7 Tips For Completing The Winter Spine Race

The Winter Spine Race is an epic 268 mile non-stop race up the Pennine Way. It is one of the hardest ultra marathons in the world where only 1 in 2 will finish. Here Fred Newton reports on his experience racing the Spine Race.

I was one of 121 people who stood being rained on in Edale. A sense of great excitement and anticipation hung in the air, some of us would finish, some would not. What I be one was would I make it? Or would I crash out. Here are a few things I took away from the experience.

1) Friendships are your armour

I made two new good friends on the race, Dan and James. We met each other in the first 24 hours and worked as a team to complete the race over a hundred hours later. We were a team in the truest sense of the word. We agreed on time in the checkpoint, and took turns on the navigation when the others were tired. But more than that, we helped lift each others spirits in the wave of emotions you get when you participate in these sorts of races. The poem Jabberwocky was quoted a lot, I belted out a few songs from musicals. We had a ball.

Yes there are limitations of running with others, I’m certain that both James and Dan could have gone faster at certain points but I believe our experience and adventure was the richer from sharing it together. Perhaps we tapped into something greater. Shane Benzie talks of 'the power of the group', I certainly felt we were greater than the sum of our parts.

We picked up the nickname ‘the three musketeers’ and lived by the motto ‘all for one and one for all’. I struggled on the last day, James kept insisting that I eat sugar. Dan kept spirits high throughout despite his feet being in agony. We made it to the finish line together and touched the wall at the same time (touching or kissing the wall is a seminal moment for any Spine finisher).

2) This is an expedition. This is not a running race.

My average speed was 3.9km/h, clearly not a running race! An expedition is about self-management and sound decision making in order to achieve your objective. Most of this race happens in darkness, which is one of the reasons it is so tough.

Things will almost certainly not got to plan, you need to be able to adapt and overcome them. Some of the things I tried to stay on top of: not getting cold, actioning bad feet immediately, keeping fed and watered, resting when I need it, always get a hot drink if offered, concentrate with navigation, keep it positive and being nice.

On a non-stop race, sleep (and lack of it) would be my most powerful ally and greatest foe. I was heavily sleep deprived in the first half of the race and paid for it. After the first two checkpoints, I aimed to sleep a minimum of 2.5 hours in a checkpoint and 1hr when biviying. You can stagger into a checkpoint at a miserable 1km/h pace a broken man and leave four hours later ready to take on the world.

3) Get your kit right but don’t obsess

There is, in my opinion, an unhealthy obsession with kit on the online forums. The kit list cannot be more precise in what it is asking you – get it right and build in additional kit. I'm pleased that my kit setup only had a few tweaks from the '20 challenger race and isn't so different to the one I take hillwalking.

You could end up spending £'000's on kit. Decent waterproofs, warm layers, socks and shoes are the things not to stint on but I refuse to spend hundreds of pounds on lithium batteries and made do with bog standard alkaline ones, no bother. I carried £7 workman gloves which served me well (in addition to the required ones). Unless you are one of the front runners, an extra 1kg or so in kit doesn't really matter. With such a huge distance to cover, kit is only one part of the equation.

4) Be nice to the heroic staff supporting your quest

Checkpoint staff, medics, safety teams, marshals: this group of people are the reason you will finish – they are your lifeline. They are a fantastic bunch and even if you are exhausted, be nice. I saw a few competitors at least not being as polite as they should and making demands without saying thank yous. Not cool.

The staff are mainly made up of volunteers who know this race well, they are here to patch you up and get you out on the course again.

5) Ride the wave & banish negative thoughts

There are peaks and troughs. The troughs typically will be on bits of the course that you are hating, in the early morning, eyes heavy and the task before you a forlorn hope. My feet sometimes hurt with each step and felt like stepping on glass (swollen feet crammed into small shoes), I had run out of nice food and you think about the many ways to quit. Do I fake an injury? Or just simply admit that this thing had beaten me?

The Cam Road was without question my worst moment on the Spine Race. I was extremely tired and falling asleep as we walked. It was foggy and we had 15 miles of uneven rocky road to trudge through to get to Hawes and a rest stop.

I heard footsteps behind me and turned around to greet another runner, except nobody was there. This happened several times and was scary. I trudged on, this was shit. Everything was shit. Why wasn't I tucked up in my bed at home?

The strategy I employed for riding the wave is to distract yourself and do something outside of the ordinary. Sing at the top of your voice, chat about something to the nearest human, start running, splash your face with water and snow. Anything really to keep the mind preoccupied.

The bottom of the wave will pass, and the experienced endurance racer will know that you just have to get to the next checkpoint and keep moving. These lows are simply a part of the race and will pass with time. Most people quit in the first 48 hours of a race like this, get through that and keep moving forward.

6) Enjoy the stunning Pennine Way

The Pennine Way just gets better and better the further north you get. I loved all the mountain stages; the High Peak, climbing up Great Shunner & Cross Fell and of course traversing the Cheviots.

There are some breathtaking forces of nature, from the raging Cauldron Snout to the unspoilt valleys around Kelso and vast expenses of moorland.

How there is such a wild and spectacular route breaking the back of the country is a credit to those who created it and those who maintain it.

7) Find your why. Does the Spine Race really matter?

Is choosing to suffer really necessary? Is the Spine Race just some self indulgent way for people to boost their ego?

I turned up in Edale, like a lot of people two years after intending on doing this race. Much has changed in the two years, and in that time, I had also lost my ‘why’. For the first 108 miles, my heart wasn't really in it. I was only motivated by the fact that I was there.

A stunning climb over Great Shunner Fell in late winter sun was a turning point which morphed into a crisp and clear night came in as we climbed up onto Tan Hill.

The thrill of the adventure had kicked-in along with the warm feeling of sharing it with others. The longer the race went on, the more invested I became and the ‘why’ came back to me.

It's better to give these things ago, to try at least and take risks on remarkable challenges than to live a grey life of routine, comfort & tedium. You can whittle away your time and years watching Netflix or you can attempt or be involved with a race like the Spine (everyone has their own version of what a 'Spine' is – which is anything out of your own ordinary).

This race, and this experience matters a lot. It is a life-affirming race, you are in the perfect bubble surrounded by people from all different walks of life ready to try and achieve something quite extraordinary. Everyone is treated as equals, from the race leaders to the back markers.

Friends, family and strangers follow your little dot as it moves and send messages of support and love. They also play an important part in your journey. Races like the Spine, must exist. They allow us to test the limits of our own boundaries and embark on a deeply human experience.

A friend, Kristen Isak summarised why this race really matters...‘this is the race that really tests you as a human’.