The Summer Spine Sprint 2023 – We can be heroes, just for one day

In the beginning there was the Spine Race. It was 268 miles long and it happened in January. There was also the Challenger, which was ‘only’ 108 miles. Over the years a Summer version has been added, and also the Sprint, a mere 46 miles from Edale to Hebden Bridge. This is still quite a long way and a significant challenge, especially if you’ve never done a race of that distance before.

Obviously I have run further than 46 miles but Sharon hadn’t. After my first unsuccessful Spine attempt in 2021 we recced all of the Spine Sprint route (apart from the last half mile) over three days in September 2021, I even wrote some stuff about us doing it in this blog. This was very helpful for me but also it was to help Sharon decide if she would like to do the Spine Sprint in 2022. At the end of the final blog entry I wrote that she decided to wait until 2023 so we could run it together. She tells it differently. Apparently she told me she didn’t want to run the Spine Sprint either with or without me and I must have either bullied her into it or just fraudulently entered her for it without her consent.

Anyway, however it happened we were in Hebden Bridge with a plan to take a train to Edale to run the 2023 Summer spine Sprint together!

We’d booked ourselves into the Riverview B&B, which we had stayed at when we did our recce runs. It’s a very nice B&B on the river run by Susy and her little dog Eddie. The theory was that it would make sense for us to stay at the finish and take a train to the start. This did mean a two hour journey via Manchester but as the race didn’t start until midday that didn’t look like it would be a problem. We needed to arrive some time before for our kit check but the 8:31 from Hebden Bridge would get us to Edale at 10:31, plenty of time for kit check and final preparation. All these arrangements were made before any rail strikes – cue several months of anxiously waiting for strike date announcements.

There was no train strike on the day! As we had to pass the station on the way to the B&B we stopped to buy tickets so there was one less thing to do the next morning. When I asked for two singles to Edale the man behind the ticket desk asked if we were walking back. his face was a picture when I said ‘No, we are running’.

Next morning we arrived at the station nice and early… only to find our train was running 20 minutes late. Fortunately the train before ours was also running 20 minutes late and also stopped at Manchester so we caught that one instead. Not sure whether we were supposed to get a bus, a tram or to just walk to cross Manchester but someone pointed us towards a tram so we took it to Piccadilly and caught the train to Edale without incident. We were fairly early onto the platform which was just as well, as apparently the whole world was heading to Edale that morning, and we got a seat on what became a very full train.

I have waxed lyrical about (well rambled on about anyway) the organisation of the Spine Race many times in the past and another example of the attention to detail was the fact that a volunteer was at the station to meet us, escort us to kit check and explain exactly what we needed to do next. Now that probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to many people but if you are a bit stressed and a bit nervous that sort of thing really helps!

Kit check appeared to follow the same format as last year when I did the full Summer Spine. Each runner was asked to produce five (I think) items of kit. The five items were based on your race number so it was completely fair and random. Unless your number ended in a zero, in which case you got a full kit check. step forward number 750, Sharon Harper… I had used my experience of this kind of thing (and learned from the Fellsman) so we each had our kit in a reasonably large bag so it could be checked easily and the packed into our backpacks, rather than ripping stuff out of the pack and never quite getting everything back in as well as before. The volunteer doing Sharon’s kit check was very impressed by the high quality and light weight of her gear. She thanked him and pointed out it was mostly mine. I’ve been buying very lightweight kit for next year’s Winter Spine attempt and had lent most of it to Sharon so her pack was as light as possible. I had the still quite good but not quite so light kit I’d collected over many years of ultra running. Actually the first weekend in October will mark my 10 year anniversary since my first ever ultra. It’s amazing to think that after all that time I still frequently make it look like I’ve never done it before.

We both passed kit check without any questions. Lindley Chambers is the kit guru for the Spine Race and has quickly and courteously answered any kit question I have asked him, no matter how stupid and so, whilst kit check is always a little nerve wracking in case you’ve forgotten something, I had been reasonably confident everything I had would pass. Kit check is not a test to try and catch you out, it is possible to purchase or borrow quite a lot of kit at the start if your items aren’t up to scratch – contrary to the impression he likes to give, Lindley doesn’t actually enjoy people failing kit check and will do all he can to get people through it, it’s just that the kit list is there for safety reasons and its only fair that everyone carries the same kit, no matter how fast or slow they are planning to be. I also like Lindley because he told one of the other kit checkers I was ‘Hard as nails’ when it started raining and I was strolling round the car park in my t-shirt when everyone else was diving for waterproofs. My theory was that as it was still about 25 degrees I’d quickly get just as wet under my waterproof as I would without it. It seemed to work as I didn’t use my waterproof for the entire event and never felt cold or wet without it.

Anyway, numbers and trackers were collected, a mostly empty drop bag deposited with the Logistics team (the kit that had been in it was in our packs so it had spare shoes and (in my case) a key for the B&B in it and not a great deal else). People that have read this blog from the beginning may remember Rachel, the Angel of CP4. Well she completed the Spine Sprint last year and was volunteering at the start, at CP1 and at CP4 this year and was a welcome sight at registration. I will get to the race very soon but as I mentioned the Logistics Team this seems like a good place to acknowledge their work. These guys are almost ‘behind the scenes’ and make sure everything is where it should be when it should be and because they are so good at it, you don’t tend to notice them! Our final piece of preparation was to get our bottles filled. We were both going to take the full 3 litres we had to have capacity for as, despite the rain, it was probably going to be a hot race.

We made our way over to the start and stood around towards the back of the field as I didn’t want us to get swept up with the quicker runners and set off too fast. Also in the race was Chris. Chris is another incredible volunteer with one very special talent – she is responsible for the Alston lasagne – she had a t-shirt that said so.

It’s finally time to get running!

At 12pm on the 17th of June 2023 Sharon started her first ever Spine Race. At 12:05 I caught up with her and suggested we slow down a bit as there was still a way to go yet. We jogged along the road and turned off to the ‘Offical Start of The Pennine Way’ (that’s what the sign says).

By the time we got to Upper Booth, the field was already quite spread out. I didn’t really care how many people were in front or behind us. Whilst we didn’t really know how things were going to unfold, I thought that if we could manage a 3 miles an hour average and finish in about 15 hours we would be doing OK. Many people might think that 3 mph is only an average walking pace and so should be quite easy to achieve, well this is the Pennine Way, it has its own ideas on what average is – especially over 46 miles!

We soon found ourselves at the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder, the second biggest climb on the whole Pennine Way – ‘only’ doing the first bit doesn’t mean you miss out all the hard bits!

We had done quite a lot of mountain training in Fuerteventura and it must have worked as we were at the Kinder Low trig point in not much over an hour. Four miles in we were well ahead of our target pace and we’d completed the biggest single climb we would face in the event. However there was still over forty miles to go so whilst I was very happy with how things were going I knew we couldn’t relax just yet.

The Kinder Plateau is covered with an annoyingly large number of rocks, which mean that even once you are up there on the relatively flat ground running is still difficult, especially if you also want to take in the views. I certainly did, next time I’m there will be in January, probably in fog – or a blizzard – so I wanted to make the most of the views while I had them.

I should mention that one there are two very important things to do if you are taking in the views. The first is keep an eye on the terrain and don’t trip up. I managed that this time. The second is don’t turn off the Pennine Way onto a random path towards the Mermaid’s Pool. Many thanks to the lovely lady leading a group of walkers that called me back before I was more than a few metres off the route.

I further demonstrated my apparent complete lack of knowledge of the Pennine Way by assuring Sharon we had done all the steep climbs and descents and so she could put her poles away – just before the steep descent off the plateau and the climb up to Mill Hill. Anyway I was eventually right and we were onto the seemingly never ending line of slabs that would lead to the A57 crossing at Snake Pass.

The ground beside the slabs was decidedly un-boggy. We jogged along the path at a reasonable pace. Slabs are definitely easier than rocks but these are bits of slabs of limestone apparently recovered from old industrial buildings, not nice regular paving stones, and so you still have to be a bit careful not to trip up.

Neither of us were particularly looking forward to the section through Devils Dike and Bleaklow. It isn’t particularly difficult, just annoying underfoot and it wiggles around a bit, which makes it all seem much further than it is.

After Bleaklow it was on to Torside and through the heather down to the reservoir. We had completed 15 miles in 4 hours, an hour faster than planned. However we didn’t feel as if we had overexerted ourselves to do that so all was good.

This was a significant point as it was the end of our one of our recce days and about a third of the way through the race. After we crossed the reservoir (across the top of the dam, no swimming or boats required) we were heading towards the ‘other’ big climb of the race, up to Laddow Rocks.

The climb up was tough but we made it and even passed a couple of people on the way. After reaching the top of Laddow Rocks it was a small descent to Crowden Great Brook and a couple of miles of up to the top of Black Hill.

After Black Hill the path goes down to Dean Clough, a pretty little stream. In January this could be a raging torrent that could knock me off my feet. I prefer the pretty little stream version personally.

After crossing the road we entered the reservoirs at Wessenden – well more accurately we were on the tracks around them but the water level was so low we could have gone quite a way into them before getting wet.

The last really daunting climb is up to Marsden Moor. It isn’t that big in the grand scheme of things but it is steep and we had run over 25 miles by now.

After the steep climb the path continues to steadily climb until Black Moss Reservoir and then its downhill to the A62.

By now Sharon was starting to feel a bit sick. She had been eating and drinking but probably not drinking enough given it had been a fairly hot day. Incidentally, the jammy bit in the middle of a Jaffa Cake is just about enough to prevent it disintegrating entirely and renders it still edible even if it’s a funny shape – I found that out when I opened my food bag at the top of Kinder Low. We were met by a safety team at the road crossing. This wasn’t the first one we had met but it was the first I took water from. It wasn’t that I had run out, it was just that they had bottled water. The water I’d got at Edale tasted strongly of chlorine and I was keen to have a drink of something more palatable. I was hoping that Sharon would be OK for the next 4 miles as we would then be at Nicky’s Food Bar, where we could have a break and get some food and drink. The path seemed to be doing some more up to White Hill. We’d done ‘Black Hill’, now ‘White Hill’. I was hoping that the hills stayed strictly monochrome and there wasn’t a ‘Green Hill’, or ‘Yellow Hill’ or ‘Red and Blue Striped Hill’. ‘Orange and Purple Hill’ would have been OK though. We’d been running for 9 hours by now and my mind was wandering off in some very strange directions – which was fine, so long as I didn’t start following it. Anyway we were also running with a lovely lady whose name I’ve either forgotten or never asked. I do remember that this was her first ultra and she thought her last as she prefered hiking. Anyway she was kind enough to take our picture at White Hill.

Soon Nicky’s Food Bar came into view from the outside it’s just a container.

But inside….

I knew that what would really help Sharon was soup. Sadly soup wasn’t on the menu. However Nicky did find a chicken cuppa-soup, would that do? It certainly would Nicky, you are an absolute star. After some soup and some Tango Sharon wasn’t completely OK but much better and – I hoped – up to the final half marathon to Hebden Bridge. We had hoped we might get to Nicky’s before dark. as it was we made it before sunset. My watch was predicting a 1:30am finish when we left. I thought anything before 2am would be a fantastic achievement for us. We put our extra layer on before leaving Nicky’s. It was about to get dark and I knew we were likely to feel cold after our stop. As it happened we were a little warm but generally it is better to get the warm layers on before you start feeling too chilly.

I have mentioned how dry everywhere was. In 2021 when I left Nicky’s I stepped into a thigh deep bog. Last year I carefully avoided the bog. this year, no bog at all!

As it got dark we could see the lights of Rochdale in the distance.

We reached the last peak of the race at Blackstone Edge. From here on, apart from a small climb around Stoodley Pike and a small climb at the very end in Hebden Bridge, it was flat or downhill all the way to the end! Rob left Nicky’s at the same time as us and took the ‘Blackstone Edge’ picture for us.

We came down from Blackstone Edge, crossed the A58 and turned into the last set of reservoirs before the end. The path is flat and if we are honest not very exciting. However despite not feeling 100% Sharon still had some running in her so we were able to make good progress and soon Stoodley Pike was in sight. Well, it would have been had it been daylight anyway. As it was we had a couple more miles to go before we could really see it. I’ve bought a new phone since I was last there in the dark so this time you can see it in my picture. Last time it was a black shape on a black background.

We had fairly recently run the section from Stoodley Pike to Hebden Bridge after the Haworth Hobble. It’s often the case that towards the end of a run distances feel longer and time seems to drag but this time everything seemed to arrive much earlier than I expected and we were soon on the final steep descent to Hebden Bridge – and we were running. We got to the canal and nearly trod on a load of sleeping ducks, turned into town and got a few shouts of encouragement from the revellers leaving a nightclub and then we were on Birchcliffe Road – which is steep, really, really steep, well it is after 45 miles anyway. I had a slight navigational worry as we came to the end of my route but a whispered ‘Up here’ from a marshal sitting at the entrance to the finish kept us on track and we ran through the finish hand in hand. 13 hour and 16 minutes, absolutely smashed our 15 hour target!

The service at the checkpoint was exactly as it had been on the Full Spine last year – amazing. We were sat down, our shoes taken off and labelled and then led to our table and our drop bags. Sharon got some soup and some anti-nausea drugs from the medics and started to feel better. I had some pasta and failed to get us a taxi. The firm claimed to have sent one but we never saw it. They later sent me a text thanking me for using them and for paying £13 for my journey. However someone else had called a taxi which turned out not to be suitable for the number of people and where they wanted to go so we took theirs while they waited for a bigger one.

We got back to our B&B and had to shower despite the late hour. We had the ‘Pennine tan’, a layer of black peaty dust all over our legs. In my case it had even gone through my shoes and socks and I had black feet as well. As we were going to bed at about 3am, the heavens opened. I immediately thought of Chris. When I had checked she was at the last reservoirs with an ETA of 6:02am. The storm was unlikely to help. As it was I needn’t have worried. When I checked the next morning she had finished in 17 hours and 42 minutes, 18 minutes inside the cut-off.

I think this is the bit where I usually say what I thought of the race, what I learned and what I did and didn’t enjoy. Well this one was a bit different as it wasn’t really about me, it was about Sharon and helping her to experience the Spine Race. I learnt she is awesome – but I already knew that. I can honestly say there were no arguments, tantrums (from either of us) or any points at which I felt she was doing anything but giving it her all – absolutely top effort. She was also 17th lady out of 40 starters (38 finishers) so comfortably above average! I think she enjoyed it – she said she did and she is very proud of the t-shirt. She isn’t saying she absolutely won’t sign up for the Challenger next year but that might just be because sign-up is a way away and by not ruling it out I stop trying to convince her for a while.

OK, a few words about me. I really enjoyed the experience. I admit it, I love the Spine Races and all the people that come with them. It was great to share my passion with my nearest and dearest – and for her to see there is more to running the Spine than a dot and and a broken husband at the end. As I mentioned earlier on in the blog, I’ve been buying some rather nice kit for my January Spine attempt. Whilst packing for this one I experimented with putting the full winter kit in my pack. It fits. Now the decision – do I go with a 20 litre pack where it all fits but quite snugly or, as I originally planned, a 30 litre one with plenty of ‘rummage room’? More experimentation is required I feel!

Next up is a very flat race of 75 miles around the Essex coast – the Saltmarsh 75. In 2013 this was a two day event and my very first ultra. In 2023 there is a two day or a one day option. I couldn’t decide so I’m doing the one day event then tail running the second day of the two day event. It seemed like a good idea at the time…