my tongue, restraining myself from joining him. After all, I’d eaten now. My feet were dry again. It’d be light soon, and the sun would come out. All I had to do was get myself over Cnicht, and I’d be at CP8. Only a stone’s throw from race HQ at Llanberis. DNFing there would be easier logistically, I told myself.

And with that basically random decision, my most likely opportunity to DNF slipped through my fingers.

Chasing the Dragon

As the sun rose and another glorious day dawned in the Welsh mountains, I started my journey to CP8.

Gwastadannas Farm had been our first camp on the 2022 Dragon’s Back race. Revisiting it felt significant, probably because of the emotions associated with that race, and that camp specifically.

For those who didn’t read my Dragon’s Back blog post at the time: after surviving one of the scariest experiences of my life up on the knife-edged arête, thrashing through the pouring rain as darkness fell, and then sliding precariously down the slippery descent from Gallt y Wenallt, I hoped for an oasis of calm and relaxation at Gwastadannas. Instead, I received an official reprimand for missing a dibber at Crib Goch, and found I’d arrived so late that I had to rush to eat to avoid disturbing my tentmates.

Thus, my memory of Gwastadannas was one of the more distressing in my running journey. Making some positive memories there was a subconscious goal of mine. Right now, I was aiming to DNF there, so that wasn’t looking too promising.

The climb up Cnicht started simply, then transitioned to a steep, rocky, hands-on affair. From above, I could hear Jan’s boisterous encouragement echoing around the mountainside. “Come on, get a move on!” “Where did you go? I’m up here!”

When I summited, I found him alongside two race staff, who were wearing tired smiles suggesting they’d never encountered a personality quite like Jan before. “Can you take him with you?” one of them joked. Ha!

Jan gleefully bounded back along the ridge to Gwastadannas, leaving me to my slower, rather more pained trot along this undulating, boggy terrain.

All the bogs were an increasing concern. My feet were deteriorating, and I didn’t know how that’d develop given another 10-20 hours of immersion.

All my issues aside, I had to admit, it was bloody beautiful up here on the Moelwyns.

I passed a runner powering up a climb in the opposite direction, and asked what he was up to, expecting he’d be looping out to Cnicht from PyG or Pen-y-Pass. He told me he’d just started a Paddy Buckley attempt. This made me feel even more dissatisfied with my own performance. Why oh why hadn’t I DNF’d back at Croesor?

Finally emerging from the ridge trail onto a road overlooking the valley, I could see Gallt y Wenallt on the south-eastern extent of the Snowdon Horseshoe; and beneath that, Gwastadannas farm and camping field.

As I approached Gwastadannas, runners from the UTS 50k and 100k races joined from the road facing me. The 50k’ers had run straight from Snowdon, while the 100k’ers were coming from Moel Siabod.

It might help if I explain the route from here. All of us would run south-west together down to Nant Gwynant. While the 50 & 100k’ers would veer off to climb straight back up Snowdon via the South Ridge, we’d continue to loop around Beddgelert, over Hebog, Y Garn, Nantlle Ridge, through Rhyd Ddu, and climb Snowdon via the Rhyd Ddu Path. We’d rejoin the 50 & 100k’ers at Clawdd Coch, 150m v+ shy of Snowdon summit, and thereafter the remainder of the race would be run together.

I didn’t know any of this at the time, and simply felt a bit overwhelmed by the presence of so many other people.

The checkpoint was heaving with runners, all seemingly far more awake than I. Within the big aid tent, there was an area with food (mainly crisps, fruit and Naak products) that was cordoned off for just the 100k & 100 milers. For the 50k’ers, Gwastadannas was only a drinks stop. I grabbed some fruit and sat on the chairs around the perimeter of the tent, observing the other runners.

A steady stream of 50k’ers were trying to enter the food section, but being rebuffed by a member of staff acting as a bouncer. Some looked none too pleased about this. These runners were 15km and 3h 45m into their race, only about 15 minutes ahead of their cutoff. Many of them were obviously suffering badly from the heat, and some had awful sunburn. I reflected that for many of these folks, this could be their very first ultra, on one of the hottest days of the year so far.

Sitting on my chair munching through melon, I didn’t feel too great myself. I was now 3h 30m behind my schedule. It was already a hot day, and would only get hotter over the next few hours. My throat was far from stellar, and I was still eating very little. Most of the carbs I was managing to consume were coming from a bottle of Tailwind.

In my favour, the next stretch down to Beddgelert looked simple enough on the map. Almost flat, broadly speaking. So I considered that DNF’ing here didn’t make any sense either. It’d be much easier to accept a DNF at CP9, with the significant peaks of Moel Hebog and Y Garn right ahead of me.

Dunking the Hat

The path down to Nant Gwynant was indeed straightforward and well-made, which if anything just focused my mind on how crap I felt. I passed lots of chatty 50k’ers, whose interest in the 100M race was heartening, but in my state I could have done without.

The last straw came when the narrow singletrack was blocked by a cow who’d decided the shade afforded by a tree would make a perfect resting spot. I stood there giving him a right bawling out, before leaping over him in a huff. While I didn’t know what a confused cow’s expression looked like at the time, I think I do now. It can’t be every day he gets a furious dressing down from a short bloke with a sore throat.

It was almost the hottest part of the day, and down in the valley it wasn’t just heat but humidity we had to deal with. Along with mild sunburn, I could feel the first signs of heat exhaustion creeping in.

Fortunately this section of the route tracked alongside the Glaslyn river, so whenever I saw an opening at the water’s edge that wasn’t already occupied by tourists, I dashed over and dunked my Saharan hat. It gave me a minute or so of evaporative cooling each time.

Eventually stone walls and buildings emerged alongside the river. I was entering Beddgelert, a picture-postcard little town from what I could see. I passed a riverside café, which sorely tempted me. Up ahead I could see a stone bridge crossing the river, where a few supporters had taken up residence. I heard Jan’s booming voice before I saw him.

I gave him the sitrep: SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up). Nutrition terrible, hydration poor, overheating, tiredness increasing, feet permanently wet, and feeling crap. But on the flipside, the scenery was really lovely.

We entered CP9 at the village hall, where he started unloading containers of food onto a table. I stood looking on, just as confused as the cow from earlier. He obviously hadn’t slept. Instead he’d somehow cooked me salted & spiced new potatoes. Crudites. Guacamole. Dips. Then he presented me with a vegan Keralan pasty. Where on earth had all this come from? I just tucked in. It was bloody delicious.

Halfway through stuffing my face, I remembered I was possibly supposed to be DNF’ing here. That didn’t look awfully straightforward. Jan had prepared this incredible feast for me. Thanks to that, I’d soon be fully refuelled, rehydrated, and re-energised. No, I couldn’t DNF here. CP10, perhaps.

I changed socks again to give my feet a short break from swimming in water, and took a filter flask that I’d forgotten to pick up from my drop bag in Croesor. After almost 45 minutes (!), I headed back out into the heat.

I was now 5 hours behind my original schedule. There’d be no way to finish by the evening, as I’d originally intended. Even finishing overnight looked unlikely. Would I actually be able to checkout from my B&B on Sunday morning? While trotting along, I placed a call to the owner of the B&B, and managed to extend my accommodation. That was a relief. However long I took to drag myself around the course, logistically, everything would work out.

In my mind, that moreorless committed me to finishing the race, otherwise I’d just extended my accommodation for nothing.

So that was it then, the DNF was basically off. How did I get myself into this stupid situation?

The Nantlle Fiasco

There were certain sections of this race I’d been slightly trepidatious about from the outset. The diversion around Pen Yr Helgi Du was one, and the approaching Nantlle Ridge was the other. I’d heard mention of it a few times in the last couple of days. It was, apparently, a feisty little traverse. How feisty, exactly? The last thing I needed now was a Crib Goch-style scramble.

As apprehensive as I was about what was to come, I had to admit, the climb up Moel Hebog was as strikingly resplendent as it was accessible. Bedecked in bluebells under the warmth of the early evening sun, I couldn’t help pausing to soak it all in.

There was a fun little scramble up to the top, but when I turned right and saw the direct grassy descent, I grimaced. It was steep. At about 6500v+ into the race, that wasn’t what my quads wanted to see. I zigzagged my way down to limit the damage.

The next couple of fells were similar. The last had an extremely steep climb up, and another quad-wrecking descent. This whole ridge through to Rhyd Ddu is on the Paddy Buckley round; not an easy section to hammer out, I’d wager.

At this point, I was struggling with a few new problems, including chafing. This was probably due to my not keeping on top of things throughout the race as I ordinarily would, since I’d been planning to DNF.

So, with pain building and any time pressure relieved, I struck up conversations with other runners to distract myself & help the miles tick by.

The heat continued through the day, and aware of the distance remaining to CP10, I began to ration my water. So I was pretty chuffed when I passed couple of safety team members propped up beside a large boulder, offering a water top-up from a large water bladder. Spiffing!

I could see what looked like a rugged ridge up ahead, and wagered that was Nantlle, the source of my present angst.

A couple of runners I’d spoken to earlier were waiting for me at the base of the climb, which really confused me. In races, runners waiting for one another like this doesn’t happen - not where I usually am in the pack, anyway. It turned out they were confused about why I’d dropped back earlier, after showing some bursts of speed, and wanted to check I was okay. I grinned, and suggested they read my blog post later.

These runners were two friends, a male and female. The male was an experienced climber, and the female a runner who had attempted UTS before. She’d almost finished, only DNF’ing painfully close to the finish after suffering from severe sleep deprivation. She vaguely recalled Nantlle as being exposed and sketchy, which did nothing for my mood. Like I say, I really didn’t fancy tackling one of Crib Goch’s cousins today.

So, I made the calculated decision to hold myself back and stick with the pair. If this was to be a dodgy knife-edge scramble, then in my present state, and no longer caring about my time, I’d prefer to traverse it with company. With that decision made, the ridge turned into quite a chatty affair, though thick with trepidation on my part. I stuck behind the pair, always wondering when we’d reach the scary bit.

The scary bit never came. There was no exposure, nothing of any concern in fact. For the most part it was perfectly runnable. The latter section was indeed rocky and technical, but a decent route through was always pretty clear, and I could have moved really efficiently if I’d tried. Either I’d misinterpreted their warnings, or we just had radically different levels of comfort on terrain.

Emerging out onto the grassy side of the fell, I wished my Nantlle compatriots well and pulled away, trying to make up some time descending the eastern side of Y Garn.

I reflected on what’d just happened. I’d spent hours tentatively picking my way over a dangerous ridge that had turned out to be a nothing of the sort. In fact, it would have been really good fun had I not been worrying about what was coming next.

Originally, I’d predicted this stretch from Beddgelert to Rhyd Ddu would take me 3 hours and 30 minutes. Another runner had told me 4 hours was a common estimate for mid-packers. It’d actually taken me 6 hours.

I was pretty disgusted with myself. Jan had probably given up on me and gone home.

Supporters were gathered outside the car park on the A4085. I could hear Jan’s cheery, raucous welcome above all the others. Somehow, he was still not just still awake, but having a total blast. I reasoned he must be setting new records for the amount of coffee consumed without sleep.

CP10 was in the Rhyd Ddu Outdoor Centre. All I really needed was a water top-up; but with no time pressure any more, it made sense to use the opportunity to prepare well for the coming night, and graze on Jan’s buffet. I only had a simple up-and-over Snowdon before the next CP anyway.

After 20 minutes stuffing my face, I was back on the trails clutching a bagel and a couple of waffles. It’d be a wonder if I could physically haul myself up the mountain with all this food in me!

Approaching 40 Hours

Feeling pretty tired, and with no motivation to push myself (what for?), I settled for hiking up the Rhyd Ddu Path. In the process, I scoffed all my ‘real food’ and put my headtorch on, ready for my second night in Snowdonia.

Shortly afterwards, a large group of folks caught me up, screaming, laughing and jostling. They seemed to be supporters on a break, looking to bag a summit, quite possibly after a bevvy or three.

Having caught me up and surrounded me, they made no effort to move on past. So I found myself trapped amidst this chaotic cacophony of noise, raucous antics and blinding headtorches. After 35 hours, a tanked-up teenage knees-up wasn’t what my headache needed.

I tried slowing down so they’d move on, but those in front just slowed to match my pace. Instead, I decided to step on the gas and leave them behind.

I enjoyed a brief stretch of peace and quiet in the darkness, until the 50 and 100k’ers joined from the south at Clawdd Coch. We had a rocky ridge run to reach the Watkin path, and Eryri’s visitor centre, around which was a veritable hive of activity.

The night air seemed thick with particulate matter on the run down to Bwlch Glas. It felt like sand. Were we encountering one of those sandstorms blowing up from the Sahara? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, so I stuck to nasal breathing, while wondering whether I was losing the plot.

From here, I had half of the Ranger Path to descend (which I had passing familiarity with), before splitting left onto a lesser path that led down to CP11. Here, I enjoyed the peace and quiet I was looking for again. Around me, I could see the traditionally UTMB sight of headtorches snaking up mountainsides. Glorious moments like these are why we run.

The lesser path that broke away from Ranger changed all that. Wet, overgrown and a bit of a hackathon, it had me moaning and groaning once more, eagerly looking out for anything down below that looked like a checkpoint.

Half an hour of sloshing through water later, I arrived at CP11, a classic UTMB-style marquee in a field next to Cwellyn lake. I expected I might not find Jan here; after all, not even Jan could crew through two nights straight with no sleep. So I was amazed to find my dependable one-man crew here, dutifully laying out the real food buffet he’d manifested through magic and alchemy.

For the first time I could see he looked tired, and he divulged he was going to head to sleep afterwards. This was the last place he was permitted to crew me before the finish anyway, so he’d literally done the whole thing without a break. He was the one who deserved a medal!

I grazed on potatoes and guacamole, in no great rush to get going. There didn’t seem any point in rushing things; this venture had ceased being a race a long time ago. In the end, it was another lackadaisical 30 minute turnaround.

I set back off on autopilot. There was only 8km and one hill to CP12. After that, just 16km and one hill to the finish. It didn’t get much simpler than that.

Within a couple of minutes I’d dunked my freshly dried feet back into a huge puddle, and picked up a singletrack through a muddy wood. Fallen tree trunks littered the path, piled high in places like walls. It was slow progress until it broke out onto an undulating grassy plain, from where I could see headlights ahead of me snaking up Mynydd Mawr. This was another atmospheric sight that brought a smile to my weary face, one that made my decision to continue seem worthwhile.

Unlike last night, the temperature was dipping fast. As I began the ascent, the wind really picked up, so I sheltered beside a rock to don a windproof and beanie. It seemed like a long climb up to the nondescript rocky summit. Covered in mist, it had a slightly eerie quality to it.

The descent down loose scree was fairly steep, which I tried to float down as freely & effortlessly as I could, despite the tightness in my quads.

It was 3am when I trundled into Betws Garmon. The route took me into a motorhome campsite, where everyone was surely tucked up soundly in their beds. I turned down my headtorch, and did my best not to disturb anyone.

It transpired the final checkpoint, CP12, was in a marquee just adjacent to these sleeping campers. So there’d be no raucous last checkpoint party here, then.

I found a real motley crew of runners hiding out in this subdued marquee. Most looked thoroughly beat, but there was one who was upbeat, sharing information on the route ahead based on his recces. According to him, there was a circuitous route leading to a wood that he described as “really shit”. However, the last 5k was a road run where we could really “open up the taps”. Based on the expressions on the faces of these runners, I hypothesised this tap might not produce a deluge so much as a trickle.

While I was there, a couple of runners who traipsed in out of the night looked like they were really struggling. I tried my best to perk one up who looked severely despondent, but that was going to take more than some comedic anecdotes and words of encouragement. Maybe I wasn’t best placed to be giving motivational speeches anyway.

I downed some tea, bananas and crisps, and sorted my fluids. 25 minutes had flown by, and I’d been socialising for far too long again. It was time to get it done.

Out the campsite, the route took me up into yet another wood. It was tricky going through here, with thick mud sucking me into the ground, countless streams and deep channels needing navigation, and more fallen trees blocking my path. Entering my 45th hour without sleep, the pitch darkness under the tree canopy did me no favours, and I could feel tiredness setting in.

As I emerged from the mud-wood, for the second time on this expedition, I could see a new day was dawning. The light from my my headtorch flashed a few times to warn me of its impending death. I’d only need it or another 10 minutes or so, so I resisted changing torches.

I knew I was getting close to the finish now, and I even recognised snippets of the route from a run I’d done some years ago. Those little moments of déjà vu felt both exciting and disconcerting in equal measure, as I couldn’t shake the niggling sensation that I could be in a dream…

Only some 10km and the summit of Moel Eilio stood between me and the finish, assuming I was indeed in the land of the living. While these thoughts flitted around my addled brain, a rock ahead of me morphed into an animal, and a wave of tiredness flooded my body. Within seconds, my eyelids closed, and I found I couldn’t reopen them. My brain was shutting up shop. This was it, I realised. My body was done.

Should I be surprised? I’d battled through poor fitness, illness, that interminable DNF debate, dehydration, sunburn, heat exhaustion, the inability to eat for half the race, chafing, consistently wet feet, and worries about the technicality of the route ahead. I’d run 158km, climbed 10km, and been awake for 46 hours and counting. Now it was all catching up with me, and I couldn’t see where I was fucking going.

This felt just like the Spine. It was early on, approaching Malham CP1.5, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d staggered, zigzagged, instantaneously fallen asleep and woken up as my body collapsed to the ground like a puppet. Well; bingo, here we go again.

The thought that I’d been through this before was the one ray of hope I could cling to. I forced Tailwind and mouthfuls of sugary chews down my throat. I took off some clothes to make myself cold. Then I put on extra clothes to make me overheat. None of it helped.

I physically held my eyeslids open, and I staggered on, flitting into and out of consciousness, stumbling over the rutted trail and veering uncontrollably into the undergrowth.

After the trail turned back on itself to head up Moel Eilio, as much as I was trying to physically hold my eyes open, I just couldn’t. They snapped firmly shut. Then I couldn’t see. I had to stop.

I dumped my pack on the grassy hillside, and collapsed onto it. Arms crossed, I let out a loud sigh. 160km done. I was already most of the way up the last peak. I only needed my broken body to transport me another measly 7km, mostly downhill.

But my eyes were closed, and my brain was shutting down. I had to sleep.

“If I hadn’t been ill” thoughts flooded the few active neurons in my brain. If I hadn’t been ill, I’d have thought to pack some caffeine or chilli. I’d have fuelled and hydrated consistently. I’d still be treating this as a race. I’d have finished fucking hours ago, for Pete’s sake.

If this, then that. If that, then the other. Meanwhile, I was falling asleep. I shook my head. I was out of ideas, and out of shits to give. I should have DNF’d back at CP9, 8, 7… 2... Hell, I should never have started.

Was sleeping on the course permitted, or was that a mountain rescue + DQ offence? I hadn’t looked into the rules. If it came to it, I’d call it in and DNF myself here, I decided. I mean, it looked like it was going to be a lovely morning. What better place to DNF than on the side of this grassy fell, with these glorious views, snuggling up and getting some much needed rest. I laid my head on the grass.

I could hear someone approaching. I forced my eyes open, and with some effort I managed to bring the blurry image into focus. There was another runner, climbing up the grassy path. My first reaction was embarrassment to be caught splayed out on the ground, wrecked. But then a lightbulb pinged in my head.

Talk to him.

I leapt to my feet and whipped my pack onto my back. Trying to sound as nonchalant as I could, as though I’d just stopped to tie a shoelace, I cried out “Hey, how’re you going chap? Cracking morning isn’t it!”

And with that, we struck up a conversation that jolted me back into the land of the living, and kept me going all the way up Eilio.

As we approached the top, my companion glanced at my race bib to catch my name, and in so doing spotted I was on the 100 mile race. He did a double-take.

“Oh Christ; I’m so sorry, I’ve been holding you up!” he exclaimed, visibly anguished by the thought that he might be delaying my progress. Despite my reassurances, he stood his ground and urged me on, clearly believing that I was only accompanying him out of sympathy. I just laughed, explained the pickle I’d been in, and how his company had saved my race.

In a way though, I realised he had a point. After that chatty hike, I was feeling wide awake and re-energised. I didn’t need to be traipsing around any more. It was time to part company.

Bidding my compatriot farewell, I shot off over the undulating ridgeline feeling like a man reborn. I loved the fast grassy descents, and enjoyed powering up the climbs. For the first time in a couple of days, I felt like this was a race. A race. Remember those? It sounded super fun!

I managed a few overtakes, and got myself into a battle with a runner who seemed determined to retake his place. That wasn’t going to happen though, because I was racing now. Moreover, this was the endgame, the final 6k or so. I don’t cede places at this stage of a race.

Foel Goch was the last mini peak, after which it would all be descent. I allowed gravity to carry me down the steep-ish fell, until I shot past something pretty crazy. A runner was descending the trail barefoot. I questioned my own sanity; but no, there he was, genuinely barefoot. I shouted “that’s amazing!” back at him, but still couldn’t quite believe it, so I called it out a few more times.

Later, I learnt this was Ivan Hrastovec. A runner with a UTMB index of 821, he’d recently taken to running big races entirely barefoot. A race like SDW100, I could just about imagine running barefoot; very slowly, after many years of practice. But UTS, with consistently unforgiving rocky terrain? That’s another level. That’s impossible. At least, I’d have said it was, had I not witnessed Ivan doing it with my own eyes.

Anyway, that was it. The fell popped me out onto a stony road which transitioned into a tarmacked running superhighway. It hugged the side of Foel Goch, overlooking a valley backing onto Snowdon. I could see Llanberis emerging ahead, and focused on maintaining a good pace to the finish. The route dropped down into the valley, to rejoin the route I’d run out on almost two days ago.

I gave that final descent and run through Llanberis everything I had. Approaching the slate museum, I managed one last overtake, and gave a wry smile as I passed under the UTMB arch.

I felt nothing as I received my medal and put on a smile for the camera, because this wasn’t really a finish. This was something else, a perplexing 42 hour aberration born out of intransigence, or indecision, or… I racked my brains, trying to articulate it.

There, I’d hit upon it. This aimless 42 hour exercise in endurance was a DNDNF. A Did Not Did Not Finish.

Runner Without a Cause

This 100 miler had one of the highest DNF rates of any race I’ve run, 62%. To put that in perspective, it’s higher than the Winter Spine. The only major race I can think of that it’s comparable to is Dragon’s Back.

So, an awful lot of people dropped out. Why didn’t I?

I left it to circumstance and judgement. The problem with this strategy becomes clear when you consider the whole point of an ultra is to push your limits and grow as a person. Unless I broke a leg, got hypothermia or fell down a gully, I was never going to DNF on a strategy like that.

I shouldn’t have started, or I should have prearranged an exit point.

Maybe one day I’ll go back and do UTS properly, maybe I won’t. Whatever I do, I’ll be sure to run races only when fighting fit from now on. For me, while races are to be conquered, they’re also to be competed & enjoyed. Conquering alone doesn’t cut it.

As I close the curtain on the final act of UTS 2024, I hope I’ve given you an insight into how the lack of a clear plan caused a series of (in)decisions that led to my finishing a race I had no intention of completing, and would have done better not to start in the first place.

I doff my cap to my friend Jan’s awe-inspiring effort crewing me over 42 hours straight, while also running up mountains, cooking buffets and encouraging literally the whole field. The poor guy only came to Wales to spectate! Head over to Savage Trails on Youtube to be uplifted & inspired by his quintessentially epic, continent-scale adventures - you’ll see what I mean.

I am now the (not very) proud owner of a shiny UTS medal. Every time it catches my eye, I furrow my brow and give a wry smile. A medal for kicking the proverbial can down the trail for 42 hours. A medal for unpreparedness. A medal for a rebel without a cause.

A medal for a DNDNF.

The first lesson, therefore, is to start planning kit early, and aim to have everything together some months before the race begins. 

I heavily based my kit choices on James Elson’s fantastic Spine kit breakdown, available on YouTube and the Centurion website. I'd highly recommend following his advice first and foremost. 

What follows is an enumeration of my main kit selections, observations of how well they worked, and notes of anything I'd change in future.

Footwear

• La Sportiva Cyklon Cross GTX boots (with another semi-size up pair in my drop bag)

• Inov-8 TrailTalon 290 shoes (in my drop bag)

• Dexshell Compression Mudder socks (with multiple spare pairs in my drop bag)

• Yaktrax Pro microspikes

The Cyklons were a solid boot. The waterproofing was probably handy in keeping my socks dry from the outside in, and the closed design meant I didn't need gaiters to keep the debris out. The grip was pretty good for the non-iced sections.

I find Boa fastening systems both convenient and frustrating in equal measure, because I find them really difficult to tighten sufficiently (if the dials had some wings protruding from them, it’d be much easier to get purchase, but the tiny grooves aren't enough for me).

Did I need a boot-style shoe? That's debatable. For the first stretch, certainly not, but it was a nice luxury when the snow got deep.

I switched to the TrailTalons for one stretch to give the soles of my feet a break.

The Dexshell socks were great, keeping my feet 100% dry & clean. I did struggle with sore patches on the soles of my feet though; whether this was solely impact forces from the frozen ground, or whether wearing the Dexshells played a role, I don't know.

The Yaktrax were extremely effective, but I found the size I bought didn't fit very comfortably over my Cyklons. This meant I didn't wear them, and consequently I spent much of the race falling on the ice.

What I’d change

I didn't need waterproof boots in the conditions I faced. If conditions were similar again, then I’d just wear a regular, nimble trail shoe such as a TrailTalon, Hoka, etc.

For favourable stretches, I'd probably choose a more cushioned shoe than I normally wear to reduce impact on thr soles of my feet. 

I'd ensure I have at least one pair of shoes appropriately sized for Dexshells with a liner sock. It may be that I'd even start in that dual-sock configuration.

I'd either take some nanospikes to wear over my shoes, or a pair of Blizzards (which have them built in).

I’d test the Yaktrax beforehand to ensure they were properly sized for my shoes.

Handwear

• Montane Fury gloves (with spares in my drop bag)

• Montane Prism Dryline mitts (with spares in my drop bag)

I wore the Fury gloves like a liner, often with the Dryline mitts over the top. 

It was sufficiently cold that the Fury gloves sometimes felt pointless, or even counterproductive. I'd ball my hands up within the gloves for extra warmth. 

The Drylines were excellent. I had attempted to attach them to my wrists using looped elastic attached with bowline knots. The idea was sound, but my knots were not, and they quickly came undone.

What I'd change

Rather than attaching the elastic loops with knots, I would sew the loops to my mitts.

I might opt for a warmer liner glove, or.have one in reserve.

Headwear

• OMM Core beanie (with spares in my drop bag)

• Montane Punk balaclava

• Montane waterproof cap

• Various buffs

• Bolle Tracker 2 safety goggles

The OMM beanie was great. It's not too warm, so it was useful across a wide range of conditions. Most of my midlayers had hoods, and this was how I added warmth over the modest beanie. 

I used the balaclava a couple of times, which did what it said on the tin, but I disliked the claustrophobic design and removed it as soon as I could. 

Surprisingly, I did use the Bolle Tracker goggles on a couple of brief occasions. A headband is very helpful in keeping them attached to your head, especially when you're dealing with many hoods and a head torch. The headband on these, though, came unattached quite easily, and was really fiddly (read: impossible) to reattach in the field.

What I'd change

I found adjusting head warmth principally using hoods to be quite awkward (4-5 hoods is a bit much!) So I might go for fewer hoods, and more/warmer beanies. Possibly 2 OMM Cores, and a SealSkinz waterproof beanie.

I'd definitely take a less claustrophobic balaclava.

I'd also look for a more robust set of goggles. Failing that, I’d find a way to make their headband attachment more permanent.

Upper Layers

• Montane Phase Nano waterproof

• Montane Featherlight windproof

• Montane Fireball Lite

• OMM Core fleece (multiple)

• Montane Protium Lite midlayer (multiple)

• Inov-8 L/S Half Zip midlayer

• Patagonia L/S Capilene Cool (multiple)

• Patagonia L/S Capilene Midweight

My baselayer was the Capilene Cool, often paired with the Protium midlayer and Featherlight windproof. I added the Core when I needes more insulation, the Fireball for a lot more insulation, and the Phase Nano for rain, or just out of desperation for extra warmth. The Capilene Midweight and Inov-8 mid were typically in backup, added only when things got really severe. 

The layers were highly flexible, but as it turns out flexibility wasn’t what I needed. Changing layers was such a big job (with such a large pack, multiple gloves, all the hoods and so on), that I only did so when absolutely necessary - when I was physically overheating, or absolutely freezing.

Case in point - on day 1, I started in far too many layers, and only removed them gradually over a series of stops, while overheating the whole time. On later days, I struggled to get enough layers on quickly enough as temperatures dropped overnight (I needed to minimise time stopped with gloves off, lest I freeze, and so I found it tricky to put on more than one layer at a time).

The 5+ hoods became quite complex to adjust especially when wearing a headtorch, and with gloves and mitts on. Fewer hoods would have been simpler.

What I’d change

What these particularly cold temperatures needed were fewer, more heavyweight layers. I would need to research my options. 

Lower Layers

• Patagonia Strider Pro shorts

• Helly Hanson Lifa tights 

• Inov-8 Trailpants

• Montane Spirit Lite (in the drop bag, in case conditions warranted it)

One person started in shorts, and probably swiftly regretted it. 

I wore two long layers plus shorts for the duration. That may have been a bit much for the first stretch, but otherwise worked well. 

Storage

• Montane Gecko VP 20+ pack

• Naked Belt

I really like the Montane Gecko packs, so taking the VP 20+ was an easy decision. It worked well, with a couple of notes:

1. I suffered from shoulder pain after CP1. To mitigate this, I pulled the front straps tighter, doubling them over in what was a time consuming process every time I needed to take the pack off or put it back on.

2. The side pockets are brilliant; but they are also open, so I worried about things falling out every time I took the pack off (nothing ever did, but it consumed mental energy)

The Naked belt was a useful addition. In particular, it allowed me to store a water bottle close to my body, which proved to be my only way of keeping some water from freezing.

What I'd change

I should have trained more with a fully loaded pack, and I should have addressed existing shoulder issues prior to the race. 

I'd also give some thought to making the front straps more easily adjustable on the go.

Poles

• Leki Neotrail FX One Superlite

While I carried them for the duration, I think I only used them in the first 50km through the Peak District.

I probably overused them in that first section, out of an abundance of caution to preserve my muscles for the 268 mile distance. After growing frustrated of how they were impeding my gait on the flatter sections, I simply resolved not to bother with them again unless I felt a climb particularly warranted them. 

While the Spine does summit numerous fells, it didn't feel like a particularly mountainous race. Given my personal preference is only to deploy poles on long climbs, such as those in UTMB-style Alpine races, they just didn't come out again. 

What I’d change

Would I bring poles a second time around? I'm undecided. 

Note that I expect this determination is quite uncommon, and that most Spinners would consider a good set of poles a basic necessity.

Sleep Kit

I simply followed James Elson’s advice:

• Thermarest Hyperion 32F/0C

• Thermarest Neoair Uberlite

• Terra Nova Moonlight

• Vango Ultralite 600 (in my drop bag)

I had absolutely no intention of using this on the trail, so it was purely a question of safety. 

That said, I did test it on an overnight wild camp prior to the race. I found the ¾ length mat highly frustrating, leaving my lower legs and feet touching the ground. The sleeping bag was just about sufficient on what was a pretty cold night, but needed extra clothes when temperatures hit their overnight low. The bivvy bag was basically a body bag with a mesh section over the face, which I found awkward and uncomfortable in equal measure. In combination, it's an emergency solution, not something that is likely to afford a decent sleep. That was fine for my purposes.

I packed a second chunky Vango sleeping bag in my drop bag for use in the checkpoints. In reality, many of them provided bedding, and I didn't actually deploy it. 

What I'd change

I’d add something suitable for use as a pillow to my drop bag.

Cooking Kit

• BRS 3000T stove

• GSI Bugaboo 400ml pot

• MSF 110g gas

• MSR piezo lighter

• True folding knife

• Basic folding spork

I had no intention whatsoever of using the cooking system. Frankly, I couldn't even imagine using it in an emergency. The chance of me deciding to brew a cup of something on the trail was, for all intents and purposes, zero.

Electronics 

• Petzl Nao RL headtorch with a spare Petzl R1 battery

• Fenix HM65R-T headtorch (backup)

• GPSMap 67i 

• Garmin Forerunner 955

• Garmin Enduro 2

• Anker Powercore 5k battery pack (with spares in my drop bag)

While not a fan of Petzls with their reactive lighting, I made the decision to deploy the Nao RL in favour of my trusty HM65R-T in order to better balance the weight between the front and back of my head. I reasoned that might be important on a race of this duration, and I am happy with my decision to do so. 

I opted to take a full-fat GPS device in the form of the 67i. It was useful on a few occasions, particularly along Hadrian’s Wall, but this was only really because I'd loaded Lindley’s lower resolution GPX files onto my GPS watches. Carrying such a hefty GPS handheld was probably overkill.

I took two watches for a few reasons. First, I could balance the battery drain. I put one next to my skin, just recording location and HR, always on a low frequency update screen (i.e. the battery drain was mainly from optical HR): and I wore the other over my outer layer, with optical HR disabled, but showing nav (i.e. the battery drain was mainly from map rendering). This meant I didn't need to worry as much about watch recharging at checkpoints.

Another reason was for redundancy. Garmins do occasionally crash, in my experience. I didn't want to have to deal with technical troubleshooting in the middle of a 268 mile race, in negative whatever degrees. While I had a very capable 67i handheld in reserve for nav, that's not something I want to carry in my hand for prolonged periods. If there was any problem, I wanted to be able to switch nav to the other watch, and keep going. 

What I'd change 

I'd probably take a smaller and lighter handheld GPS. I have a basic old eTrex, and that'd probably do. 

However, I’d also mitigate the risk of having to use that simpler handheld GPS device. The key thing here is to load Lindley’s higher resolution GPX file onto my watches, rather than his pre-split, lower resolution ‘watch files’. I'd split that big file into six CP segment files first.

Arriving into the last checkpoint, well ahead of cutoffs and in decent shape, is a huge milestone in any race. Whether you’re climbing up the leaderboard, or clinging on for the finish line, you’re almost certainly going to finish. Congratulations, that medal is as good as yours!

The rule of finishing once you reach the last CP in good shape is generally universal. It’s been true for me in all my races, up to and including the Arc of Attrition and Dragon’s Back.

The same cannot be said for the Spine.

I don’t just say this because I’d travelled 370km. Or because I’d run for days, battled weather and temperature extremes, injured myself, and endured sleep deprivation and hallucinations.

Nor do I say this because of the distance yet to run. While 70km isn’t small beer in any race; let’s face it, if I can run 370k, I can probably run, walk or crawl another 70.

I say this because of what was still to come. The Cheviot hills, in winter.

I’d never visited the Cheviots. I just knew they were steep, rugged, very remote, totally exposed to the Scottish weather, and not to be trifled with in the middle of January. The mitigating factor was the two mountain safety huts. Members of the Spine Safety Team would be held up in each of them, ready to render assistance, should it be needed.

The Cheviots were playing on my mind precisely because of the weather I’d already endured. If it was particularly bad, as it was forecast to be going into Friday and Saturday, then things might get quite hairy up there.

So when I arrived into Bellingham checkpoint, I was in an odd, melancholy frame of mind. I was pleased to have made it this far in the face of my various challenges, but wary of what still lay ahead of me. I had to make the right decisions here. For example, leaving tired would not help my chances of crossing the Cheviots safely. Nor would leaving without enough warm clothing, or high calorie food.

Bellingham checkpoint was a modest lodge room, with a simple raised floor made of wooden boards. You could actually see through the gaps to the ground below. While it was a sunny day outside, it was a bit chilly inside. The lodge’s water pipes had frozen, so volunteers had to carry water in by hand.

I took a seat near the door, put my devices on charge, and grazed on some vegan sausage stew, a banana, and some crisps. The weather whiteboard was propped up opposite, warning of strong winds with some pretty low feels-like temperatures, -18C or something of that ilk. Pretty cold, anyway.

There was one further monitoring point before the Cheviot hills, 27k away in Byrness. There would be hot food, and a church where we could sleep if needed. So if I didn’t sleep here at Bellingham, I’d have another chance at Byrness (albeit a sleeping-bag-on-church-pews sort of affair).

I didn’t feel particularly tired right now, and it was still light outside. I reckoned I’d be better off using the remaining hour or so of daylight to make progress toward Byrness, rather than trying to force myself to sleep here.

What I felt I needed here, though, was just some time to myself. My melancholy state of mind had to be entertained, and then steeled into the warrior mindset I’d need to battle through this fearsome section to the finish. So I spent some time reflecting on my journey thus far, and then I caught up on my messages. I had to laugh at one of my running club’s posts – I recognised the photo of me from earlier in the day at Hadrian’s Wall. I had no idea how they’d gotten hold of the photo so quickly, and yet they’d already integrated it into a dotwatching meme. Pretty cool, I thought!

A kindly volunteer popped over to talk to me, tactfully hinting that I ought to get a move on. Bellingham is where participants have a tendency to laze around, ostensibly sorting out kit, while in practice doing sod all. I could see it across the room. Faces like mine, reluctantly contemplating what was still to come, questioning their life choices. This was where you decided whether to quietly retire, or to go for it.

I settled on a simple strategy for clothing: pack everything. I had to factor in that it was quite a nice day at that precise moment, still and sunny down in the valley. I’d start wearing just three layers, therefore I had to cram even more into my Montane 20L pack and my Nakd band. By the time I was done, my pack in particular was bursting at the seams. Even so, I wasn’t convinced it’d be enough.

After kit check, I made a complete hash of actually departing. First off, I lost my electrolytes, and had to ask for my drop bag to be returned so I could retrieve some more. Then I dropped a mitt, for the thousandth time, and had to search all over the grounds to find it. Finally, I couldn’t find the electrolytes I’d literally just picked up, and lost another 5 minutes searching for them. I eventually found them stuffed into one of my side pockets, beneath two pairs of mitts (perhaps keep that to yourself, I don’t want everyone thinking I’m some sort of bumbling idiot!)

The climb out of Bellingham began beautifully, in highly palatable conditions under the setting sun. The grassy hills transitioned to moorland, then the usual icy flagstones of the Pennine Way appeared, dotting a familiar line through the scrubland. I slipped and slid my way along the stones, while the last vestiges of civilisation faded behind me, and day turned to night. 

Gosh! A gust of wind chilled me to the absolute bone. That’d come out of nowhere. Definitely time to add another upper layer. I dug around my bulging pack to find my OMM Core fleece. As I was zipping it up, another gust hit me. A fleece was a bad call, I obviously needed a windproof. I dug out my Patagonia Houdini jacket, usually very effective at cutting out the wind, and pulled that on as well. 

The next gust caused me to cock an eyebrow – that windproof wasn’t going to cut the mustard at all. I dug around my pack again, and pulled out the big guns, my Montane Fireball Lite. No sooner had I put that on, there was the next big gust, and I stalled, gauging the situation. This still wasn’t going to be enough. The wind was literally arctic. I pulled out my Montane Phase Nano, and added that over the top. While I had my pack off, I also dug out my SealSkinz beanie, and a buff. It was quite a comprehensive transformation within the space of just a few minutes.

All that extra padding soon came in handy in an a completely different way. Overgrown scrub obscured many of the flagstones along here. Unaware of what lay beneath, my foot landed on a hidden ice sheet, and I slid off down the path, completely out of control, flailing my arms hopelessly. There was nothing to stop me, and I just kept going.

Finally, I managed to stumble out of it, crashing wildly through scratchy vegetation, only to career straight back onto the icy flagstone path and into yet another terrifying slide. 

With no idea what lay ahead, such as the side of the mountain, I took the decision to try to launch my body sideways into the moorland. I came crashing down onto a spiky bed of vegetation. I lay there for a minute, collecting myself, trying to work out what on earth had just happened. My headtorch was all askew, so I straightened it back up, and peered behind me to see where I’d come from. I could see my slide stretching back through the ice all the way into the distance, as far as my light could illuminate. It looked absolutely mad.

I ran some self tests on my body. Nothing seemed to be broken. My hip had taken another huge whack, but at this stage, I wasn’t even paying attention to stuff like that. I got back underway, pretty shaken from the experience.

It was pitch dark now up on the moor, and even setting the windchill aside, temperatures were plummeting. It was starting to feel extremely remote up here, without a speck of light, or a hint of anything other than this exposed, hilly moorland in any direction. A little further on, a couple of pinpricks of light materialised in the distance. What on earth were people doing out here, at this hour, I wondered?

It turned out to be a Spine Safety Team vehicle on an intersecting road. “How are you doing?” they asked. I assumed they were trying to gauge whether I was hypothermic. 

In these temperatures, I didn’t want to stop, even for a moment, so I tried to think of a short response that would put their minds at ease and allow me to run straight past. “Eh, I’m not a fan of the cold”, I quipped, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m more of a summer guy. I’ll max out my layers when I get to Byrness”.

That seemed to do the trick. But the truth was, I only had my mandatory spare baselayers, a balaclava and a second pair of mitts left in reserve.

The route eventually broke right onto a forest road. I checked my handheld GPS, and saw it descended much of the the way to Byrness. Awesome. I flicked into autopilot, coasting down in a dreamlike state. Trees flashed past me like I was staring out of a train window.

My GPS track had other ideas though. Now it was routing me offroad, through some questionable undergrowth, which ran parallel to the road just 15 metres away. It didn’t really look like a path. Was this just an inaccuracy in the GPS track? Some folks had clearly bashed their way through here at some point, but had the tens of runners ahead of me really done this too? I was very sceptical.

Not wanting to risk taking an easier route than I ought, I took the bushwhacking route. I brushed aside branches, leapt over treetrunks, picked my way through spiky things, carved a path through shrubs, and generally destroyed my clothes. Whether I was doing the right thing, or whether I was being a complete idiot and should be on the road, I honestly couldn’t tell.

Things got worse when I reached ground level and the river Rede. On my handheld GPS, it looked like all I had to do was track the river from here to Byrness, but could I find a path? I trudged around the woodland, searching high and low, zigzagging back and forth using two separate GPS devices. I sat down on a fallen tree trunk, feeling despondent. Byrness was really close, but there was no way to get there.

At a loss for a route forward, I tried to forge a path through a bamboo-like mini-forest, but just became physically entangled in the stuff. It took me a couple of minutes to extract myself. Grumbling most emphatically now, I crashed through some shrubbery, only to stumble out of the wilderness onto a perfectly manicured path. Its sandy surface glinted under my headtorch like the needle in a haystack. Opposite was a Pennine Way waymarker, standing proud. I’d found it!

Back on autopilot, I cruised along my highway to Byrness in a dreamlike daze.

As I entered the town, I was astonished to see another friend. I assumed that, like Ivan, he had come to support me. He started running alongside me, offering to run me into the checkpoint. “Sorry, pacing’s not allowed”, I blurted out, slightly panicked. He grinned and explained he was working on the Spine Safety Team. 

While I heard the words he said, it look a while for my brain to catch up. I insisted on standing still and chatting about the perils of the last section of the route. “Are you planning to sleep in the church?” he asked, probably hinting that it mightn’t be the worst idea. Probably not; I hoped more food would wake me up, I said. 

At Byrness monitoring point, I was led through the building into a sort-of conservatory at the back. It was small & cosy in its way, and when I slumped into a comfy chair, I felt a lot better. This monitoring point was unique in that it provided hot food, though it retained the 30 minute time limit. I was handed a tea, and a towering bowl of vegan mince and mash. I worked my way through it, whilst also stripping off my upper layers, so I could add my one remaining spare baselayer.

“Would you like another portion?” the chef asked, beaming at me. I was pretty full after that massive serving, but given I had the Cheviots to conquer, I figured that mightn’t be a bad idea. “Just a half portion”, I replied, miming the same with my hand. A couple of minutes later, I was handed yet another mountainous portion, even larger than the last.

I’d only just made a start when I thought to ask how much longer out of my 30 minute allowance I had remaining. “Four minutes”, the volunteer replied, seemingly unconcerned. Seeing my jaw hit the floor, he added “It’s longer than you think”.

I looked down at my huge bowl of mince, and my fresh cup of tea. My race vest was unpacked. My watch was charging. My 7 upper layers were strewn around me. My hats, gloves, headtorch and shoes were… I didn’t even know. It’s longer than you think. I was about to be bloody disqualified again!

I shovelled the mash down my throat, swallowing without chewing and using the boiling tea to wash it down. I haphazardly pulled on some of my upper layers, and then just shoved the rest in my pack. I forced my feet into my shoes, scooped up all my accessories and dashed out the door, crossing the threshold in 30 minutes on the dot. Safely outside the monitoring point, I could breathe again! I dumped everything on the ground, and started to sort myself out.

I felt a sense of relief that all the checkpoints and monitoring stations were behind me. I effectively had all the time in the world to get myself the last 40km safely over the Cheviots. ‘Safely’ being the operative word.

As I set back off toward the A68, I found myself hobbling. It seemed one of my many earlier falls had damaged my left foot more than I’d realised at the time. Was it going to improve, or worsen? I must be mad, setting off over the Cheviots in these conditions, bloody hobbling, I thought.

The Pennine Way followed the A68 for a few hundred metres before turning off to climb up the Cheviots. If I wanted to sleep, I only had to proceed 100m further along the A68 until I reached St Francis’ church, where I could have rolled out my sleeping bag and caught 40 winks. I knew it would be too exposed up on the Cheviots to rest up there. This was my last chance.

I thought back to the hallucinations, the falling asleep on my feet earlier in the race. But then I thought about the weather forecast, which predicted worsening conditions as Friday drew on. And I thought about my foot, which might seize and deteriorate if I laid down.

My bad foot swung the decision. Insofar as the tiredness was concerned, I hoped I’d be able to use sugar, dehydrated meals in the two mountain safety huts, possibly some caffeine gels (which, admittedly, I’d never used before), and my own adrenaline to get me through. So, that was it. I committed to finishing the last 40km non-stop. I hoped to hell I hadn’t made the wrong decision.

The first stage of the climb up the Cheviots warmed me up quite nicely. It transitioned into a short rocky scramble; quite exciting in its way, before it broke out onto flatter grassy ground. I passed over Windy Crag, an undulation that, ironically, shielded me from the wind that gave it its name. Here I took the opportunity to don all my remaining upper layers before continuing. I could tell I’d need everything I had from now on.

There wasn’t as much snow up top as I’d expected. There was, however, plenty of ice on the flagstones. It was very cold, very windy, and very remote. In many respects, it was quite similar to the fell I’d crossed between Bellingham and Byrness. The main difference was this was a couple hundred metres higher, and commensurately more extreme in every aspect.

Despite the remoteness, there were lots of tracks and trails up here, a mix of major and minor routes. In the pitch darkness, with only my little illuminated oval of mysterious, icy, boggy moorland, there was absolutely nothing to orient on. So it made for tricky navigation every time the path divided.

The pain in my left foot & ankle was a growing concern. The last thing I wanted was to have to stop up here with an injury. The conditions were too severe, I reckoned, to survive for very long while stationary. How much use the bivvy, airbed and sleeping bag would be was questionable. So I forced myself to slow down, limiting the impact forces that could further inflame my foot. My pathetically slow progress proved an ongoing frustration.

I spotted some fleeting dots of white light in the sky a few times, and assumed they were either stars or planes. It was quite impossible to tell. They kept coming and going. At one stage I could have sworn they looked larger and brighter than astronomical entities or airborne craft. Were they coming closer? They disappeared again. I cracked on, stuffing Veloforte chews and gels down me, in a losing battle to stay warm and awake in this extraterrestrial environment.

Something was approaching from my side. It was thrashing through the vegetation. It had to be an animal. Did they have cows up here? Deer? Antelope? Wait; there was a light. It was human. What on earth was a human doing up here? Who the fuck was this, and what did they want? I could make out an outline; there were poles, flailing wildly on both sides. The person was crashing through the undergrowth. Now I could see a face. It looked anguished, distressed, discombobulated.

“Where’s Hut 1?” the person shouted at me. An overwhelming sense of urgency reverberated from every syllable he spoke. “I need the medics in Hut 1. Where’s Hut 1?”

“Woah, slow down”, I replied, trying to calm him down. “My name’s Adrian. What’s yours?”

I established that my compatriot was alright himself, but there was another injured party up here on the fell. Apparently, he was experiencing severe abdominal pain, and struggling to move. Worryingly, we didn’t know where he was.

I turned up the power on my headtorch and scanned the surrounding darkness, trying to spot anything untoward. Seconds later, I heard a familiar sound – the sound of undergrowth being crushed. A light emerged over the brow of a fell, and I finally caught a glimpse of the injured party. We had located our casualty, and he was mobile.

As soon as I got close enough to see his outline, it was all too apparent he was struggling. He was bent double over his poles, resting from the exertion of getting this far. Then, when he raised his head, the suffering was unmistakeable.

He described the pain as the worst he’d ever experienced, and gave a brief history of its development. It had begun the previous day, and he’d already been inspected by medics at the last checkpoint. Clearly, his situation had deteriorated fast up here on the Cheviots.

While he rested, I spoke with his helper to formulate a plan. There was no phone signal here. I had the two hut locations marked on my handheld GPS, and made a rough calculation that we were some 2.5k away from Hut 1. That was our nearest target. Some of the unease of my compatriot rubbed off on me. It was too cold for our casualty to be moving as slowly as he was, and if his condition deteriorated any further, we could be in serious trouble.

I talked the helper through the route to Hut 1, and he agreed to assist the casualty, who was in no position to navigate himself, along the route. Meanwhile, I’d run on ahead, and bring back help as quickly as I could. That way, in the event he became immobile, we’d hopefully be able to get him assistance before his temperature dropped too far.

With that decided, I sprinted off along the path to Hut 1. My foot pain was long forgotten, and instead I threw caution to the wind, hurling myself down descents, leaping over rocks, skidding over flagstones. Anything to get there faster. Minor injuries were no longer relevant.

It was when I passed the fourth or fifth trail split that I stopped to question the wisdom of the plan. Of the two of them, only the helper was in a position to navigate. Given how far they’d been off-path, and without a handle on which direction the hut was, he’d obviously been struggling. It was easy to see why: he was visibly tired, and stressed by the situation. Even in the clearest of mental states, navigation along this stretch wasn’t simple. If they went off-route, while I brought medics back this way… no, this was not a good plan.

I turned around and sprinted back to the pair, who I was relived to find tracking along the right path, albeit even more slowly than before. The casualty’s pain had worsened.

We had another chat, where I gave the casualty a binary choice. 1) Bivvy down here, activate your SOS beacon, and I’ll take a grid reference and bring back help to this location. 2) We continue as a group of three, to make sure we get safely to Hut 1.

The casualty chose the second option, which I quietly agreed with. If you’re still mobile, no matter the pain, then keep moving. That’s the option with the best chances in this weather.

We continued as a group, with my running part-way ahead and shining my torch back along the path, to try to avoid any routing mistakes. When I reached a vantage point a few hundred metres from the hut, I sprinted off to rouse the Safety Team. I was surprised by how unperturbed they appeared by the news of a casualty out on the fells. They tried to encourage me inside to get a cup of tea, but I was having none of it, and sprinted back off to locate my party. They followed shortly behind me. In retrospect, the news that he was close by and mobile was probably not cause for significant alarm.

Nonetheless, it was a huge relief to us all when the two SST members joined us to walk our casualty down the final stretch to Hut 1, performing medical triage as they went. Our casualty visibly and audibly perked up upon sight of them, which was massively reassuring to the helper and I.

Hut 1 was a very simple construction, not unlike a heavy duty garden shed. It was dark inside, but I could just about make out a little wooden bench wrapping around all sides. The second the casualty sat down, I could see all the pain drain from his face, to be replaced with a beaming smile. The pain only came when he stood up, he explained.

One member of the SST roused a medic from the tents outside, and returned to continue questioning the casualty. The other SST member started brewing us some tea on a little JetBoil, and asked me to recount the full story.

I started to run through the series of events that’d occurred since the helper first barrelled through the undergrowth to demand the location of Hut 1. As I spoke, he started messaging HQ, relaying the outline of what’d occurred. He stopped me to ask for our race numbers for the report.

The other two went first, then he did a double-task when I told him mine. The other two runners were running the Spine Challenger North race, he pointed out to me. It’s the same route as the Spine, but starting somewhere near CP2 – so, 100ish miles shorter. Realising I’d been going for much longer than the other two, he suddenly seemed quite concerned about understanding my condition, and getting me any help I might need.

But I was still distracted, listening in to the casualty’s conversation. It was only when the medic stepped into the hut, introduced herself and started assessing him that I finally relaxed. For the first time in almost an hour, I felt I could refocus on myself. I was surprised to find I was holding a cup of tea. I even had to remind myself what I was doing here, up in this dark, chilly mountain hut.

I finished telling our story, and the SST explained he had asked HQ to consider a time bonus for me. He showed me the text, which mentioned I had “seemed very concerned”. That’s one way of putting it, I thought.

Only when I finished my tea did I remember the helper sitting in the darkness to my right. He’d hardly said anything since we entered the hut. He was clasping his cup of tea, looking deep in thought. I should move position to make it easier for the SST to speak to him, I thought. Was I done here? I was supposed to be having one of my dehydrated meals. But that’d take a while, and my muscles had already cooled right down as it was. I looked back at the helper, and figured I should really go, and make space for them both to be attended to properly. After all, I was alright.

I thanked the SSTs and medic. I wished the casualty a speedy recovery, who was about to be retired and evacuated. Finally I gave the helper a friendly punch on the shoulder and wished him a strong finish. I desperately hoped he’d be able to pull himself back together from this stressful experience and finish his race. With the help of the SSTs, I felt confident he would.

For the time being, I was still pumped with adrenaline. I got back underway at a significant pace. It wasn’t just the adrenaline causing that though. All the sprinting back and forth, throwing caution to the wind over the ice, had fundamentally changed me. It had engendered a new energy and confidence. There would be no return to my cautious approach from before the incident.

While I welcomed my new, more confident attitude, it wasn’t without its risks, I reflected. Also, the pummelling my left foot was taking couldn’t be doing it any good. And I hadn’t eaten at the hut as I’d planned. Once the adrenaline wore off, would that come back to bite me?

The adrenaline did wear off, and when it did, I crashed hard. Tiredness hit me, and I felt awful. But I still had the momentum from earlier. I kept forcing down gels and chews, trying not to lose that momentum, in spite of how I was feeling.

The terrain grew tougher as I headed further north into the Cheviots. The snow multiplied, the terrain grew much hillier, and the wind absolutely howled. At one point, approaching the top of a climb, the wind caught me from behind and physically blew me up the climb. I felt like I was flying.

I was getting very tired. This seemed to correlate with a weird property of these flagstone climbs. Atop each ice or snow-covered slab was a crude artwork. They were intriguing little things, in black, crafted in a similar style to Banksy. They came in themes. I’d get 30 odd stairs with different faces from popular movies. Then phrases. Then some really intriguing, original creative artworks. Who’d been out here, drawing all these things? And why hadn’t I heard they existed?

The weirdest thing was how they weren’t simply painted. On the snow covered stones, the snow itself had formed into these shapes. It was as though the snow had been attracted to the material used to draw the artwork, or conversely had been repelled or melted. It didn’t make any sense to me.

I got down on my knees to observe the artwork at close quarters. I brushed the snow away. It sure seemed real, I could physically interact with it. I felt really confused.

The artworks got stranger, and darker. They lost their amusement factor. Golly; it was getting weird up here, wherever on earth ‘here’ was. I’d never run through a landscape quite like this before.

After such a successful period of running, I was probably overdue a fall. At the base of another flagstone climb, after passing through a rare style alongside a wire fence, I slipped on the ice. I tried to break my fall with my hand, which caught in the wire fence. My thumb got twisted right behind by hand, then I crashed down hard onto my hip.

I lay on the ice, writhing in pain, staring up at this dark climb to oblivion as the wind gusted over and light snow landed atop me. I’d really buggered my hand.

It took me a minute or two to stand up, being stuck in the middle of a large patch of slippery ice, with a heavy pack on my back, and unable to use my left hand. I’d removed my mitts to eat, so my hands were now very cold. Putting my left mitt on was extremely painful, as I tried not to move my thumb more than absolutely necessary. To pull my right mitt back on, I tried to use my smaller fingers, but eventually resorted to using my teeth.

The Pennine Way climbs most of the way up the big hill called The Cheviot, up to about 750m altitude. From here, it wraps back around and descends down to Hut 2. The climb up the Cheviot featured some of the weirdest maybe-hallucinatory snow artwork I’d seen yet. As I climbed, the weather deteriorated, with wind and snow building.

As I summited and ran along the top toward the descent, I started to get an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I seemed to know what was coming around each corner. Had I been here before?

I stood at the top of the descent, shielding my eyes as I faced into the ferocious wind. I pulled out my goggles, but as I did the strap ripped off. With my mitts on, my left hand injured, and snow in my eyes, I couldn’t re-affix it. I tried just putting the goggles on over all my hats and hoods, but I couldn’t get them to stay on without the strap. I’d have to manage without them, and shoved them unceremoniously into a side pocket.

I started barrelling down this steep snowy, rocky descent, and felt I knew exactly what was coming. I knew the terrain, the turns, the direction the footprints would go. I knew every inch of this descent. This was strange, because I’d never been to the Cheviots in my life. I rationalised it by reasoning that I must have watched a Youtube video long ago.

A member of the SST was waiting for me a short distance outside Hut 2. As he walked me in, he explained that I’d been awarded 35 minutes of ‘good Samaritan’ time. “It must have been quite something. What did you do?” he asked.

Having just experienced a thousand Banksy artworks in the snow, and a descent that I knew every metre of without ever having seen before, I wasn’t in the mood to go into every detail. “Just what I could”, I replied.

Inside the hut, two other runners were in the process of departing. They looked like they meant business for the final section to Kirk Yetholm. I was offered a tea, and accepted, though not really fancying one. As I saw the pair departing, I immediately regretted it. I wanted to finish ahead of them, whoever they were.

It took quite a while to boil the water on the JetBoil. I drummed my fingers obsessively, completely forgetting to use the time I had here to prepare for the final descent. After all, dawn would soon break, and I’d surely get hot sprinting down the descent wrapped up in every single piece of clothing I had. Anyway, I downed my tea as quickly as I could and set back off.

My left foot was really hurting at this point, but I pushed that to the very back of my mind. Race mode had been reawakened in me. I had to catch the two runners ahead of me for a start, followed by anyone and everyone else I possibly could.

In my haste, I neglected my navigation, just as I was passing the photographer. At full speed, I hurtled down a descent, then back up it; then into deep snow, then back out again. Goodness knows what the photographer must have thought of me. Most likely something along the lines of “that poor sod, he’s completely lost it”.

I may have temporarily lost my sense of direction, but I was only sharpening my focus and determination. I really wasn’t going to mess around on this run to the finish.

With that in mind, and realising I was now sweating buckets with my effort level under a rising sun, I had to stop to do what I should have done in the hut, and undress. I spent a good few minutes stripping off four upper layers, and compressing them all into my pack. I was freezing when I set back off, but that was fine. I just had to run faster.

I opened up the gas over the tops, winding around The Schil and Black Hag with real purpose. I passed some runners on a hill climb who might have been the two runners from the Hut, but I didn’t really care. My goal had morphed into getting to the finish as quickly as I physically could.

I hit the mountain road, and resolved to leave absolutely nothing on the table from hereon in. While it was still quite icy in parts, I employed every technique I’d learnt over the course of the race to run even the iced sections at full speed. I was razor-focused on what I was doing now, and didn’t fall once.

The lower I got, the more speed I built. When I joined the final road into Kirk Yetholm, I saw a runner ahead walking a particularly steep incline. It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d sensibly run near the end of an ultra. But I shot past him at 400m sprint effort, driving myself up by chanting “empty the taps”. I heard an exclamation of surprise, but didn’t look back.

The last half kilometre of the road gently curves into the town, where the race finishes on the green in front of the infamous Border Hotel. I came in at 4 minute k’s, which certainly felt like a full sprint pace at the time.

I approached the finish line to a rather amusing sight. A lone photographer, pelting out of the Border Hotel looking like he’d seen a ghost, with his camera arm fully outstretched, frantically snapping photos in my general direction. More Spine staff followed, who urgently reminded me to “TOUCH THE WALL!” It’s tradition that you only finish the Pennine Way when you touch the wall of the Border Hotel. Amidst all the excitement, I’d forgotten that!

I learned I’d arrived far, far ahead of my estimated time, hence the confusion at the finish. I wasn’t surprised; that last section from Hut 2, I’d treated like a race.

Standing outside the Border Hotel, I found I felt just fine. My injured left foot, that I’d been so worried about exacerbating into a serious injury with my sprint descent, seemed instead to have been fixed by it. My left hand, with the busted thumb, was much better. My hip didn’t seem to be carrying any serious injuries. I could hardly feel my ‘non-blistered’ soles. My shoulders were fine. And I didn’t feel particularly tired. Moreover, that proper run down from Hut 2 had been great fun. I wouldn’t mind doing that again.

I was led inside, through to the runner’s area, where I received a medal, certificate and finisher’s t-shirt. There was a bit of a queue for a shower, so I was brought a bowl of warm water to soak my feet, and a delicious chilli and rice dish (on a proper plate, with proper cutlery – ace!)

Most importantly, I got to fly my Palestinian flag.

Because, in the end, that’s what this run was about. Palestinians’ lives have been run by an occupying force for decades. Now they’re running out of food, water, medicines, and shelter. Women have run out of sanitary products and toilets. Hospitals, to the extent that any remain, have run out of the most basic supplies, like anaesthetic. Gazans have been run out of their homes, and most of their homeland. They are ultimately being run to their death. 5% of Gazans have been killed, maimed or injured since October 7th.

This is called genocide, and our government is supporting it. They’re providing the political, military and logistical support that Israel needs to continue its ethnic cleansing. Internally, our government is trying to silence dissent, by stirring up religious and racial tensions, gradually unwinding the right to protest, and using Orwellian doublethink to mislead us.

I have a responsibility to demand my government respect human rights equally, no matter the race or religion.

In short; that was why I ran, and managed to finish, the Spine.

Thanks for following the journey with me, I hope you got something out of it. And a particular thank you to the hundreds of you who wrote messages of encouragement during my race, and have subsequently congratulated me and commented on my race series. You’re awesome!

I will try to follow this up with a piece to explain the kit I used during the Spine, and what I might change next time. You know, just in case I’ve inspired you to fill in the Spine entry form next year…? Don’t all jump at once!

Ultimately, my Legendary Triad conception blossomed into a truly prodigious journey of exploration, from the coastal paths of Cornwall to the Cheviot hills in Scotland. I’ve pushed harder and further than I thought possible, in both body and mind. I’ve battled around some of the most difficult coastal path in the country, conquered Crib Goch, named a region ‘the Alpennines’, tasted that legendary Chilliewack, met some truly inspiring people, made memories for life, and still don’t have a clue what it means to tape a foot.

My place in the race – 29th, but who on earth cares. It was the human experience that mattered.

Race is irrelevant. Human rights are universal. Peace out

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