Recce Six – A Fairy Tale of North Yorkshire

The 2024 Winter spine Race is getting ever closer. Unfortunately I was developing an inverse relationship between how close the race was and how prepared I felt. The main issue for me was ‘am I really prepared for the cold?’ I kept playing out a nightmare scenario in my head where my hands got cold, I couldn’t work the zips on my jacket or warm layers and so would become hypothermic and DNF. As a result I’ve spent a LOT of the last few weeks thinking about gloves and warm layers. I took advice from the kit meister himself, Lindley Chambers, on gloves and think I have a strategy – well, two pairs of warm gloves that meet kit requirements and that should keep my fingers warm anyway. I also took advice from mega ultra-runner and all round good bloke Natan Montague. He pointed out that if my core got cold it was more or less game over for trying to keep my hands warm as the first thing my body does in those circumstances is divert blood flow away from the extremities.

All of this lead me to the conclusion that, whilst I could fit my mandatory kit in my 20 litre Fastpack, that was about all I could fit and so the additional layers I’d purchased would do an excellent job of keeping my drop bag warm and be things for me to wish I had with me as I slowly turned blue on Cross Fell. As a result I have upgraded to the 30l Fastpack, which has given me much more ‘rummage room’ and means I can fit in extra gear if I need to.

Of course all this is extremely theoretical as none of this kit had been tried in a real Pennine environment. I needed to do another recce. I also needed to find a way to persuade Sharon it would be a good idea for her to come along as well, so I picked a section that is also part of the Spine Challenger South as we are doing that together in the Summer. Gargrave to Horton in Ribblesdale looked good both from a running and logistics perspective. We could stay in Horton in Ribblesdale, take the first train to Gargrave and ‘run’ the 22 miles back. Sharon has wanted to see Malham Cove ever since it appeared in the Harry Potter film so that was another selling point – and we would go over Fountains Fell and Pen-y-Ghent, which may or may not have been a selling point.

Anyway my plan was approved and I booked us two nights in the Crown Hotel. I was slightly worried by some of the comments on Google and yes, there are a lot of notices telling you what you can and can’t do but we found the landlord and landlady very friendly and the food was great. To be fair having chatted to the landlord and heard about some of the things that people have done (sneaked into the bedrooms and had a shower???) I might have put up a few notices if I ran the place.

Anyway the die was cast, we travelled North and on Saturday caught the 7:19 to Gargrave, which was impeccably on time (also the station was one of the few places I got any sort of phone signal so I kept my Duolingo streak going).

I’d had a message from the wonderful Rachel of Checkpoint Four asking if she could join us for some of our run, to which I of course answered yes. Firstly Rachel is lovely and its always good to see her and secondly I might want seconds of Lasagne in January. We met up by the phone box and bus shelter where I ate my picnic bought from the legendary Co-Op on the Summer Spine 2022.

The ground was very frosty and slightly snowy. I was quite happy with this as I’m hoping for frozen bogs in January, which will simply try and break my ankles, as opposed to wet mushy ones, which will try and drown me.

We saw a lot of sunrises on our recent holiday but sunrise on the Pennines in the yorkshire Dales is right up there with any of them.

Not only did we get sunrises but we got wildlife too!

As this is supposed to be a blog about my Spine running and this recce was all about testing kit, this might be a good time to mention what kit it was that I was testing. I’ve already mentioned I’d increased my pack size to 30l but that wasn’t all that was new. I’d really liked the Inov8 winter running tights when I used them last year for the Cheviot Goat and this year for the Fellsman. Damian Hall reckoned they were pretty good when he won the Spine last year. So why have Inov8 apparently discontinued them? I had bought he OMM winter running tight instead. There is nothing wrong with my Inov8 ones but my plan at the moment is to have two changes of kit, one for CP2 and one for CP4 so I need two extra pairs of decent winter tights. I’d worn Hemy long waterproof socks for a couple of short runs to try them out but this would be their first test on a long run. I also had my Yaktrax with me, which I’d had for a while but never used. I also had some liner gloves I bought years ago in order to make an order up to the free postage limit and a new pair of Montane Prism gloves. On my top half I had similar kit to that which I wore when I climbed Mount Kinabalu on holiday, a Gore vest, long sleeve top, a thermal gilet and my Mountain Equipment Firefly jacket. I had a Dexshell woolly hat on my head, a Virtual Spine Spine finishers buff around my neck and Inov8 Roclite G320s on my feet. My pack contained more or less the entire Spine kit list, although the First Aid kits require a bit of sorting out. Oh and I had an old Montaine waist pack as a front pouch. This turned out to be a great if accidental choice, as it has two mesh pockets which were big enough to hold the Montane gloves as I spent much of the day only wearing the liners.

We set off from Gargrave on West Street onto Mark House Lane and Rachel spotted the not completely obvious stile where we left the road and started across the fields. We didn’t quite get the first field right, it wasn’t a big detour but we did go up a hill more than was strictly necessary. Another new item of kit for me was my watch, I’d bought the Garmin Enduro 2 because of its stunningly long battery life. You have to take a handheld GPS device as part of the compulsory kit but I’d found in the past it was hard to use a handheld device and poles so I was planning on using my watch for the majority of the navigation, hencing buying a watch with a very long battery life. However at this point in time however I really wasn’t getting on with the watch for navigation and had to use the handheld GPS. I wasn’t using my poles so it wasn’t a problem but it was still disappointing to have spent so much on a watch that wasn’t doing what i wanted it to do. I decided I should see if I could improve things. I’d put some slightly better maps on it so it wasn’t the maps that was the problem, it was the scale. The default zoom level was far too wide to navigate through any sort of complicated areas of paths, or to find the path if I strayed off it. I zoomed in a lot more and suddenly I had a viable navigation device! This was handy as I later noticed I’ve used the handheld so much the case has worn through on one of the buttons so if it had got wet I might have been in trouble! I also had to change the batteries in it and found the first modification I could make to make life much easier next time. The back of the case is opened by lifting and turning a small metal ring. This is impossible with gloves on, even liner gloves. If I tie a piece of cord through the ring it will be much easier. If I tie a long piece of cord through it and attach the other end to my pack I won’t lose the back if I have to take it off, or the GPS when I’m using it normally.

After almost falling over on some ice I decided it might be good to see if I could fit my Yaktrax and see how they were to run in. The answer was that they were OK. I deliberately kept on softer or icier sections of the path as I’d read that the rubber could be damaged by sharp rocks.

We arrived a Malham where Rachel left us. She was going for coffee and would then run back to Gargrave where she had parked. It was a shame she had to leave but we had really enjoyed running with her and it had certainly made the first third of the run pass quickly. I took off my Yaktrax and we headed up the road through Malham towards Malham Cove, an essential destination for Harry Potter fans.

We passed several groups of hikers as we jogged into the Cove. Many of them had poles but none appeared to have brooms. Some may have had Gryffindor scarves but if they did they were well hidden. We climbed the steps up to the limestone pavement and Sharon got her first view of said natural wonder.

When I’d crossed the pavement in the summer it was tricky because of the large angle snapping gaps. In winter it still has those but it was also quite icy. The actual official route of the Pennine Way goes right through the middle of the limestone. Many people (Damian Hall included) recommend going slightly North to avoid the most challenging bits. I’ve never seen any statement from the Spine team as to whether that is acceptable or not but it doesn’t particularly shorten the route and the alternatives are a potentially treacherous icy crossing of the limestone or putting my Yaktrax on and probably damaging the rock, neither of which sound ideal so I think I will try and avoid the actual pavement as much as possible in January.

After safely crossing the pavement we started to head towards Malham Tarn, which would be the site of CP1.5 in the actual Spine races.

It would appear that the Spine Race organisation doesn’t set up checkpoints every weekend on the off-chance a random Spine runner will come past but I was prepared!

A stove is part of the compulsory kit and as I need to practice using mine I’d already agreed with Sharon that if she brought along a mug and a Cuppa Soup, I’d provide some hot water. The making of two mugs of soup passed without incident, which was surprising as it involved flames and hot things. One thing I did learn is that checking if the stove is still hot with gloves on is not a great idea, the gloves do start to look a bit second-hand (no pun intended) before you discover that the stove supports are still really quite hot.

After leaving Malham Tarn things got a bit more vertically challenging. Nothing to do with us both being on the short side and everything to do with Fountains Fell and Pen-y-Ghent. My new watch tells me all sorts of interesting things – like just how much the next climb will hurt. Some people don’t like to know that sort of thing but I found it quite good to see my progress up Fountains Fell and get some sort of reassurance that, despite appearances to the opposite, it didn’t go on forever (unlike this blog).

After Fountains Fell it was down to the road to the start of our last climb – up Pen-y-Ghent. This side of the fell was more shaded and so icier – I probably should have put my Yaktrax on – or the microspikes I carried around all day and forgot about.

Despite the snow and ice we got down without incident and were left with the day’s last climb, up one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

The approach to Pen-y-Ghent is quite long. After coming off Fountains Fell you have to run quite a long way along a road beside the mountain before turning off to almost double back on yourself to climb the mountain. I stopped to try putting my Yaktrax on and learnt I could either sit down and do it or catapult them across a field whilst hopping around on one leg when I didn’t quite get the back part over my heel.

The actual climb isn’t too bad. It’s a bit scrambly and sketchy in a couple of places but nothing very difficult – if you are going up you are probably going the right way. Most of it is stepped and once you get over the last steep bit it’s Pennine Way flagstones all the way to the trig point.

The path down from Pen-y-Ghent is much easier than the route up. Unfortunately Sharon developed a pain in her foot on the way down which limited our pace but we were still going to be back well before dark which was as much of a plan as we had. Overall we’d done really well I felt – it must have been good, according to Strava I set 23 personal records over the course of the run! I did fall over on the last section before hitting the road as it was very icy, I’d decided to take my Yaktrax off sometime earlier and couldn’t be bother to put them on. I probably should realise that a broken bone is just as broken with half a mile to go as with ten but I got away with it this time.

We did get to pass Horton in Ribblesdale’s first ever village Christmas tree! It was great that the had one but it was hard not to be a little underwhelmed if I’m honest.

We got back to the pub at almost exactly 3pm and celebrated with apre-run pints before getting changed for more celebratory alcohol and food. Whilst we were in the pub another couple came in wearing shorts and carrying Ultimate Direction packs. My Spiner radar went into full alert and yes, Danielle (apologies if I’ve spelt that incorrectly if you ever read this) has won a place for being part of a Safety team and had done the same route as us, just later, quicker, and in shorts. They were eating in the pub before taking the train back to Gargrave where they had left their car.

So was it worthwhile? Yes. What did I learn? Well, despite it being minus six at the start I was never really cold. I had two more tops with me which I didn’t use and I rarely put the Prism gloves on, the liners were enough most of the day. Obviously if it had been wet and windy I would have almost certainly needed more gear but I was happy that I was warm enough and still had more kit to use.

The OMM tights were fine. Warm enough and nothing chafed so should be OK for the race.

I will try and find some warmer liner socks. The sock combination I had was OK but could be better. The Hemy socks did the waterproof thing but I need warmer liners. My feet weren’t catastrophically cold but it would have been nice if they could have been warmer.

Yaktrax were OK but I have to sit down to get them on. They dangle perfectly happily of my packs waist belt between uses but I might add a small strap to stop them falling off if I take the pack off. If you forget you brought microspikes and leave them in your pack all day you have no idea if they are any good or not – I’ll have to find another occasion to test those out.

Soup is great and well worth the effort.

The most important thing I learned is that I might just be able to do the Winter Spine without freezing to death, which will be a bonus!

There might be one more panicked rambling blog about nothing in particular before the event but from here until sometime after the 14th of January the only way really is Pennine!