How I didn’t win the 2024 Winter Spine Race
Image credit: The Spine Race
Shaking hands with a bloody rascal in Kirk Yetholm
I mean, the short answer is Jack Scott. But I can offer you a longer one, too...
I won the 2023 Winter Spine Race, with Jack, the Irreverent Whippersnapper, in a close second place. I’ve known Jack, 29, for several years. We’ve had phone calls about training and racing and met for long runs in Snowdonia. My primary sponsors inov-8 sounded me out about supporting him and I was adamant it would be good move. Forced to sum him up in one word, it would be: serious. Or maybe wise. So perhaps seriwise. He has the mind (and music taste) of a 50 year-old.
For the 2024 Winter Spine Race, both the men’s and women’s fields are comfortably the most competitive they’ve been, with five former winners in the men’s, including my arch frenemy John Kelly, plus Jack (whose 2023 time was third fastest ever), my former GB-teammate Kim Collison, two Dragon’s Back Race (DBR) winners, and dark horse Konrad Rawlik, who’d beaten me into third place at the 2015 DBR.
Some pre-race interviews try in good humour to stir the rivalry with John, but I point out Jack has the best on-paper credentials to challenge me. As returning champion I honestly feel no pressure. I’ve finally won this race, at the fourth attempt, so the pressure is off. This is a free hit.
Image credit: Jamie Rutherford / The Spine Race
Some idiots charging
I love being in Edale. It’s like a second home. So familiar and so many friends. Kit check is all a bit silly though. We have to carry a frankly ridiculous 31 items (by contrast, the Tor des Géants has seven items of mandatory kit, the Barkley Marathons none) and the RDs know my views. Some kit is simply unnecessary (cooking kit, for starters) and remains unused during the race and the rest of the year. Several items and rules feel like micro-management over-reactions to one or two runners’ previous mistakes. The cost of all the kit and especially lightweight options makes the event prohibitive for some and weighs others down with 8-10kg packs (which in turn makes them less safe because they’re out for longer, moving slower, getting more tired, more niggles, et al). The subsequent pack weight punishes runners with smaller frames, even causing some to develop involuntarily sideways leans and two previous race winners won’t do the event again because of the mandatory kit. All that said, I rather enjoy the kit side of things and trying to find the lightest or best items to pass the test. Even if my hat is taken away for secondary examination, it’s a relief to pass (John and Jack don’t get off so lightly).
Training has been peachy, with some lovely days out in the Black Mountains. After what feels like months of warm rain and the worst flooding in the Wiltshire Alps I’ve seen in my 13 years here – exactly what climate scientists have been warning us our winters will become – finally, it’s cold. Perfect. That will lessen the squealching and quicken the course. I have a sub-81 hour schedule, but only as a rough guide. Off we set. At idiot pace.
Image credit: Eric Murphy, ericmurphy.co
The Pain Train approaching Snake Pass Station
It’s such a blast, those early miles. The sun shines, the ground is hard and sparkly white, as we charge across Kinder, site of the Mass Trespass, then onto the treacherous flagstones and Snake Pass. It’s a chance to catch up with pals; tease Jack about his kit choices, share a snack with Kim (though he insists I bite into it first), there’s football banter (too many Liverpool fans in the group for this Gooner’s liking) and we chuckle at John successfully bamboozling us with mathematics gobbledegook.
I’ve never seen so many people out on the course, especially at road crossings and joke it’s starting to feel like UTMB. By Torside (15 miles), a front group of 10 are 26 minutes ahead of Jasmin Paris’s 2019 course record. Only three of us will finish the race (again, like UTMB).
At CP1, Hebden Hay (47 miles) we’re over an hour ahead of CR time. After tea, nosh and a quick kit swap, I’m fifth to leave, in the dark, but am soon back at the front with Kim, Konrad joining us and, a little later, Jack.
Image credit: Eric Murphy
“Don’t worry Colin, me and Kim have a reputation for sensible race pacing”
The pack effect is both productive and destructive. Organically we take it in turns to set the pace, meaning it’s always strong. But that means it’s always strong. Two of my athletes, plus John Parkin and family in Cowling, come out to say a quick hi along here and I can tell I’m more tired than the previous year. A Pot Noodle and a facon roll are hugely appreciated at the amazing Lothersdale unofficial CP.
The long flat stretch to Gargrave is tedious on the tarmac and the pace remains high. Jack looks on the ropes (post-race he admits he nearly quit there) in the Malham Tarn CP1.5 (84 miles). Konrad says the pace is too quick. I agree and tell Kim. As he leaves, he says he’ll “just walk for a bit to allow you to catch up”.
“I don’t think Kim has done what he said he would do,” says Konrad, a few minutes later. The fibber! We often see Kim’s headtorch ahead on Fountains Fell and Pen-y-ghent, on a beautiful still night well below -10˚C. Then the long drag to CP2 Hawes (106 miles), which we reach not long after sunrise, about 4hrs ahead of CR time (albeit two hours ahead of my 2023 time).
Image credit: Steve Ashworth Media
The sun always shines on TV. And, just occasionally, on the Pennines, too
The white Great Shunner Fell looks immense in the early morning sun, but the north side is icy and Konrad falls a couple of times, bashing his toe. The course is busy now with Challenger North runners and we push pretty hard towards Tan Hill Inn, sometimes together, sometime me lagging behind. Without realising, I leave before Konrad, to experience Sleigholme Moor at its best: frozen.
I’m not desperate to catch Kim – plenty of time for that – but every update I get is that he’s about 20mins ahead. I finally reach CP3, Landon Beck (153 miles) at 19.20, where I planned a snooze, to be told Kim’s out of the race. I feel 75% gutted, 25% selfishly pleased. He’s not fibbing this time. The news doesn’t stop him smiling and we hug and chuckle about it. I eat and lie down for around 1hr of intermittent zzzzzs.
Being woken to two cups of tea carried by legendary hot-beverage dodger John Kelly is not something I ever thought would happen. He readily admits he didn’t make them himself, because he doesn’t know how. But it’s much appreciated, as is his help in general at the CP. I leave with Jack and James Nobles at around 9pm. Albeit time has lost all meaning. It’s either dark, or about to get dark.
Image credit: Steve Ashworth Media
Frozen bog-bothering, towards Middleton-in-Teesdale on Monday afternoon
The pace is more civil now, as we take a welcome road diversion to avoid treacherous Falcon Clints and Cauldron Snout. “Has Jack got bored of our company?” I ask, as the scamp gaps us on the descent from High Cup. “Looks like it!”
I still struggle with the friend-foe paradox and feel a tiny bit offended when a pal tries to run away from me. So, hearing James shout something behind me about “hanging back a bit”, I catch Jack up. I’ve tried to pre-order a burger in a Dufton cafe and invite him along for a nibble, but he’s not keen. (He later tells me I seem annoyed about this).
I’m hungry and looking forward to that burger. But it isn’t ready, so I go without. I catch up with Jack again, but he’s working hard up Knock Fell. I’m too warm and pause to remove a jacket, then work hard to catch him again, putting my Petzl NAO RL on full beam to make it seem I’m closer. I catch him near the top, but it’s clear he’s in race mode. I just want to run with my pals! My pals don’t seem to want to run with me. It’s Hunger Games time.
It’s cold and I pause to manfaff with my jacket again. I can still spy Jack among a couple of Challenger runners, but the one in front goes flying and I pause to check he’s okay. Then I slam the deck myself, landing on a hip that’s still a spectacular splash of purple a week later. I stop again, to attach microspikes. Which do help. But I feel I’ve had enough signs that Cross Fell at 3am in hard-packed snow and –16˚C maybe isn’t the time and place to race.
So I team up with two others, including the legendary Paul Nelson aka the Cross Fell Snow Plough, to make it safely over to Greg’s Hut. John Bamber says Jack is 20 mins ahead. I perhaps should have carried straight on. But tea.
The 10K descent is tedious despite the fresh snow falling and the sleep monsters arrive. I’m starting to hallucinate, eyelids turning to lead. So I sing the Winnie the Pooh classic, “The more it snows, tiddly-pom…”
Learning at CP4 Alston (180 miles) that I’m now 50 mins behind Jack is a blow. He’s really going for it. Still, the famous lasagne perks me up as ever and John rightly reminds me there’s still so much time left.
Image credit: Eric Murphy
The loneliness of the tea-depleted, long-distance bog-botherer
Daylight finally arrives to a white, frozen landscape and I see hardly anyone (bar Rasta Ralph) till Greenhead. My hips ache from the hard ground and, alongside an, ahem, intimate issue, every time I try to drink from my mostly frozen bottles I get heart burn/indigestion. Is it my electrolytes? Ice in the water? Is that one soft flask to blame? Then it starts happening when I eat, too (a feeling that remains for the rest of the race and several days after – Dr Lygo thinks oesophagus lining damage). Three minor, manageable issues by this stage of the Spine is pretty good going. But because it’s uncomfortable to eat, I’m under-fuelling. Which naturally affects pace and motivation.
On Hadrian’s Wall I get occasional updates of Jack’s progress and each time, demoralisingly, he’s widened the gap further. Somewhere along here I stop thinking about catching him up and instead settle for a dejected second place.
Jack wants it more than me. For my 2023 win I had the motivating frustration of the previous year’s DNF, the race I should have won. Frustration has fired me up for my best results at UTMB and Tor des Géants, too. But I don’t have much now. I’m happy with my 2023 race. Jack isn’t happy with his. In retrospect, of course, I’m ashamed I didn’t put up more of a fight. But with the truly extraordinary performance he put in – pushing and pushing, when he didn’t need to – he would have beaten me that day anyway.
The Angel of Horneystead Farm, Helen, provides me with delicious (vegan) soup and I sit for a catch-up. Anyone who lost their sense of humour in the torturously frozen-rutted fields before Bellingham, please know you weren’t alone. I arrive at CP5 Bellingham (219 miles) at 22.50, needing sleep but also needing to leave before Konrad arrives. I have around an hour’s kip and am warned it will be another cold night. I leave in the same four layers that kept me warm on Cross Fell. I’d be tempted to carry more warm kit if I wasn’t already weighed down by half a kitchen on my back.
Image credit: Drew Wilson
Pretty confident I’ve started a new fashion movement
I like the Bellingham-Byrness section, partly because it’s fun terrain and partly because it’s where I chased down Jack in 2023. But it’s so cold I wrap my PhD Designs sleeping bag around me under my Pro-Tech Shell, as I’d practised pre-race (Jack copies my fashion statement in Kirk Yetholm, see top pic). As I do so, I’m alarmed to see not one but two headtorches about 15 minutes behind!
I run the next hour pretty hard, haunted that I’m about to throw away second place. So it’s quite the relief at Byrness (7.30am) to be told Konrad has only recently left Bellingham. The headtorches belong either to Challenger runners, or my tired mind.
After a wonderful refuel at hard-to-leave Byrness (thank you Sharon and gang!), I re-wrap my sleeping bag around me and climb up into the Cheviots for the most spectacular day I’ve ever had up there. Sunny, cold, hardly a hint of wind, thin snow on hard ground, only occasionally slippery. There is no way I’ll catch Jack and I have 3-4 hours on Konrad. With such low racing tension, it’s perhaps a little too relaxing. Two Challenger runners wake me from a slumber on the ground.
Image credit: Debbie Martin-Consani
Why we do it
I’m barely running tbh. Just enjoying a beautiful day, while trying to rationalise how I will have my best ever Spine Race yet still have my butt thoroughly kicked. It’s a confusing thing to process. I imagine I’m still ahead of Jasmin Paris’ mythical record but feel conflicted about that, her being a long-time friend and athlete of mine. (Her husband Konrad has no reservations in trying to beat it, so maybe I shouldn’t?)
Sandwiched between a fairytale golden sky and gleaming white ground, it’s proper lovely to see the legendary Debbie Martin-Consani, previous Winter Spine Race winner working on the race media team, near the Cheviot. She knows exactly the right words to console me.
I need to stop sulking. I may be first loser, but this will still be the second fastest ever time at the race, a PB and a fourth finish. And I’m lucky to be up here on a magnificent day like this. This is why we do it. Plus I’d recently reminded myself this sport loves nothing more than to humble us when we’re feeling like the cock of the walk. That’s just sport. I bloody love this stuff.
The final descent feels lonely, without the celebratory cavalcade of last year. But nowt beats the feeling of running down that last hill and across the village green to Kirk Yetholm’s Border Hotel, to plant dry, cracked lips on a cold stone wall. Nowt.
Image credit: Spine Race
A fourth snog of the wall
A week later I’m still struggling to be at peace with having my best Spine performance and yet being soundly beaten. But what helps is the fact I got to, not only witness, but make a small contribution towards, a historic ultrarunning performance. I’m proud too, that my 48-year-old body held up to the early onslaught when so many others didn’t.
Also (here comes the hippie bit) this stuff is about the journey much more than the destination – the doing, not the outcome – and I had another belting, life-affirming adventure out there; with shared moments of kindness, magical sunrises and sunsets, cold sparkly nights under the stars and armies of tiny shrews disappearing into the snow (possibly they weren’t real). Spine memories have swamped my mind ever since.
Thank you so much to all you well-brill Spine folk. The tea was ace throughout (even John’s).
Kit what worked
Inov-8 Roclites – I used G 275s and Ultra G 320s (with Pair Ups patches), both excellent for the very worst of the Frankenstein terrain the Pennine Way throws at you in winter, both used on previous Spines. No blisters again.
Most of my clothing were inov-8 items I used for the 2023 and 2022 races, which are so durable they’re mostly no longer available. My only new item was the Performance Hybrid Jacket, which I’ve been practically living in since March. Warm in exactly the right places, for both chilling and winter running.
Suunto Vertical Titanium Solar – Didn’t fail in the cold like my previous (non-Suunto) watch, incredible battery, best-in-class mapping, HRV, and it charges fast (I just gave it a 40min recharge at Langdon, using it on Good/Best GPS mode and navigating too). Great new product from a refreshingly ethical company.
Petzl NAO RL – Light, comfortable, very bright, lasts the night. Brilliant.
PhD Designs M.Degree 300 K Down Sleeping Bag – Used this for years, albeit it’s not vegan (sorry vegan police). It’s super warm and super light (comfort rating -3˚C, 445g). Not the very lightest Spine sleeping bag you can get, but not far off and makes for a suave fashion accessory.
Leki Ultratrail Fx.One Superlite poles – light but so robust.
Veloforte – love the chews, bars and protein shakes.
Vegan Ferret Tunnocks (secret home-made recipe) – these were incredible, thank you Charlie Crowe!