Montane Spine Fusion 2018
Montane Spine Fusion 2018
The Montane Spine Fusion is a continuous foot race of 268 miles along the whole length of the Pennine Way, Britain’s first and toughest National Trail. The race has a time limit of 7 days / 168 hours. The race takes place in June and is the summer version of the infamous Spine Race that takes place in January.
Prologue 1: Friday 30th June 2017 00.15
I’m sliding down a steep bank through soaking elephant grass somewhere around Stonehaugh. Every rotation of my foot opens up the blisters on my heels, and every tussock of grass tips me forward, lunging and flailing my poles in desperate disarray. I have been circling a cottage for about 45 minutes trying to find where the Pennine Way passes it and I am completely unable to relate the murky features I can just see through the rain in front of me to the map on my GPS.
I resort to bushwhacking in a straight line, oblivious to contours, vegetation, walls and common sense. The effects of rain, wind, extreme fatigue and cumulative sleep deprivation over the past 6 days have reduced me to a waterlogged, blithering wreck. I’m getting nowhere fast and the cut-off demon is sat on my shoulder, it’s fetid breath whispering exhortations to quit. I can’t raise the energy to scream into the abyss, but it screams back regardless.
About 2 hours later, at the Bellingham checkpoint I make the first rational decision in many hours and retire from Spine Fusion 2017, crushed.
Prologue 2: Saturday 26th May 2018, late afternoon
A quintessential English sunny afternoon in late spring. I’m feeling strong, loaded pack, ready for anything and on my fifth recce of the Pennine Way this year. I crest the rise and follow the footpath through the trees, past the garden of the cottage, and onto the metalled track down the hill.
So that’s where the path goes. What was all the fuss about?
Prologue 3: January to June 2018
As tends to happen I don’t have much of a plan for Spine Fusion 2018 aside from actually finishing the bloody thing this time. January comes around not with a kick started sense of purpose but with a continuing sense of ennui and lack of direction. Sensing lack of commitment in the mind, my body decides that it will join the party by throwing it’s own two cents in. Out of nowhere I develop chronic ITB pain in my right leg, rendering any running impossible and forcing me to turn to Dr.Internet for answers.
The best answer comes in the form of an attractive American physio on YouTube, demonstrating a range of ITB remedies including something called clams which I find strangely arousing. I lie on the floor of the lounge, opposite my iPad, getting well clammed until I’m better. Once I’m better I lie on the floor with clam lady for another couple of weeks just to make sure.
Unfortunately it’s now late March and I’m way behind schedule. But as I didn’t have a schedule anyway, I reckon that’s probably OK. My mojo returns and I start kicking it - short flat runs along canals when I’m away at work during the week, and long hikes at the weekend when I can. I recce the whole of the Pennine Way with the exception of the 30 or 40 mile section around Cross Fell where public transport logistics seem to make it just too difficult. I’m covering 50-60 miles a week and feeling pretty damn perky. I lose nearly a stone and fit my favourite disco pants a bit better.
Obviously I’m buying stuff like a champion all through this period. Lithium batteries, biltong, merino underpants, Injinji socks, Altra boots, freeze dried meals, gas... all ready for packing week, which actually lasts two weeks, commandeering the dining room table. I dissect my perfectly serviceable A-Z maps of the Pennine Way, laminate each page and then assemble them into cable tied booklets for each section of the course. I make them heavier and less usable in the process, but that’s not the point. I’m making a commitment.
I never look at the maps once during the race.
Saturday 23rd January 2018 08.00
Seven days is too long
 |
| Pete. And me. |
It’s here.
A stressful week at work is behind me and Carole has joined me on Friday night for a burger in the Ramblers Inn and a night in the camper van in the village hall car park. I know this is every woman’s dream, and I’m happy to make this big hearted gesture before leaving her for, hopefully, the week.
I’m on the start line with Pete Owen, entered in the Flare. We buddied up last year and have met a couple of times since, notably at the Rebellion Ultra where we both gave up when it got a bit hard. He’s good company, and a tireless advocate for scotch eggs. We shared a rough plan to basically get in and out of CP1 at Hebden by midnight, without the pointless and sleepless stopover that we both had last year. Woo get me! I’ve got a race strategy!
The start line is the usual hubbub of banter and nervous energy, with added extra colourful trousers courtesy of the German contingent. I think there’s a bit of a countdown and then we are off, jogging, at what will be the fastest pace of the week. It’s all a bit tiring to be honest and I’m happy to break into a march once we turn off the road and onto the PW proper. Pete and I are chatting happily until we get to Jacob’s Ladder where I suggest that we might wish to "focus on the climb", my shorthand for shut the fuck up.
Up on the plateau all is good with everything just where I left it last time I was up here with Carole a couple of weeks ago. Someone seems to have taken all the water though, and Kinder Downfall is as dry as Bonneville salt flats. The weather is as benign as it will be all week: hazy sunshine with a pleasant breeze - jogging across the slabs is really quite pleasant and I pass a few runners from my local club coming the other way. Always nice to see friendly faces.
Snake Pass comes and goes with a quick chat with the Safety team then it’s on to Bleaklow and the tedious descent to Crowden, about 3 miles from where I live. Carole comes out to meet us with Jax the dog, and I enviously eye another runners fruit cake at the water stop. Humour good, bottles filled and onto Laddow Rocks and Black Hill via Soldier’s Lump. The Black Hill climb is as dull as ever but this early in the game it is easily ignored while thinking about the possibility of a burger van at Wessenden.
Which isn’t there obviously. Not that I’m short of food, and I’ve been chomping steadily all day- trail mix, haribo, biltong and lots of miscellaneous pasties, cheese and onion slices and so on. Pete is doubling down with a sack full of ham and cheese sandwiches so between us I don’t think we are in danger. Would have liked a burger though. Boo.
We pass a girl who is about 1 foot high and carrying a 6 foot rucksack. She has walked from Dover and is heading up the PW to Scotland. She has also run out of water but tops up from the Spine safety team: lucky find I’d say. We jog down past the reservoirs (really!) and up the steep bank towards Standege and the M62, spirits are good, nonsense is talked and miles chip by. We pass Dick Slack and bump into Geordie Tony, competing in the Flare and head down to the White Horse together for crisps, coke and lime and soda. Kevin Otto is in residence at the end of the bar, laconic and unruffled.
Some other stuff happens and soon Stoodley Pike is priapic on the skyline, pulling us towards Hebden. Plunging down the hill we pass a straggly bearded man in hobbit shoes, devoid of context or apparent purpose. At the bottom of the climb out of Hebden we encounter Kevin again, reclined on one elbow as if expecting someone to drop grapes into his mouth. I’m impressed with his relaxed approach and make a note to try and emulate it.
The sharp climb out of Hebden isn’t as bad as I remember and we are soon heading up to the road off which the checkpoint is located. It’s been light for hours but becoming dusky and out of nowhere I find as I emerge onto the road, thatI have lost Pete. This is not too worrying but slightly annoying because he’s quite big and I can’t think where I left him. I’m sure that he will be fine, but there is an outside chance that rogue denizens of Hebden Bridge could be out roaming in their Birkenstocks, looking for people to heal with crystals or on whom to perform open-chakra surgery with scalpels made of hemp. I decide I should find him just in case he’s stubbed his toe or something.
Obviously I can’t be bothered to actively find him by actually looking in the physical realm, so I break out the race tracker on my phone and note that he is with Tony, evidently moving, and heading down the road away from the checkpoint turning. I call him on the phone and point him back in the right direction. Assuring me he’s ok, I drop down the slithery path (slither free today) into the CP and he follows not far behind.
The CP has grown a baggage room at the back which makes things infinitely better than faffing with kit in corridors which is what happened last year. Some light kit faffing is done, I load my pack with my next bag of food, batteries and map then it’s off to find food. I can’t quite remember what it was but I remember eating my own plate and the full plate that someone had left on the table. Lovely.
I think we eventually leave about 01.00, a bit behind schedule but comfortably ahead of last year.
Sunday 24th June: Hebden Bridge to Malham Tarn
Separation Sunday
We set off. Rough plan: NO...SLEEP...TILL...TOP WITHINS! And that’s pretty much what happens. The night is pleasantly cool, head torches barely required and the going is good. We natter about all sorts of nonsense for hours, one conversation cheerfully concluding that the best time to get a heroin habit is when you are retired and have the time, money and failing health to properly enjoy it. Not quite sure how we got onto that one.
The easy climb to Withins Height at 450m concludes with dawn breaking and the cloudless sky hints at the day ahead. We drop down the path to the bothy and unfurl sleeping bags for an hour’s kip on the benches.
All quite agreeable so far and as we set off we are already thinking about the possibility of breakfast at the Hare and Hounds in Lothersdale. Before that though we drop off a hill and find an ad-hoc medic point by the road. Cowling maybe? Tea is offered and accepted, and locals appear like beneficent apparitions, bearing trays of egg sandwiches and wholemeal toast. Absolutely magic.
We have to crack on though, because two miles later we have the Hare and Hounds where there's no breakfast, but pork pies and flapjacks are on offer. I know we have just eaten, but never leave a calorie unconsumed and all that. Kevin is in residence, dissecting pork pies (He's on a low carb diet evidently, not preoccupied with some kind of food surgery hobby) and looking studiously relaxed as usual. I eye his mounting plate of discarded pie crust enviously but hold back from moving in on it. Coke drunk, toilet action attended to, water bottles filled and it’s off into the warming morning sunshine.
It's worth noting the obvious: it's now getting bloody hot, high twenties definitely. We cruise through Thornton around noon, get onto the canal for a bit, miss the turn off and have to back track. By the time we arrive in Gargrave by mid afternoon it's absolutely baking. It's been a good few hours since the pork pies and despite some interim snacking it's definitely time to hit the Co-Op. Hard. It's blissfully cool inside the store and I idle by the chiller cabinets pretending to read labels on stuff. I roughly scope out the lower tiers of the chiller, wondering if I could lie down in there for a stealthy snooze, hidden under coleslaw tubs and Ginsters pasties.
I exit with a good haul. As I remember, family size quiche, 2 mini quiches, family size potato salad, 6 chocolate macaroons, Calippo, chocolate, cheese and onion slices. Seems like a reasonable lunch and I sit in the cool of the bus shelter to eat most of it. Pete seems to have attracted a slightly deranged old woman who he humours with endless patience. I wonder if we can get her to carry the rest of the shopping to Malham - she looks about our pace .
The flat section along the river through Airton and Hanlith is tedious and hot. We grab a 7 minute micro-snooze in the shade of a tree, cutting a dash like a pastoral English landscape painting, only with two sweaty blokes in it, panting.
The phone alarm goes off, and it's up and off towards Malham. There's a Flare casualty sat outside the pub in Malham, his feet decimated by blisters. We quaff a quick pint of lime and soda and a bag of crisps while we try to get him to crack on a bit further. He's done though and has already called HQ for an extraction. His first ultra I believe - good effort. Random observation: someone drives a 66 or 67 Ford Mustang Coupe past the pub. Straight 6 I think rather than the V8, but lovely, quite fancy one of those.
The climb up past the Cove is easy and strong despite the heat. The plateau and gulley however are relentless and irritating. I had forgotten just how long those limestone rocks go on for after the top, and how they taunt you:
"A little lateral flexion sir? of course. How about a nice ankle roll? What about a pole-slip, back twist forward lunge? We've got a special on toe-stubs if you fancy that? Available for the next 400m or so. Just head up to that section that looks like an easy grassy plain and start your swearing there. By the way, I've just phoned up ahead to the Tarn and put the midges on standby. They're looking forward to welcoming you. And not meaning to be nosey sir, but you might want to start thinking about whether those aren't a few hot spots starting to form on your feet. My pleasure sir!"
And onward. The trail twists round the Tarn, flat and easy going and perfectly runnable. If you could be arsed. Which I frankly can't and I don't think Pete can either.
CP1.5 is fab. This year it has moved over to the right of the track from the field centre and in a small midge-free room. The lovely medics give my feet the once over (not too bad actually) and I avail of a freeze dried meal out of my pack and a cup of tea. There's some runners in who are chatting, and one looks like he's dead, but still sweating and breathing if that is possible. If he's not dead he's in a state of committed repose. I bump into Peter Gold for the first time and he looks askance at the inter-breeding of my UD pack with an OMM front pouch. Works for me but I did tend to overfill it.
It's now about 9pm, 37 hours in, and we have had an hour's sleep and a couple of micro-naps. I'm still actually feeling pretty strong, particularly after the grub, but we resolve to maybe have a quick trail side kip later if needed. I've had my sleeping bag, bivvy bag and air bed in my pack since Hebden and not really had much use out of them but I would sooner be over quipped that under.
We both agree that Fountains Fell is a right pain in the arse. Easily navigated yes, but it seems to go on for too long and it has a bit too much of a sense of it's own importance for my liking. The top isn't particularly epic, and it's all a bit meh. Pete reckons he knows of a special sleeping hollow that we can use, and I excitedly picture a secret cave with sandwiches, humbugs and lashings of ginger beer. We fail to find it, so we have a 10 minute lie down in a ditch instead. It's past midnight as we descend and eventually hit the road that leads to Pen y Ghent. Humour is good. A solid 7/10.
At the bottom of the Pen y Ghent climb proper I'm feeling strong and decide - in order to get it out of the way - that I'm going to beast it to the top. I mutter something to Pete and set off, poles clacking like a metronome and I'm soon at the first rocky clamber, the second, then the flagged climb to the top. Pete is behind me but catches up, complaining, and we have a quick regroup in the summit shelter.
Throughout the race so far we have discussed that I'm trying to bank as much time as I can early on to get a good buffer, Pete's target is to knock a few hours off his Flare time from last year. There is an unspoken accord that we will achieve this together. Pete however declares himself to be broken by the climb and in need of a good sit down. Possibly with a scotch egg.
I sense a change in the team dynamic, brought on by Pete's innate generosity. It plays out like this:
Pete: "look, I need a quick rest so I really don't mind if you want to pu..."
Me, interrupting: "Bye!"
And, after a wholly perfunctory invitation to join me, I'm off down the hill towards Horton: Stoney, stoney, stoney, slabby, slabby, slabby, 3 pro-plus, 2 co-codamol and a chocolate brownie, stoney, stoney, stoney, gripey tummy, stoney, stoney, abortive attempt at a crap, stoney, stoney, stoney, roady, roady, stop. And a quick cup of tea with the lovely safety folks outside the Pen y Ghent cafe.
I have started a couple of recces from Horton and I know the climb towards the Cam Road well. I have however now got quite a gripey tummy and my back is feeling crooked, literally. I can't actually stand up straight and I'm listing leftwards so much that I have to push off harder with my left pole to remain vaguely upright. My back and guts conspire to produce the first real corporeal clusterfuck of the day. I kinda wish Pete was here to moan at and I start to feel a bit sorry for myself.
The Cam Road rises into the warming dawn just as my mood ebbs lower. It goes on and on, oblivious to my bad guts and ridiculous lop sided gait. I try some stretching, arching my body left and right. I plant my poles far in front of me and try and stretch out. I rack my brains for some pilates moves and knock out some angry cats and happy camels, crouched on the side of the road. Nothing really helps. I drop my pants for a not so discreet crap attempt in the scrubby hinterland several times but just end up weeing on my leg. I curl into the foetal position and squeeze, trying to bully my guts and back into order. I do a fair bit of grunting and some imaginative compund-cursing. Arsey-felch. Shitter-sticks.Bollocky-fuck.
And so, bent sideways, grunting, cursing, egg-bound and smelling of piss I continue up the road. Poster boy for ultra events, that's me.
I grab a quick sit down by a cattle grid and seize the day. I realise that the back is going to have to take care of itself but the guts need an intervention, or possibly dyno-rod. I remember from the race briefing that the medics are happy to be contacted for advice as well as emergencies so I call race HQ to see if the medics have any Andrews liver salts or something similar, if not I will buy some in Hawes. This call shows just how well the safety support works though: from a simple inquiry I am grilled for my condition, details of the issues and whether I need a medical team to meet me on the trail...
Needless to say however, I really don't want to be remembered as the guy who scrambled the medical team because he needed a poo. I politely decline and agree that the medics will review when I arrive in Hawes.
And then a mile or two later, there's a miracle that defies science. I wont go into details, but don't be surprised if Cam Fell fails to support any life for many years hence . HQ call back, and I share the glad tidings.Which leaves me to focus all my ill temper on my wonky back, turning the grassy plunge towards Hawes into drunken sashay back and forth across the trail and then the same down the road. Hawes itself is bustling in the morning sunshine and I bimble out towards the CP, desperate for this leg to be over. "In your own time" I hear an old man say to his wife while they wait for me to go through a gap between two cars on the pavement. Jeez, I'm being heckled by a codger who should be at home reading People's Friend. Or doing heroin.
The fields out to the CP at Hardraw are about 5,000 miles long according to my calculations at the time, but finally the check point is gained and nice things start to happen. I can't remember the exact order but I get a shower, a sleep and two portions of delicious cheesy cottage pie. The CP crew are lovely and Exile medics Clemmie and Heather look after my feet which are a bit puffy, slightly blistered on the heel but overall not too bad. I've been spraying my feet daily with camphor spray for the past few weeks and I really think that helped them hold up.
As it happens I should have also been spraying it on my Hokas too. A few miles before the CP I heard a schlep schlep schlep sound as I was walking and found that one of the heels was shedding its outer layer. Not good on a pair of shoes with less than 100 miles on them. Still that gave me the excuse to put on my brand new box-fresh Altra Lone Peak neo shell boots which I wore for the rest of the race and which were fantastic.
All in I reckon I was at the CP for about 4 hours which included a really effective 2 hour turbo sleep which did wonders. As I packed my bags all the Flare finishers, including Pete and Tony, were sitting about in the sunshine enjoying their finish. Pete protested about me abandoning him at the top of Pen y Ghent and I vented my suppressed rage about him never once taking out his map or GPS and leaving me to do all the navigating. In a good natured way obvs ;-)
And so, one fresh foot in front of the other, I set out on my own for the next 160 or so miles.
Hardraw to Middleton
Take me to the river
The climb to the top of Great Shunner Fell at 700m or so is pretty unremarkable and I reach the summit shelter at about 18.00. It’s still baking hot but I have ditched my sleeping kit at the last CP so my pack is a bit lighter and going is generally good. I have capacity for 2.25 litres of water with me though and I try to keep this topped up when I can just in case, so I’m still not travelling light exactly.
My mood is still pretty good but I know that the hated Thwaite to Keld section is ahead and that’s guaranteed to piss me off regardless. The descent off Shunner is as remembered- slabby, slabby, slabby, track, rocky, rocky, rocky,road into Thawaite, stop. On the bench in Thwaite are a couple of Spine support team with water and good cheer, reminding me that I hadn’t spoken to anyone for a few hours. I don’t mind the solitude but a brief chat is welcome when it’s offered. I grab a quick pint of lime and soda in the pub and a bag of crisps just because I can and head out across the fields towards Keld.
Bye Thwaite, missing you already...
As seems to be the pattern, having been ok for a a few hours after the stop at CP2, my back has now started to collapse again and I crab my way up the hill towards the corner of the plantation that marks the contour round to Keld. It’s become hard going and my feet start to complain a bit in solidarity with my back. The track is stony, with frequent landslides from the hill on the left and very slow going. Just when it seems you have reached peak irritability, the track drops closer to the trees into Ruskin Wood, affording the opportunity to simultaneously smack into branches at face level while stumbling over the rocks at foot level. And there’s midges, greenfly and other airborne raiders, just to make things a bit more miserable.
I cross the river at Keld and climb up the other side of the valley for a couple of hundred metres until I find a small plateau by the trail where I dump my pack and try and stretch out my back. Whilst engaged in some bush Pilates, harassed by midges, I see Raj coming up the hill, the first time I have seen another competitor since Hardraw. We briefly swop notes but he’s clearly on a mission after a difficult first couple of days. He drifts ahead as we wind up towards Tan Hill. The light is fading but it’s a virtually full moon and my head torch is pretty much redundant. Just to keep focussed I decide to chase Raj, but I don’t see him until Tan Hill where he is already in the porch of the pub.
Tan Hill provides medics, safety team and cold chips, reverently offered like a holy relic. I snaffle a few while I fire up the Jetboil for a cup of tea which goes down well. Raj leaves, and as I’m packing up, the Danes arrive. I think someone is asleep in the car, maybe Thomas the Frenchman. Pete sends me on my way and it’s off over Sleightholme Moor towards the A66.
The first section is notoriously difficult to navigate: indistinct paths and random bogs, but try as I might, I can neither get lost nor my feet wet. I actually leave getting lost until a bit further on, when I’m on the metalled track and miss a turn off when I’m not paying attention.
I’m not paying attention because after several days without it, I’ve decided to reward myself with some music, in a mobile festival style. Rather than putting my headphones in I rest my phone in my open front pouch making a little reflex cabinet for my phone speaker and bimble along with the new Frank Turner and Manics albums on rotation. With no-one to disturb (I’m miles from anywhere and it’s the middle of the night) it’s quite liberating and the I’m soon over God’s Bridge, re-filling water and under the A66.
I’ve got a rough plan for a breakfast stop and the walkers cabin a mile or two after the A66 is the perfect spot. I grab a 20 minute doze and then some delicious freeze dried raspberry granola, 800 calories of loveliness. A figure descends down the hill and I deduce that it’s Thomas. I stick my head out of the cabin to say hello but decline his offer to wait as I’m still packing up and I haven’t done my hair yet.
A sunrise, somewhere or other. Saw a few of these...
The descent off Harter Fell is hot and slow, and despite seeming to only recently have had breakfast it now seems to be mid afternoon. I catch up with Thomas who, to be fair, seems to be moving pretty slowly and he’s complaining of blisters. Seizing on my chance to really unleash my French, I advise him exactly where my aunt’s pen is, where I am going on holiday and that he should listen and repeat when he hears the beep. He looks slightly bewildered, but I like to think I helped take his mind off his feet.
As is the pattern, the final approach to the CP in Middleton is painful. Distance seems to multiply and time turns into some kind of molten form, fluid and imprecise. What should be an easy 3 or 4 k down a flat track by the Tees is interminable and builds to a crescendo of fuckery as the path hugs the wall, cheerfully becoming off camber, veined with tree roots, engulfed by foliage and dense with flying nasties all at the same time. Mercifully the CP comes into view. And then goes out of view again as the path goes right past it and turns back on itself through a field. And the another field and then..... good things happen again.
I collapse in a super comfy seat under the awning with a handful of crew and runners in various states of repair. Thomas comes in and the medics took a look at his feet reciting a tally of woes with increasing horror and disbelief “open blister to heel, blisters underneath each big toe nail, blisters on both little toes, infected blister on pad...” I glance over with morbid interest and his feet are indeed like hamburgers. Or maybe steak haché. Sacré Bleu.
Middleton kit faff
My own feet are fizzing a bit, but not too destroyed. Yet. I’ve got the hangover of a blister on the outside of my heel from my Hokas but it hasn’t got any worse since I switched to the Altras. My combo of Injinji liners with Drymax outers seems to be doing OK.
My CP routine is, if not slick, comprehensive at least. In whatever order, it’s eat, sleep, shower (if possible) change kit, charge devices, reload pack with pre-prepared resupply bag and get pampered by the medics. This last one is both preventative and restorative and I can’t say enough just how wonderful the Exile Medics team are, professional and capable,but so warm and caring too. The deeper you get into the race the thinner the field becomes - at the back of the pack where I am at least - and the care from the medics becomes one on one, two on one even. And that’s not to underestimate the care from the checkpoint crews too, always on hand to grab you a cup of tea, wake you up as requested or rustle up some grub. The Middleton CP food was expertly prepared by Manhar whose chicken curry with rice and naan was simply amazing. I got a cheese and pickle sandwich to go for the trail too.
I had a good 90 minute sleep, super intense again, and left the CP with Raj after what was probably a 3 or 4 hour turnaround in total. I was vaguely aware that I was a few hours ahead of last year but felt that I needed to be building up more of a cut off buffer. I vowed to win an hour two back over the Alston and Bellingham legs to set me up for the final push.
This objective to win time against arbitrary markers would come to both haunt and delight me in spectacular fashion over the next couple of days.
Middleton to Alston
You don't miss your water
Raj and I have an understanding that we would leave at the same time but do our own thing and that’s pretty much what played out and we stayed within a few hundred metres of each other until Cauldron Snout. This section was hot and hard going and I frequently dipped my buff into what was left of the river to cool down when I could. The rocky sections were as annoying as usual, and there was a sheep-jam on a foot bridge. Two sheep facing one way opposing two coming from the other is the equivalent of an immovable force meeting an unstoppable object evidently. I just went round in the end.
Sheep Jammin'
Raj and I regroup at the safety and medic post at Cauldron Snout / Cow Green Reservoir and after a bag of crisps and a cup of tea from Andy medic it’s time to crack on. Raj makes the going and disappears into the distance aiming for dinner in Dufton before the pubs shut. I’ve got a couple of freeze dried meals in my pack so I’m less ruled by the clock and consequently depart without the same energy. I’m a bit knackered too.
Got Snout?
Despite the longeur of the next rolling section to High Cup Nick I actually quite enjoy it, and once off the hard track I start to think about maybe making up some time on the descent while it’s still light and the going is good. Over the past few hours my back has become progressively more crooked again but regardless I start jogging a bit making good progress up to the head of the gorge and the spectacular view down England’s Grand Canyon. I come into phone coverage and have a quick chat with Carole: all ok at home evidently. Which is just as well as I’m in no state for an emergency response to anything. I jog easily across the grassy plateau and until the trail turns into rocks and I spy Raj ahead. We group up and make good progress. He has already rung the pub only to find they have stopped serving already. On the lower sections it’s easier to jog down the grassy verges than try and brake on the paths so we make good progress and meet Pete on the road who walks us into the temporary CP at Alston.
Which is a midgey chair next to a car so we go into the pub across the square instead. Much better idea.
The pub is virtually empty save the landlord and a couple of locals who make us welcome and provide lime and soda, and with a bit of persuasion, boiling water for my freeze dried beef stroganoff. Which i proceed to comprehensively saturate, turning it into a hot stroganoff smoothie. Which trust me, is much nicer than it sounds. Unprompted the landlord offers to make us some sandwiches and fully delivers on my request for beef and cheese by providing a sub roll that must weigh a kilo and is still feeding me 24 hours later. He won’t take any payment so I bung him some cash for his charity golf day and I’m on my way. Nice people, and once again, simple humanity provides nurture that one didn’t even realise was missing.
Raj was having some kind of power nap so I head out for Cross Fell on my own again.
I have only covered the Great Dunn / Cross Fell section once before and that was in the race last year when I was in some kind of aquatic coma and only just capable of following Jose, the Spanish chap with whom I had teamed up. Or hitched myself to, more accurately speaking. I don’t remember much of it but that’s probably because of the unspeakable horror.
Now however, I’m full of 800 calories of hot meat smoothie and packing a sub roll of science-defying density. I’ve got breakfast, teabags and music which all sees me in good stead until I find myself off course and plunging down a ravine near High Scald Fell. It’s one of those deviations that you should quickly correct by turning around but I pig-headedly ploughed on, ignore the bunching contours, crashing down a steep,slope and then grabbing handfuls of grass to try and hoist myself up the near vertical wall on the other side. I get back on course but it’s salutary misadventure and I pay more attention as I move onwards.
It’s now maybe 2 or 3 in the morning and I’m feeling a bit low. My stomach is griping again and the bonhomie of the last stop has long dissipated. I’m moving, but slowly and the climbs between peaks become protracted and painful and I have the occasional sit down, managing a timed 5 minute micro-nap at one point. The appearance of the tarmacced service road near Great Dun Fell and the radar station itself are eerie in the moonlight. I imagine Bond baddies careening around the road in golf buggies and a countdown sequence commencing as the sphere of the radar station slides open. There’s no imaginary Bond girls thankfully, because typically I’ve got my trousers round my ankles trying to take a dump. I probably wasn’t looking at my imaginary best.
The rest of this section is a blur, apart from Greg’s Hut, which sadly hasn’t yet turned into Gregg’s Hut because I could have murdered a steak bake. I know it’s not manned, so I don’t bother poking my nose inside and instead crack on for the long trudge down the stony track.
Which is something of a shite fest. Despite leaving Dufton with over 2 litres of water the sun is soon up, I’m starting to bake and water is running low. Despite the descent, I’m making slow going and getting irritated with the signs warning against illegal trapping which seem to be posted on gates near some kind of animal traps. Not really sure what was going on there but the traps were all empty and not sure what they were meant to be attracting. I rule out ducks and lobsters before giving up.
With cruel indifference to my suffering the track takes an eternity to turn into a metalled road and when it does the metalled road batters the feet regardless as if to suck any relief from the transition. The approach to Alston is long but punctuated with a merciful water re-supply point by a gate where Lindley appears around the corner to check in on me. Fine thanks, just a bit tired for some reason. It’s getting towards breakfast time and the horse flies clearly haven’t had their Shreddies because they are devouring my arms and legs. Take as much blood as you want fellas, it’ll make me thinner, and I’ve been working on a bikini body all week.
Boy am I glad to see you...
On the final run in to the Alston CP I vow to shake off the yoke of the twin Garmins. I’ve got one on my wrist for recording the run and show pace (Ha! It should just say GLACIAL as the permanent display and one (a GPSMAP 64S) almost permanently in my hand for navigating. They both tyrannise me in different ways, taunting with times, distances and pace which make a mockery of my actual progress across the ground. My best decision hereafter is to leave my wrist Garmin showing the time of day and simply uses landmarks as micro goals: i’ll be at that next summit by 15.30, I’ll have some off that cheese and pickle sandwich at 18.00 etc. My brain is starting to turn to mulch , and stripping out endless pace and distance calculations should help sluice out the mental turmoil a bit.
Alston CP is brilliant in many ways not least because almost immediately I’m presented with a pint of cold squash, a mug of tea and “the Full Alston”. This is bacon, eggs, tomatoes and toast, but in some kind of hyper-improved form that has rearranged the molecules so they they are exactly aligned with what my body needs at that particular moment in time. I do however have to eat this at about 45 degrees, my back tilt having become so constant and pronounced that I genuinely have to ask whether the seats are sloping to the left. I grit my teeth, hoping that a few hours rest will restore some dorsal order.
All the good stuff. Fucking scorchio all right.
It's the Full Alston!
I work through my CP checklist, and also do a bit of laundry, rinsing through some socks and pants and hanging them outside the youth hostel like toxic warnings to anyone foolish enough to approach. I’m guided to a dorm and get another solid 90 minutes sleep before departure.
Alston to Bellingham
What a difference a day makes
It’s been another 3-4 hour turnaround but I’m feeling good when I leave and make a commitment not to stop until the next major landmark.
Which is the petrol station about 100 metres away. I have a cheese and bacon pastry, just because I can, a Calippo because Calippo, and pick up some extra strong mints (good call) and chewing gum in case of future gastric distress. Inevitably I leave my poles by the till and have to come back for them.
Strolling along in near sexual congress with the Calippo, I mentally review what’s ahead and, as the afternoon sun beats down, where the water re-supply points are. Slaggyford, Greenhead, Hadrian’s Wall, foresty bit, Location of Navigational Crisis and Meltdown from Last Year, Shitlington Crags, long grassy downhill, CP at Bellingham, done. Piece of piss. All done by...whenever. I really need to start thinking about when whenever will arrive.
The next section up to the A69 seems to take forever, even with my watch simply showing the time and “Automatic Pace Calculation” toggled to "off" in my brain. I’m having some difficulty trying to jettison all the race related stuff that I keep thinking about, in order to just have some general thoughts instead. Indeed, I question whether I actually have just thoughts for their own sake. I try some out, but the first one is about wanting another Calippo and that definitely qualifies as race related. I try again and remember a rock shape that I saw some time earlier that looked like a Guppy. “Guppy!” I say out loud to no one. I haven’t spoken for a good few hours and it feels good, so I give it another go with extra confidence “Guppy!”. Excellent: I’ve both had a thought and said it out loud. I’m definitely winning.
It’s still scorching and I’m down to less than a litre of water. I’m hopeful that I’ll find something near the A69 but I need insurance now and I mosey around the next farm looking for water. There are signs of agricultural life and signs of equestrian life but no-one actually about. The farm house looks open and I can hear a yapping dog inside. I knock on the door and wait. No human response but the dog is fully on it. I know this because i can see it through the half glazed farmhouse door. At least I can see it for a split second every other second as it launches itself vertically to catch a glimpse of who is at the door. Yap.Boing.Yap.Boing.Yap.Boing It’s a VTOL Jack Russell obviously, or possibly someone lying on the floor juggling Jack Russell heads.
No sign of a human response though and I leave empty handed. I expect the owners were probably hiding, having heard rumour of a demented crooked figure emerging from the heat haze, beard rimed in Calippo juice, farting and declaiming fish names like an Old Testament prophet.
I know that there is a water re-supply point just before the A69 and this becomes my goal, and the opportunity for a proper meal once I have enough water to safely rehydrate something. It’s a grim slog down to the road but eventually I find the water next to an ad-hoc fly tipping point and arrange a couple of old tyres and planks into a dining area. Menu: 1000 calories of Spaghetti Carbonara, tea and chocolate macaroons, all served with a midge haze. Pete and a couple of medics come out to check on me, I indulge in some juvenile clowning with Ben the medic, and all is good again. If in doubt, eat.
A new offer to the alfresco hipster dining scene: a meal in a bag in a fly tip by the A69
Next stop, Hadrian’s Wall for some sight seeing. Only it’s now getting dark and the sights are horrible. The early section of the wall plunges steeply up and down and the penumbral shapes produce the effect of a demonic but extremely slow roller-coaster. This section seems to take ages and I sit on the wall occasionally, harrumphing to myself. I’m vaguely aware of what may be a head torch up ahead but it could be a car headlight or perhaps a really ambitious guppy that's evolving fast. “Guppy!” I feel better.
I mentally think about what's ahead again: More water at Twice Brewed, turn off the wall, up to the forest, boggy track, hard tracks, hilly fieldy bit, CP. It's about 3 in the morning and I know that overall race cut off is seven days in total, therefore 08.00 on Saturday. I've got about a half marathon to go until the Bellingham CP, meaning I should arrive about 8 or 9 if I crack on and jog the downhills. I'm figuring a compact turnaround of maybe 2 hours and back out on the trail by 10.00 at the absolute latest. this will give me 22 hours for the final 40 or so miles. That's just under 2mph which is doable but I need to make hay now, while the sun isn't shining.
I eventually turn off Hadrian's Wall and head for the forest with 3 Pro-Plus in the system and a growing sense of anxiety. This is going to need concentration, effort, and a bare minimum of dicking about. Bottles refilled I head through the forest with purpose, powering through the mud path which is reduced to not much more than a mogul field of dessicated tussocks. I do the best with my pace on the other tracks but my brain is writing cheques that the body couldn't cash even straight after pay day. I leave the forest and head over the fields as the sun starts to rise again, running the downs where I can and battering my feet in the process. My feet start to glow with pain in areas previously trouble free and dormant.
The path plunges up and down around Stonehaugh and I safely navigate my nemesis location from last year. Having granted myself a limited amount of dicking around time I cash this in at Horneystead at the DIY farmhouse aid station. I help myself to a cold can of lemonade and, in a seventies throwback style, a Wagon Wheel from the fridge. Definitely not as big as they used to be.
Wagon Wheels: the cornerstone of every balanced breakfast
It's now about 7 in the morning and despite the quick pit stop I'm getting a bit fried mentally, knowing that I will need a fast turn around at Bellingham and a good pace over the Cheviots, half of which will be in the heat of the day. I clamber up Shitlington crags to the road by the radio mast but singularly fail to improve my speed on the flat section. The descent to the road is interminable as the time approaches 9, the very latest I wanted to arrive.
As I head up the road towards the CP at the campsite, Kevin and Paul come out to walk me in. I'm immediately blethering and ranting trying to share my plan for a quick turnaround. I'm gabbling to Paul what I will need and my proposed pace over the final leg when Paul stops and says simply:
"you've got loads of time - it's Thursday"
This absolutely does not compute. I know how long I have left: It's less than 24 hours, the clock is ticking and I need to get out of here. Paul calmly re-iterates:
"You have nearly two days. It's Thursday today and the cut off is 08.00 on Saturday"
It takes me a full minute to assimilate this and realize that he's not pulling my leg.
Ker-fucking-ching. I've just gained 24 hours. I've had a Garmin on my wrist all week calculating stuff in hundreths of a second and I manage to overlook a complete day. What a complete bell-end. But with this news, an extraordinarily happy one.
To say this news is something of a paradigm shift is an understatement. I'm like a pig in time-shit and on arriving into the checkpoint I proceed to do everything in slow motion, just because I can. Fairly quickly though I realize that while my mental pressure has been happily vented, I'm actually quite broken physically. Pushing the pace over the past 12 hours or so has battered me and I can feel some profound unhappiness under the balls of my feet. I slink off for a first sleep of an hour before doing anything else but absolutely melt in the tent. Despite being only mid-morning it feels like the hottest day of the week already
When I wake I start gazing into my drop bag with a sense of growing bewilderment. I’m struggling a bit to think what I’m meant to be doing, and despite the cool of the open sided checkpoint room, I realise that I’m still fundamentally baked at the core. I suspect that if punctured I could leak molten ooze like a McDonalds apple pie.
Yvonne and Raj
Failing to make any kind of freestyle progress on re-packing my bag, I try and force some order by laying stuff out in rows like a menu of options. This doesn’t really help, and I’m aware that medics Ally and Heather are observing my buffoonery with both amusement and concern. There are no showers at this CP so Ally takes me out to the yard and hoses me down with a hose pipe. This helps a bit, and I slump down in a chair again while Raj, Yvonne, Les and a couple of other competitors slowly gear up for departure.
What the hell is all this crap? And why have I lined it up?
Heather is concerned though, and through my heat fug I realise she is suggesting that I need an extended break to re-set. She is suggesting this with a purposeful insistence that implies that this could be mandatory. She mentions the closure time of the CP and the fact that they have discretion to extend that if a runner is held back. I’m struggling with this information: a short while ago I won a 24 hour bonus and now I’m on the risk register and talking about cut-offs again. This is not good.
Heather takes a full set of vitals: pulse, blood pressure, temperature and asks me lots of stuff like what day it is. On the back of a 24 hour miscalculation, that wasn’t a good question to start with but I answer OK. She then stabs me with a needle. I’m not sure if this was part of the tests, or maybe she just cashed in her “free pass” which all the medics get. I understand that after a week of being kind, caring and supportive to everyone, the medics are all allowed one small act of spite.
My signs are pronounced OK but it is concluded that I need to cool off more before I ship out. After a one sided negotiation (Heather talks, I agree) I’m led up to some kind of Crew and Medics Private Members Club slightly up the hill which is cool, clean, comfortable and a whole cut above the general CP area and the stifling communal tents. A bedroom is found and I’m instructed to sleep for four hours. I happily accede.
Thanks Ally
If not quite a million dollars, I certainly feel much better when I wake up. More food is produced (I’d already had lovely sausage and mash on arrival) and Heather does another set of tests and confirms that she’s happy. Ally now works her magic on my feet while I lie in the chair like a slab of sweating bacon. She probes, lances and applies tape where required. She even sends me on my way with a Dr.Seuss inspired personalisation on my foot. Once again I’m humbled by just how much care and effort is invested by so many others, just to support my vainglorious quest to walk up a long path.
It’s been an extended stop, but I leave in great spirits. It’s on. I’m going to finish this.
Bellingham to Kirk Yetholm
Up the hill and down the slope
I finally leave and I slowly get acclimatised to moving again. My feet are well wrapped but still a bit tender, and it takes a while. On the plus side I’ve got 40 or so miles to cover and plenty of tome to do it in, I can afford to take it easy. I’ve got a couple of freeze dried meals and loads of other stuff in my pack, so despite the remoteness of the Cheviot I should be OK for food. Water will be a challenge again, but I have noted the re-supply points. One at Byreness, anything I can scrounge on the way, and if I’m lucky, maybe something in the huts too.
The first leg out through Kielder forest is in theory easy going on the forestry tracks, but it’s hard in practice. There is something about finishing a long race – even when you are still 40 miles from the finish – that seems to amplify the hardship in anticipation of the joy of stopping. The long stony down hills through the forest typify this: at any other time they would be a joyful gravity aided plunge rather than the leg-jarring, foot burning trial that they seem to become. It’s uncomfortable for sure, and progress is slow, but morale is still pretty good. I give it another “Guppy!” into the indifferent trees and march on.
The tracks head down towards the A68 and I find the water drop near the public toilets that I slept in on my last recce. Happy memories. I refill ever bottle that I have (nearly 3 litres) just as Pete Gold turns up with Ally to check up on me. I confirm that all is good and keep moving, eating something or other and keen to get the last mile or so before the road crossing done. Crossing the road and getting up onto the Cheviot hills is an important micro-goal for me and I want it out of the way soon.
And soon it is. The climb up from the road is steep, but the sun is coming up and the view backwards is something else. I stop and savour it for a moment before cresting the rise onto the start of the final leg.
But first: breakfast. It’s a sunny day, I’m on my holidays and I’m in a mood to kick back. After a few miles over the rolling hills I find a spot by the trail and unroll my bivvy bag for a timed 20 minute hyper-sleep and then get cracking on the grub: Granola with raspberries, big mug of tea and dunked cereal bar. Very, very good. I consider a post breakfast siesta and an episode of The Archers but this is probably taking the relaxed approach a bit too far.
Breakfast sir?
I plod on and note that I haven’t seen anyone for ages and the hills really live up to their reputation as a remote wilderness. I begin to understand exactly how hard this would be to traverse in the winter race in snow and high winds. So much respect for everyone who has.
The Roman camp comes and goes and as I climb up the hill leaving it behind it starts to get properly hot again. I’m conscious of my water intake and the need to keep snacking even when I don’t really feel like it. I’ve only covered this section once before so my mental landmarks are not as well defined as earlier in the race. I know that there is Windy Gyle, the 2 mountain huts and the Schill but I don’t remember much else. I make hut one my goal and try and ignore the occasional signs advising of distances to this that and the other. It’s all about hut one.
It’s probably obvious, but worth saying anyway: there is absolutely no shade anywhere. The sun is remorseless and there is no escape. I dream of some Bedouin robes: in my mind I’m thinking Lawrence of Arabia, but reality would probably be more Albert Steptoe in a sheet and tea towel. Back in the real world I settle on a super thin long sleeve top from my pack to try and cover up a bit...
It's about 09.00 when I reach hut one, just ahead of Lamb Hill and I dive inside devouring the shade like a vampire with a particularly bad hangover. I need a quick power nap and the safety team kindly vacate the hut so that I can get my head down for 20 minutes. I’m duly woken as requested, bottles replenished and I think I eat something or other. Just a short time out of the sun has helped, but pretty soon after I leave I’m back in the red zone with a curious mixture of euphoria and anxiety bubbling beneath the surface.
It turns out to be about 5 hours between hut one and hut two and I see no-one aside from a few cyclists sat on the grass by the Windy Gyle trig point. I feel irrationally aggrieved by this: I’ve just spent bloody days getting here, and you lot are sitting around like you’ve just ridden to the shops. This is my realm, you just haven’t earned it yet baby.
After Windy Gyle I truly descend into the inferno. I’m trying to keep eating – and I feel better when I do – but it’s tough. My feet are on fire, my mood is slipping and water is running out. I realise again that I haven’t seen anyone for hours and I contemplate how isolated I am. I need a sit down but I am genuinely fearful for my safety: I’m out of phone coverage and I’m pretty sure that if I keel over, exhausted, no one would find me for quite some time. Probably best to keep moving then.
After quite a lot of trudging, a fair bit of huffing and no guppies I’m finally dropping off Auchope Cairn in the heat of the afternoon with hut two finally in sight. Like John Mills and a beer in Ice Cold in Alex, I’m craving shade like nothing else. Well I’m craving a beer too, but that will have to wait a bit longer.
My memory is already getting hazy but I think its Gary, Mark (?) and Al from the safety team in residence at Hut Two. They have been up there for a few days and it looks like cabin fever is starting to set in but they look after me well. By which I mean they let me lie in the shade for a snooze and prepare my last freeze dried meal and a cup of tea ready for when I’m woken up 30 minutes later. Room service doesn’t get much better.
 |
| fuel for the last leg... |
Eventually the metalled road into KY arrives but not without it's own quiet desperation. The sun has scorched the grass around the farm buildings and horses are listlessly trying to graze on what is left. There is a blasted, defeated feeling to this stretch which even the anomalous presence of the giant Tunnocks container fails to lift. I move through it in slow motion, a straggler from some decimated army.
But I'm coming home. The road kicks up for a final climb but it's welcome: after the descent from the Schill it's a welcome relief to climb again. As I crest the final hill, Kirk Yetholm is in view and I pause, ready for a wash of emotion, tears or an epihany. It's been a long old trip, and I think I've earned an emotional denouement of some kind, a chance to set my jaw to the sunset and to gaze enigmatically into the distance. I wait for my moment. And what happens? Fuck all. My feet still hurt, I'm starting to get a bit peckish and I need a wee. Best to get this finished rather than stand by the road daydreaming.
Pete Gold comes up the road to meet me and I break into a decent trot down to the Border Inn where there is a humbling crowd of crew and medics welcoming me home. It feels pretty damn good.
"Guppy" I say under my breath as I touch the wall. It's done.
Epilogue
I was obviously delighted to finish after last year's DNF, and to do so when the heat made it just as much of a challenge as the rain did last year. This is an epic race, or adventure maybe, where the journey itself is everything. Summer or winter it's a big challenge, but it rewards in spades.
The "Spine Family" of safety crew, checkpoint staff, logistics, medics, supporters and competitors make this event very special. Thank you to everyone who made it happen for me.
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