Greater Manchester Marathon

I hadn't done a marathon for three years, mainly because as I've got a bit older I've found that doing higher road mileages is neither all that interesting nor all that good for joints and muscles when compared with the altogether more rewarding pastime of running in our hills and forests.

But I had a couple of reasons for this one.

Firstly,  I had a feeling that I was not keeping up the level of fitness that I had done when I had the discipline of the occasional road race to keep me honest. Nowhere to hide on the roads, you can't blame the weather, the mud, or any number of things you can use to kid yourself that you really could have run an ultra faster but you were somehow prevented by circumstances beyond your control. If you take out the more extreme examples such as Snowdon, then a marathon is a marathon, and your time will tell you what state you're in. So running a marathon would be good for me.

And secondly, I had a feeling I would like to run London again sometime. I'd done this back in 2006, but entry was easy then, I was working for the sponsoring company and we got a good number of places for company employees. Nowadays it's more difficult. I can't sign on to the ethics of running for a charity - probably the subject of a whole post so I'll just leave it at that for now - and tales of the ballot were pretty depressing, people being unsuccessful for five years and so on. So my remaining option was to get a "good for age" place, for which I needed a recent "official" time; the requirement gets progressively easier as you get older, for me it's now 4 hours (and in a couple of years or so goes up to 5 hours!). In my last run at Blackpool in 2013 my time was just under 3 hours 43 minutes, so I assumed with a bit of training that the intervening years would not have removed 17 minutes from my potential and I ought to be OK.

I chose Manchester because it's local, I hadn't run it before, it's (in theory) logistically easy because it starts and finishes in the same place, and the course goes through the area where my son and his family live so I could probably get a bit of personal support at least at one point! For one reason or another the training hadn't really gone as I'd planned, but I'd done at least one road run each week since Christmas with a couple of half-marathon jaunts and one 16 miler at just over 9 minute pace. Not really enough but I assumed that it would be OK.

On the day it was a beautiful but chilly morning as I drove over to Old Trafford, parked at MU and walked over to the start/finish area at the cricket ground. I got a coffee and queued 10 minutes to drop off my bag - this contained warm clothes for the finish and the exercise was a mistake in hindsight as the car was only a 10 minute walk away - then made my way to the start pens. It was all quite low key and unstressful, I guess as a result of this not being "big" for a city marathon, I think there were about 12,000 starters on the day. Among the other starters was Katrina Kynaston, here with John; I didn't know that at the time or I would have looked out for them.

The starter was the evergreen Ron Hill  -  a strange coincidence for me as he started the last marathon I ran at Blackpool in 2013  -  and we were soon under way. The course wandered around Old Trafford for a couple of miles then headed out towards Sale. The organisers must have generated some clout because they had got the main road through Stretford to Sale closed for the event - impressive. I set out to maintain an 8.50 mile pace to give me a workable but not excessive cushion on my 4 hour target, but I noticed after 3 or 4 miles that my watch was reading high against the course mile markers. Either my watch was a bit out or the markers hadn't been too carefully sited. To be on the safe side I assumed the former and took my target "watch" pace down a bit to 8.45. This seemed pretty easy so I was happy enough.

There were more than enough water stations so I was able to go with the plan I had used on many marathons previously of taking on about 200-250ml every 10k. I normally walk through the water station as I'm doing this, I think the time you lose is more than paid back by the ease of a comfortable drink and something to eat at the same time, maybe a bit of ultra technique spilling back into marathons. Today I just ate a couple of squares of Shotblok every time I stopped for a drink, it works for me OK.

The crowds at the start had been a bit sparse but at soon as we hit Sale and Altrincham they were brilliant, lots of people and lots of noise. Shortly after turning into Brooklands Road at about 10 miles I saw John with his wife Jade and our two granddaughters on the other side of the road, we all waved furiously but it came and went quickly of course. The course is advertised as flat but there is a steady climb from Brooklands up to Altrincham, where there is a little loop before it works back down to Sale. The halfway point was in Altrincham and I was pleased to see it go by at around 1:55 - just nicely inside 4 hour schedule, my watch seemed solid at 8.45 average from the start.

On the return leg back up Brooklands, now approaching 17 miles, Jade and the girls had gone home but John was still there, now on my side of the road taking photographs and close enough for a quick high five.

From Sale, the return course wanders north out through Urmston, an area I don't really know. This, probably combined with the effects of distance run and the rising temperature now that the sun had really got a grip, gave me the first thoughts of tiredness at around 20 miles. I was still solid on my 8.45 pace "on the watch", but then a quick calculation told me that I was now pretty "safe" on my target and could allow the pace to drop a bit and still get comfortably inside 4 hours. The problem then of course is that unless you are really determined to resist it, once a thought like that that gets into your head then that's what you do! At half way I had considered re-adjusting my target to 3:50, but now although I'm sure it was perfectly possible it wasn't a powerful enough motivator for the bit of extra effort required. I drifted down a few seconds a mile back into a comfort zone, but then was surprised at how many runners I was still overtaking this late in the race. Looking at the splits afterwards it was somewhere around here that I must have passed Katrina, but as I wasn't looking out for her I wouldn't have noticed. She went on to finish in just over 4 hours.

Before long we were back into known ground, turning into the main road in Stretford with barely a mile or so to the finish. Good crowd support again and in a few moments it was done. My finishing time was 3:52:56.  I was pleased enough and feeling pretty good, but still slightly kicking myself that I had let that 3 minutes get away over the last 6 miles because basically I couldn't be bothered to make a better fight of it. Still, if I can still get under 4 hours in London next year I guess I'll be happy.

The finish had its good and bad points. After collecting your medal and goody bag, all runners were offered a free pint of chilled alcohol-free lager; I normally wouldn't touch the stuff but in this situation it absolutely hit the spot. a brilliant idea. Less good was the enormous queue to pick up your clothes bag, which was clearly going to mean a wait of hours rather than minutes. I thought about the rather well used items of clothing I'd left, inside an old dry bag, and decided it wasn't worth spoiling the day over so I abandoned it, walked back to the car in the warm sunshine and drove home.

I later heard that some competitors had been on the baggage queue for nearly three hours. The organisers took it on the chin that they had cocked up, apologised, said they would sort it next time, and offered everyone a discounted entry for next year. More surprising, without my even contacting the organisation (everyone makes mistakes, it's what you do next that counts), three days later my bag arrived home by mail. Well done, Manchester.

Training, Events and the Lakeland 100 Recces

It's occurred to me that I've been a bit slow on the blogging front of late, probably even slower that my normal running speed. The year started well with three posts in January but then declined with only one in each of the following two months. At times like this I often wonder whether it's just because I don't have anything worth saying nowadays, whether I should just call it a day and wrap things up. But it's the place where I dump all my thoughts on running, both on the events and other stuff; I find it interesting to look back over from time to time, so I'll probably continue.

It was puzzling to see where March had gone to after the Northumberland Coast Ultra at the end of February. My main focus was to have been the Hardmoors 55 on the 19th, but I then had the opportunity to go on a ski trip with my daughter and her friends. I'm finding that ski-touring seems like hard work these days so I don't go with the gang I accompanied for several years, but the chance of plenty of lift-served piste and off-piste in the Trois Vallees with an enthusiastic and fairly adventurous young team was too good to miss. As a bonus, we had good snow and great weather.

Back at home it was the normal story for this time of year  -  the odd bits of good weather didn't coincide with my available days and I didn't get out in the hills as much as I would have liked, so I spent most of my time on the trails in my local forest or doing laps on our nearest "mountain" (Moel Fammau in the Clwyds), a rise of all of 900ft from car park to summit! I did a few road runs in preparation for the Manchester marathon, but more of that in a later post I think. So I have the feeling that I need to buckle down and get some quality miles and feet of ascent in before the real season starts, which for me is at the end of May. Assuming I manage to get fit enough, I'm really looking forward to the summer and a great series of events.

First, another little warm-up at the end of this month with the Endurancelife Coastal Ultra down in Pembroke. I like this well-organised no-frills series and this will be my fifth over the last two or three years; up until now I've done the events at Exmoor, South Devon, Anglesey and Northumberland. Pembroke is classed as "moderate" at about 34 miles long and with what looks like about 4000ft of ascent. Pembroke is where we spent a lot of family holidays when our children were young so I'm looking forward to the re-acquaintance. I won't go for broke on this one but it will still be my last "run all the way" event until the autumn, a good test of whether I have a bit of the speed/stamina combination required.

Things get more serious with the Northern Traverse starting on the 30 May. This is a new event taking on the well-known Wainwright "Coast to Coast" route from St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay. Starting at 10am on Monday morning,you have 5 days to complete the route which is just short of 200 miles and 40,000ft of ascent. It's run by James Thurlow's team "Open Adventure"; I've done their "Lakes in a Day" event twice and been impressed, so I think the organisation will be good. An added incentive for me to finish not too late on Friday is that we have tickets to the Keswick Beer Festival that evening! Sleeping is possible at the checkpoints (tents provided) but they are about 40-50 miles apart and don't fit logically with the days, so I guess making the best compromises between getting some rest and not wasting the daylight will be the key. I originally thought I could recce quite a lot of the course but I haven't found time one way or another. I know the bit through the Lake District and the North York Moors section follows the Hardmoors 55 route for about 15 miles, but the rest of it will be completely new to me. 

Then towards the end of June is the West Highland Way, still my favourite event on the ultra calendar. Having done eight in a row up to 2014, I took last year off because it clashed with my (failed!) attempt at the Dragon's Back, so I'm looking forward to getting back on this brilliant trail. I ran the Highland Fling (the first half of the WHW) last year but I don't think I'll go again, it's a bit too big and crowded for me now. All credit to John Duncan and his crew, they've made it one of the UK's premier and high reputation ultras, but that's not really what I go to Scotland for. Limit on numbers keeps the longer WHW a rather more serene affair, much more my scene.

Similar to the WHW in generating its own family atmosphere is the Lakeland 50/100 weekend in late July, with many runners going back year after year. This will be my seventh year of involvement. I marshalled at the start and finish last year, a great experience after competing the previous five years, and this year I'm going back again to run in the 100.

A unique feature of the Lakeland is that the organisers run a series of four recce weekends throughout the year which in total cover the whole course. They are worthwhile events in their own right, usually with some related talks on the Saturday evening and buses to the start on the Sunday, allowing you to run the relevant course section through manned checkpoints back to your car. For the last couple of years I've run as sweeper on the recces and had a great time. Last year I did all four, but this year clashes with other events have meant I can only manage two, the last being the Buttermere to Dalemain section about ten days ago. I was asked to do the Saturday talk for this one  -  they had last year's winner Paul Tierny for one of the earlier talks this year so at least I could speak from a completely opposite point of view in terms of competence! Actually, my main theme was pacing because I believe that many of the runners who DNF in the Lakeland 100 do so because they go too quickly over the first half, particularly the first thirty miles or so where nearly all the hard ground on the course is concentrated. Another thing I touched on was the recce coming up the next day, described by Race Director Marc Laithwaite on the website as "one of the easier sections of the route with relatively good tracks and few aggressive climbs and descents". In fact, Buttermere to Dalemain is 33 miles and nearly 6000ft of ascent - requiring quite a bit more effort that the Pembroke ultra I'll be running in three weeks time! The fact that Marc's statement is completely true just illustrates what a challenge the Lakeland 100 presents.

The recce run went well, we had fine clear weather even if continuous rain for the preceding two days made it a bit sloppy underfoot at times. As on the previous recce from Ambleside to Coniston, I shared the sweeping duties with Billy Burns, who is himself doing all four this year. Last year Billy completed the Lakeland 100 in 33:37, a time which I'm sure is beyond me, but what was more impressive is that he did it on the back of an extremely conservative first half. He arrived at Dalemain, generally thought to be the halfway point in time for a well paced race, in 18:22 in 204th place, and picked up 100 places before the finish. He's going for the 100 again this year and I predict the improvement will be significant!

Sweeping was fun as usual, you get to chat to a lot of nice people about their experiences and ambitions, at a pace that is normally well within your own. Then occasionally the last runner will decide they've had enough for the day and drop out, so you have to make sure they have a reliable route back to safety then put on a bit of a push to catch up the new backmarkers. Billy and I ran on our own from Blencathra to Dockray, with estimates of how much we had to catch up varying between 20 and 40 minutes. We eventually just failed to catch the pair ahead before the checkpoint. but it gave us a pretty fair workout for a while. It was good to get back on the course again, though I don't expect I'll have time to revisit much more of it before the race in July.

And then at the end of August, the UTMB is lying in wait. Back once again to the big Chamonix party!

Northumberland Coast Ultra

No great tales of derring-do, suffering or achievement in this one (as if there ever are on these pages!); just a simple account of a nice day out, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's, something to look back on from time to time.

I've done a few of the Endurancelife Coastal Series over the past two or three years and found them well-organised events, run to a standard pattern in coastal areas worth visiting. No stress involved, the courses are fully marked and the checkpoints close enough that you don't need to carry very much, just turn up and go really. Other than two days with Jan visiting Lindisfarne and Berwick-on-Tweed I'd never been to the Northumberland coast, so I decided to give this one a go.

The event base was at Bamburgh Castle, so I spent Friday evening at the Victoria Hotel in Bamburgh with a good meal, good beer and a very boring game of rugby (Wales vs France).  The pub was so close to the castle that breakfast on Saturday morning was possible before going down to check in. Endurancelife registration is normally in a chilly tent in a field, so this one actually in the castle buildings was quite plush. A quick briefing then we were on the buses for the short journey down to the start in a field just outside the walls of Alnwick Castle.

After all the mud through the winter it was good to be out on a cold crisp morning. No sun at the start at 8.20 am and a scattering of frozen hail still on the ground, but underfoot it was wonderfully firm and easy to run on. The first 5 miles or so followed the River Aln down to Alnmouth, mostly flat field tracks with the odd rise or bit of road, easy running. I wasn't sure what pace to aim for because I knew the course was fairly flat and runnable most of the way, but over the past two or three years all the races I have done have been hilly with fairly frequent walking sections. In the end, before the event I had decided to go for a 10,30 m/m average for as long as it felt comfortable, assuming I would probably slow down a fair bit later in the race. I was near the back of the field over the first few miles and the group I was in seemed to be holding about 10 minute miles. I was slightly concerned that it might be too fast but it felt easy enough and so I went with the flow.

The first checkpoint turned up just after we hit the coast. They were all similar, about 6 miles apart, outside but with good supplies of water and snacks. Normally, a marshal carrying the dibbing box was a few yards before the resupplies so it was pretty efficient getting through. At this first one I didn't need any fluid as I had started with a full 500ml bottle, so I just grabbed a handful of jelly babies and pressed on through. Everyone I was with stopped for water so the result was that I was suddenly out on my own for a mile or two. After this I don't think anyone else in the ultra raced passed me and I was able to work my way through quite a chunk of the field before the finish.

By now the clouds were starting to break up and the sun was warming the day up a bit, although it never got really warm. There was a slight headwind all the way, but nothing really to be concerned about. Overall it was a pretty perfect day for running. The running was really fine, low cliff-tops with grassy tracks or firm dunes interspersed with sections across beaches with beautifully firm sand. The tide seemed pretty far out so we could take direct lines across the beaches and not have to bother following the contours of the coastline. Just the odd sections of rocks or an occasional gate or stile to break the flow, but it was mostly the sort of country to encourage a continued steady pace.

Endurancelife Coastal events always comprise four races taking sections of the same basic course  -  an Ultra (usually around 33-35 miles), a Marathon, a Half Marathon and a 10k. The Marathon was due to start at the same point as our ultra, Alnwick Castle, but about an hour later than us. The faster guys had not caught me yet, but as I approached the pretty village of Craster it was clear that I was about to get involved in the Half-Marathon start. Crowds of runners were heading from the village to the open ground beyond which was where the start was located. I threaded through the crowds and out past the impressive ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle on the headland beyond. I passed another half dozen ultra competitors on the track and golf course just after this, but kept wondering where the "Half" runners had got to. Just up a little hill and the first one came haring past; from here to Bamburgh I was passed by a fairly steady stream of Half and a few Marathon runners, nearly all of whom wished me well as they passed.

I was still going surprisingly well (for me!) and had managed to maintain a 10 min/mile average from the start. I expected things to get a bit tougher soon, but so far so good. More low cliffs, dunes and beaches. At the end of a long beach a short distance before Seahouses I could see another group of runners milling around for the 10k start. As I got nearer I could hear the pre-start briefing, and this time I hadn't got many yards beyond them when I heard the countdown and then they started to come pouring past.

On the grass just before Seahouses I started to feel a bit of a twinge in my left calf. Not wanting to let it progress into anything bad, I stopped and stretched it out for maybe a minute or two. That seemed to do the trick and I had no more problems with it to the finish.  Through the town to lots of encouragement from bystanders, then out the other side along the coast for a mile or two, then we were down over some rocks to the final beach section leading to Bamburgh Castle, which we could now see. I went through the true marathon distance (the actual marathon race was a bit longer) in 4 hours 20 minutes, still on 10 minute pace, but not long after this things started to toughen up a bit.  I was still passing the odd ultra runner and one or two of the 10k competitors who had maybe gone off a bit fast, but then we were funnelled off the beach and up a steep soft sand track through the dunes and up to the castle, I guess a couple of hundred feet or so above the beach. About half way up there was a fork in the route; all the others races carried on straight up the hill to the finish in the castle, but the ultra diverted off to begin its final 9 mile loop back to the same place. From being on a crowded track, I was now on one with no other runners in sight. 

In a while I caught up with another two but they were going quite slowly so I carried on past, up a steady incline, first up a section of narrow road then around a golf course. There was only around 1500ft of ascent on the whole route, but as the majority of this was in these final 9 miles it made a bit of a mess of my average. This was compensated by great views all round as the course gained height. A winding downhill after the golf course led to another section of mostly uphill, this time across rutted fields which I found I could only cross efficiently by walking. A final checkpoint, no need to stop as I had half a bottle of water left and less than six miles to go, then anotherl uphill up a bit of road. A runner was a few hundred yards ahead giving me a good target and I caught him just on the crest of the hill. We jogged on together for a mile or so chatting about this and that, then a quick look at my watch suggested that I might just have a chance of getting under 6 hours if I pressed on. I needed to better 10 minute miles from here to the finish.

It started well down field tracks and minor roads, but each hundred yards of uphill were making dents in my schedule now. Eventually I made it back down to the beach about a mile short of the castle. There were still one or two ultra runners there, and one or two slower competitors from the other races, so I pushed on. But another check on the time showed that I still needed a 10 minute mile, including the final hill up to the castle, and I wasn't going to do that. Reality kicked in and I slowed down to enjoy the final mile of the trip, finally making it to the finish in four minutes over the 6 hours for the 35,4 miles with my final average up to 10:17 for the whole distance. I would have accepted 11:30 if offered it at the start, so I was still pretty happy with the result. I came in 28th out of 84 starters.

A late lunch in the Castle Cafe rounded things off nicely. I'm going to another of this coastal series at the end of April, this time to Pembrokeshire, another lovely area. I'm looking forward to it.

Safety and the "Mandatory Kit"

Always plenty of threads on Facebook. Runner X asks whether this bit of lightweight kit will pass the inspection, Runner Y says don't be daft, take something heavier or you'll die, so the debate begins, you'll have seen it. Most races of any length these days have a mandatory kit list, some of which makes sense, some which doesn't, so I thought it might be interesting to tease out what is going on here and how we might approach the subject with a bit of objectivity. My views as always, I don't expect everyone to agree, but it's one of those subjects which as well as being good for a bit of pub discussion, covers areas where some sensible choices could give you a much better race experience, and might just keep you alive.

If you continue reading you'll have to indulge me for a bit while I ramble over a couple of climbing anecdotes  -  I know they come up far too frequently in what's supposed to be a running blog but it was how I spent my formative years and I think the two pastimes are not really so far apart in many ways.

In my second or third Alpine season, four of us went out to climb the South Ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, a classic, not too difficult but very long and committing rock climb on the south side of Mont Blanc. The normal starting place is an unguarded but comfortable and well-equipped hut 2 or 3 hours walk up from the Peuterey valley road. From here, our guidebook gave 12-16 hours for the ascent and 4-6 hours for the descent by the East Ridge back to the hut. Those sort of times suggested a bivvy was likely, so we took the gear and decided to bivvy anyway. We left the valley around lunchtime, ignored the hut, bivvied about a third of the way up the South Ridge and again about half-way down the descent of the East Ridge, getting back to the valley about 48 hours after leaving it. On our second ("summit") day, we were passed by two Swiss climbers. They had stayed at the hut, were travelling light and fast (I guess they had just a waterproof, spare sweater and lunch in their sacks), and would make it back to the hut for a second comfortable night's sleep. They too spent a total of 48 hours away from the valley but their experience was completely different from ours. Who had the most fun? Who was the safest? Discuss.

A few years later, I went with a friend to another climb in the same area, the Gugliermina Pillar on the Aiguille Blanche, a more difficult and rather more remote climb, approached from the Monzino Hut over the Col de l'Innominata and the very tortuous Freney Glacier, a 4 hour trip landing you on some ledges (the Schneider Ledges) at the foot of the face. Our English guidebook recommended a bivvy at this point and said that "a confident party can leave their bivouac gear here and return to it in a day".  But we had been talking to a French guide who said the trip was now considered possible from the Monzino, back in a long day without a bivouac. So that's what we attempted, but we ran out of steam and daylight on the Col de l'Innominata on the return trip, resulting in a pretty chilly bivvy at over 10,000ft  with just a sweater and a polybag. But we survived OK.

I had numerous other experiences along these lines as we gradually worked out how to conduct ourselves effectively and safely around the mountains, but the conclusions I eventually came to were pretty simple:

- if you take enough gear to survive, then you will survive, though it may not be comfortable

- if you take enough gear to bivvy comfortably, then it will slow you down and you will probably bivvy, even if by travelling lighter you could have got back in the day

- lighter is faster, and faster is safer - you are exposed for less time to all the objective dangers inherent in mountains (rock and ice fall, weather changes, etc), and are less likely to yield to dehydration, energy deficit and poor decision making which are often the results of being out too long.

But how is this relevant to running ultra events and the "mandatory kit list"? Well, stay with me and hopefully it will become clearer as we go.

To start with, what's the big deal with keeping everything as light as you possibly can? Well, if you don't believe it's important, try a little experiment. Find a nice bit of trail that you run regularly, something like 5 miles with maybe 1000ft of height gain would be good. Run it carrying nothing, then again carrying 2kg, then again with 4kg (and possibly even 6kg, judging by the packs I see some runners carrying!) You'll find difference in effort required is fairly dramatic. And you're going to see that difference over many hours. It's the difference between dancing over boulders or trudging between them. The difference between an uphill feeling like a welcome rest from running or an obstacle to be overcome. And it works like this for everyone, whether you're at the front of the field or the back. Take some weight out and you will be faster everywhere; that's less time for something to go wrong. If you really want to enjoy your races with a good safety margin, carrying the minimum you actually need is important. 

While we're on the subject of keeping weight down, have a think about food. Many races nowadays have well-stocked, or maybe even just adequately stocked, checkpoints. For quite a few years I carried a lot of my own food but even a few energy bars, gels, or whatever you think powers you along can add up to serious weight. I've now come to the conclusion that if someone's happy to take it round the course for me, why should I bother with the extra weight? Just get a bit less picky about what you eat, it's all calories.

The key to weight is that it's cumulative. You can convince yourself that each bit of extra kit or food doesn't weigh much, because probably it doesn't. But add all those little bits together and it becomes significant. Conversely, take little bits of weight out wherever you can and that adds up too  - Kaizen for ultra runners. Weigh your pack before each race, you'll know when you're getting it right.

Anyway, on to the mandatory kit.

There are two lists of kit that you have to consider when packing your bag for an ultra, (a) the kit that the Race Director says you have to take, and (b) the kit that you believe is appropriate for the task in hand, based on your experience and judgement. These lists will not necessarily be the same. During the race you have two responsibilities, (a) to carry the mandatory kit (if not you break the rules of the event), and (b) to make sure that you stay safe. Again, these are not necessarily the same thing.

I'm always surprised when I hear someone say that such-and-such bit of kit is with them on all their events; I prefer to consider each event in its own right, using a sort of mental checklist:

- what is the terrain like?

- how long do I expect to be out?

- what is the weather going to be like? (forecasts are pretty accurate for at least a couple of days)

- how close together are the checkpoints?

- are the checkpoints indoors or outdoors?

- what can I expect at checkpoints ? (no point in carrying food and drink if someone is going to supply water and jelly babies every two hours or so)

- what degree of navigation is required? (and how well do I already know the course)

- how remote is the course? (from roads, towns, etc)

- how big is the field (proximity of other runners, etc)

- if I am forced to slow down, what will my strategy be?

- if I am forced to stop, what will my strategy be?

Asking these questions helps me to decide exactly what kit I would take if there were no restrictions. Clearly what's good for one race may be completely inappropriate for another. For a 30 mile trip on a nice day with frequent and well-stocked checkpoints, I may be happy to carry nothing (though of course the rules may dictate otherwise). For a lengthy trip across the mountains with no support I may want to carry items that are well in excess of the mandatory list. 

Now let me be clear that I would never argue with any Race Director about his particular list - it's his right to make it a condition of his race and I will always make sure that I have everything stipulated. I won't need any clarification on the items that I agree with and see a real reason for, but I will go as lightweight as possible ("skimp" if you like) on the items which my personal strategy says that I will never use. So let's have a look at the sort of things that appear on many mandatory lists, and why they might be there, and if they are in fact useful.

Waterproofs seem to figure pretty well everywhere these days so lets start here.

Waterproof Jacket. I wrote a complete post on this a while ago if you're interested (My Waterproof Jacket Leaks). But basically, you wear a waterproof not to keep you dry (you'll be wet anyway from sweat) but to keep you warm, because water transmits heat from your body much more efficiently than air. I've never understood the logic behind taped seams  -  the fraction of a percent a non-taped seam might let in seems irrelevant alongside the water you're generating internally. Likewise a hood; if you have a waterproof hat that covers your ears I'm not sure what it's for. I have one  jacket with a hood for races that require it, and several without for all other occasions. But what is key is having the proofing in good condition, you need the outer layer shedding droplets fast rather than wetting out, that's the way to stay warm. So I'm a bit cynical that paying a lot more for "quality" is worthwhile, it more than likely goes into styling and gizmos. I have an OMM smock, not because I think it's any more waterproof but because I like the stretchy non-rustling material. But in general there is no reason not to go as light as you can get, so long as it doesn't shred on every tree you brush past The only exception I would make to this is for an event where long periods of pretty nasty weather are likely, ie races where you are going to wear a jacket for long periods  -  such as the UTMB/TDG with a bad forecast, or the Spine Race. In these conditions I would go with a lined mountain jacket - even a thin mesh lining has a significant impact on the heat transfer so is a much warmer system. I know I've gone on a bit about this but having a jacket that you have confidence in is for me one of the most important factors in staying warm and safe.

Waterproof Trousers. I've never worn these against rain, only against wind, so I personally would be happy with windproof. But almost every RD stipulates waterproof/taped so I go with a cheap as chips version as light and compact as possible  -  I'm currently using Peter Storm which I think were about £15. If I ever get around to justifying the cost I would probably go with OMM for the stretch and quietness; I'm sure one pair would last me the rest of my running career.

Now for the ancilliaries that you may need for various types of race, due to the time of year, duration, weather uncertainties and so on.

Hats. To keep you warm or to keep the sun off. Apart from the UTMB which specifies both because extremes of temperature there are the norm, there doesn't seem to be a lot of logic in what is included as mandatory and why, so I  go with what suits me and it normally passes OK. If I take a warm hat I prefer a waterproof fleece-lined cap style with ear flaps that you can turn up and a peak that clips back when you're wearing a torch. No heavier than a beanie and much more versatile.

Gloves. Again, I think only the UTMB specifies waterproof, but unless its just for the early morning of a low-level summer affair, I think if it's worth taking gloves then it's crazy unless they (or at least your complete hand covering system) is waterproof. I have on several occasions had to open rucksacks for runners whose fingers were too numb to operate because their gloves had got soaked. Once you get to that stage, if you're a distance away from civilisation then things can get nasty quite quickly.

Torch. I would only take one torch on an event where I knew its use was going to be limited to a couple of hours or so. Beyond that, it's a no-brainer for me, always take two.  Torches fail or run out of battery in the dark. Even if it's not raining or blowing a gale, that's not the time to be fiddling around fitting new batteries, or worse trying to see what's gone wrong. Get your second torch out, click it on and you're back in action. Conversely, I see people with huge torches projecting lighthouse-like beams; the weight of a single one of these is far heavier than the two I carry. Unless you're a top-end performer wanting to cover really technical ground fast, I say go with the light you need, not with the brightest available.

Well, so far all of this is stuff you will probably use a lot, and probably not too controversial. But now we come to the two areas where a badly thought-out mandatory list can make life hard for you. These are firstly hydration and secondly stuff you may need if something goes wrong.

I really don't get why so many races specify a minimum quantity of liquid to be carried. This figure can take no account of the facts that different runners have different fluid requirements, these requirements vary with conditions, and water is often readily available on the course at frequent intervals, either at checkpoints or naturally occurring in streams, etc. Water is really heavy; you can work hard to pare off 50g here and there from the weight you have to carry then you have an arbitrary kilo (or more!) added for no good reason. Some events take a more sensible view. The Round Rotherham race is 50 miles but has no fluid specification, and  with checkpoints no more than 10 miles apart on a flattish course I have never carried a water bottle. Similarly the Lakeland 50/100 events; frequent checkpoints and water available almost everywhere in the Lakes anyway means you don't need more than a single 500ml bottle unless conditions are extremely hot. What would be much more useful would be for organisers on other events to flag up where water is available and let runners make their own decisions on how much to carry - as it is I suspect many people will fill up for the kit check then pare down to a level they think is sensible once out on the course.

As a little aside here, I'm amazed at the number of runners who carry conventional sport "water bottles". A typical brand will weigh in at around 60-70g for a 500ml bottle, whereas the weight of a typical PET soft drink bottle (Oasis, Powerade, etc) is 25g and will last perfectly well for the duration of a 2 or 3 day race.

Now let's get to the kit that causes the most debate - stuff that you hope you won't have to use but you carry in case something goes wrong. 

I don't understand the First Aid Kit thing. These are often specified in some detail  - the  trouble is that the details are different from race to race. Some ask for blister treatment - I don't get blisters. Some ask for wound dressings, some for various bits of bandage and so on. I'm not sure that they've thought through what all this is going to be used for. I'm happy with a few paracetamol and a metre or so of adhesive elastic tape (yes, this is one that I think the UTMB guys have definitely got right) This bit of kit will do sprains, cuts, grazes and plenty else beside. You don't need a knife or a pair of scissors to cut it, a Stanley blade wrapped in a bit of insulating tape weighs almost nothing. 

But minor trauma that can be fixed with your first aid kit is not your main or most likely problem. The thing most likely to spoil your day is simply that you get cold.

How does this happen?

The probable starting point is that you slow down more than you intended. You might have sustained a minor injury, sore muscles or blisters may be slowing movement, you may have food or digestion problems, or you may simply be too tired to go any faster. You may even slow down because you're carrying too much stuff! Whatever the cause, you slow down. You stop generating as much heat as you were when you were going faster so you start to get cold. This is not a race-threatening situation...... yet. You need to put more clothes on. If it's not raining, you put your waterproof jacket on and that retrieves the situation, you can carry on to the next checkpoint and re-appraise your strategy at that point. But if it's already raining and you get cold, what then? What are you carrying thanks to the mandatory list that might help. A space blanket? Well, you could wrap it around you for a bit of extra warmth to the CP (it has been done) but then it's probably game over. An emergency bivvy bag? Ditto, but you're not going to stop, the situation doesn't feel that serious, you'll wrap it around you and carry on. A spare base layer? Well, once you're in the rain and cold, the presence of mind and determination it takes to take everything you have on off, before putting on another layer in the pouring rain, should not be underestimated. The chances are you won't bother, you'll struggle on possibly hypothermic until hopefully you reach the next bit of civilisation and then stop.

If you can foresee a situation in a particular event where what you see as your normal running kit won't keep you warm when walking, then you need something you can put on quickly and easily and that gives you some real insulation, and in which you can continue your race. A light fleece or a primaloft smock will do this  -  and neither of these is likely to weigh more than 300g, less than a third of the compulsory litre of water someone wants me to carry. On a race of any real length in anything other than a perfect weather forecast, I wouldn't go without one or the other, I think it has more value than many of the "mandatory" items you have to carry. It's interesting to see that just this week Jon Steele has added a Blizzard Survival Jacket to his mandatory list for the sometimes wintry Hardmoors 55 as an alternative to the bivvy bag. I don't have one but I think it's a sound move. When we were young and inexperienced we took sleeping bags to bivvy in the Alps; with more experience we progressed to bivvying in duvet jackets with our feet in our rucksacks  -  a bit more uncomfortable at night but you can't climb in a sleeping bag.

From the above you can see that my personal attitude towards dealing with and ultimately surviving an unplanned situation is to keep moving towards safety for as long as you possibly can. Get lower, get to more shelter, get to the next checkpoint, but keep moving. This is improving the situation you're in. Unless you absolutely have to, stopping before you've reached a place where you can regroup and warm up is bad news, things are unlikely to improve if you do. So I believe your safety kit should be geared to support this strategy.

OK, very occasionally you may be faced with a situation when you genuinely can't move - though short of breaking a leg I can't think what it would be (I'm assuming that action in more serious incidents such as a heart attack is likely to be out of your hands). This is the situation that your emergency bivvy bag is for (space blankets are for the finish of city marathons in my opinion and have no place in an ultra-runner's bag). I can't really argue with that, and at 100g for the most modern ones it seems a light enough insurance policy. The stuff you brought for keeping warm while moving will still work inside it and your backpack will give you a bit of ground insulation. But it probably won't be much fun.

To wrap up, my philosophy for kit can be easily distilled into three rules:

1. Don't argue with the mandatory list
2. Really work at going as light as you can
3. Emergency kit should keep you mobile, not make you stop.

So as I said at the start, my views, I don't expect everyone to agree but I have reasoned them through to myself over the years to my own satisfaction. I haven't gone into the more esoteric items on the mandatory lists of races like the Spine, which present different challenges. I have my views here too but they're probably of less general interest than what I've covered above.

As a well-known runner and race organiser is often heard to say "Let's have fun and stay safe out there!"

Motivation and the Spine Race - a Cautionary Tale

If you read my last post on these pages you'll know that I pulled out of this year's Spine race at Checkpoint 1, that is almost as soon as it started. I said that my head wasn't in the right place for the trip. I got quite a few sympathetic comments from runners who know me so I was prepared to forget about the Spine and move on.

But I have a wise Scottish friend, a far better runner than me, who follows my progress, stays in touch, and keeps me honest when necessary. His message to me after my withdrawal from the event was a bit more challenging:

"I hope you'll do a full length blog post on the Spine, Andy, when the dust has settled a bit. I've been thinking about you / your Spine race quite a lot. Basically the event seems to come up with what I would expect. Much darkness. Varying degrees of dire weather. Sleep deprivation. Wet feet. Cold. Discomfort. Erratic food / eating times. And much else besides. So I would have expected you too to have anticipated all these things in advance. And to have been prepared for them both physically and "in the head". It doesn't seem to be as cold / challenging weather as last year. But otherwise it is coming up with what all is on the tin (this was before the weather turned cold and snowy later in the race) So I'm surprised, given your form on other big events, that you mentally switched off relatively early in the proceedings. I'm not saying it was wrong to pull out in the circumstances, just that I was surprised."

He's right of course; I shouldn't be allowed to get away without a better explanation of what went wrong. It will probably be good for me and there's even an outside chance it may prevent someone else making the same mistakes as me. So here goes, but be warned, it may be at least a two gin and tonic read.

The Race Entry

For several years, the Spine was a race that I said I would never attempt. Too cold, too dark, and seemingly with very few redeeming features. I read about Gary Morrison and co battling through the snow on the inaugural running and my main thought was "why?". It seemed a bit of a fringe event, remote from the mainstream ultra scene. What changed everything of course was the live tracking. Each January we became glued to the progress of the racers as they made their way across the map on our screens. Facebook played its part with the immediacy of its updates and photos, and the race became much more real to those of us watching. We knew what the weather was like, the state of the competitors, the activities of all the support and safety teams. For most runners who have done a few longish ultras, it must be quite an easy step from getting this involved to feeling "I'd like to be a part of that", and not much further to "I ought to have a go at it".

I had good enough qualifications for the race. Since taking up running about ten years ago I had completed 55 ultras varying from 30 to 200 miles in length. Before that I had spent many years as an Alpinist in Europe and other areas, lots of multi day trips in snowy mountains with my fair share of bad weather, cold bivouacs and finding my way over dangerous ground in the dark. Years of Scottish winter climbing meant I was familiar with the wind, powder, wet snow and chilling aspects of the UK winter climate. I knew I could deal with sleep deprivation, both from my climbing trips and the 6-day, 200 mile Tor des Geants race in Italy, during which I'd got by on a total of about 13 hours. I knew how to navigate.

So I had the "I want to have a go at this" and the "I can do this" boxes ticked. I also felt that although I'm hoping to play this game for a good while yet, at 67 I probably shouldn't procrastinate for too many years on this one. I got my entry form in and was accepted.

Preparation.

I decided that preparation for the race dropped into a number of categories:

1. Drawing on the experience of others

2. Making sure you understand the course

3. Devising your race strategy

4. Getting and testing all the kit you need.

5. Getting fit enough

I read all the blogs I could find and was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with several Spine finishers. On the Dragons Back race I spent almost a day with Mark Rawlinson and quite a bit of time with Steve Hayes and Jonathan Zeffert. I ran the final day of the Ring of Fire with Steve Jefferson, and I also talked to John Vernon who I've known for quite some time. All had a slightly different take on the race; the information I got from them was all valuable but it was clear that there were lots of different strategies - all these guys had found one that worked for them and I needed to find my own.

Before entering the race I had never set foot on the Pennine Way, so I decided to reccie most of the route beforehand. Cheating some would say, rather like looking at the picture on the box when you're doing a jigsaw puzzle, but some of us need all the help we can get. It's good to know the nature what's coming up and when, and of course it makes navigation incomparably easier if you've covered the ground before. Joe Faulkner's "Pennine 39" race in July covered the section from Middleton to Alston on a grey and occasionally misty but nevertheless summer day, but I didn't get around to starting on the rest until late October. I had a fairly fine day for the 30 miles from Malham to Hawes, but all my other days on the course were in some degree of rain and very wet underfoot. I didn't do the 10 miles along Hadrian's Wall from Greenhead as I assumed it would be straightforward and I never got around to the final 27 miles over the Cheviots because our flood difficulties in Keswick soaked up the time and energy. I did the rest.

So overall I had covered around 230 miles of the 270 total involved. I did almost all the distance in daylight because I see no point in reccies in the dark - you could be anywhere and you learn almost nothing that will help you in the event. I ended up with a lot of good memories - I enjoyed all my days out in spite of the conditions I encountered - and a set of maps extensively annotated with a waterproof pen detailing all the key navigational points. My impressions of the Pennine Way after these trips were a bit mixed. The first 70 miles are a bit unprepossessing; dull moors across the Dark Peak, hemmed in by towns and road crossings and punctuated by strings of reservoirs up to the Bronte country, followed by fairly unrelenting agricultural slop as far as Malham. Better country follows over Fountains Fell and Pen-y-Ghent, then a high featureless jeep track for almost 15 miles to Hawes. North of here the country gets much wilder. I was impressed with the unheralded Great Shunner Fell (higher than the much better known Pen-y-Ghent), the charm of Upper Swaledale, and the wide lonely moors north of Tan Hill. Middleton to Alston is probably the pick of the route, with the waterfalls of the Upper Tees, the remarkable High Cup and the traverse of Cross Fell and its neighbours. Further north, the farmland and low moors seem more open and attractive than those further south. I would have liked to do the Cheviots, I must go back there sometime  Aside from the layout of the countryside, the overriding impression of the track throughout is that it is just so wet underfoot, sometimes just muddy but often up to knee-deep. We had a particularly wet Autumn, but I can't imagine that it's much different most years.(Note: towards the end of 2016 I did go to the Cheviots for the inaugural running of the Wooler Trail Marathon. It confirmed all that I was expecting, a stunning area but awful ground underfoot. I haven't been back)

With this knowledge of the course I was able to decide how I planned to tackle the event. The only place you can guarantee a warm, dry sleep is at the checkpoints. The distance between checkpoints is around 40 miles, except for the stretch between CP1 and CP2 which is 60 miles. Some people plan to sleep between checkpoints, either by taking a tent or by bivvying in accessible shelters - barns, bird hides, public toilets, and so on. Most legs also have pubs and cafes at some point where you can get a hot meal - if they are open when you pass them. I decided that from my reccies I could safely aim for an average 2,5 miles an hour outside of checkpoints which would allow for a reasonable stop at each one. I decided also that I have had enough uncomfortable bivvies over the years so I would plan to sleep only at checkpoints and not stop in between unless I was falling asleep, even on the 60 mile stage. This meant that I would have to stop and sleep at CP1 at Hebden Bridge. This is only 45 miles from the start, but with a 10am start it would still be pretty late when I got there and I would have no problem getting a couple of hours or so. After that I planned to gradually build up at least a 10-12 hour cushion over the time required to finish in the overall cutoff, because looking at previous splits it seemed that almost everyone slows down in the later stages of the race.

Getting my kit together was relatively straightforward as I had most of what was required from my previous activities. The mandatory list is quite comprehensive; as well as the normal bad weather clothing you have to carry at least a sleeping bag, bivvy bag, mat, stove, and two days food. Rucksack weight among the starters seemed to vary from around 6kg to 11kg - mine at the start was 8kg, I guess about typical.

There were only two items of kit that I devoted much time to thinking about. One was which jacket to take. It's very unlikely that you will take your jacket off during the event so you really need one which will not only keep out the weather but really allow any sweat to evaporate during dryer periods. After a lot of deliberation I bought a Paramo; I did all my November/December reccies in it and it performed really well in some pretty nasty weather so I was pleased with the choice. I would also put my bombproof TNF mountain jacket in the drop bag in case we got continuous torrential rain - a bit sweatier but longer to wet out. (Note: in recent years in has not been allowable to go with Paramo alone over any part of the course, a taped-seam hardshell now has to be taken. But I'm still using the Paramo I bought in 2015, it has repaid its purchase price many times over for me, a wonderful bit of kit). The other item I thought a lot about was socks. I had used Sealskinz (or the rather better DexShell equivalents) with some success in wet conditions in the past but I doubted their ability to work day after day for 18 hours plus. Eventually they leak from continuous water pressure (just as waterproof/breathable overtrousers will eventually leak if you sit in a stream in them), but they do at least seem to retain warmth. Some people advised going with Drymax, or Merino, or other combinations. I experimented with all sorts on my reccies. Continuous immersion in ankle to shin deep bog for 8 hours or so around Bellingham one day with the temperature just on freezing while wearing non-waterproof socks convinced me that waterproof was the only way to go.

A final potential kit item had me thinking for an hour or two. I had read in one of Spine finisher Ian Bowles' blogs a comment along the lines of "We haven't had a year of significant snow yet" with the implication that one would come eventually. I thought of the tedious hours I had spent wading through deep snow in Scotland, and how life had been made so much easier in this stuff by snowshoes. A gang of us had bought cheap pairs for an expedition to Kyrgyzstan nearly fifteen years ago. I searched the loft but the conclusion was that I must have thrown them out, and a quick search on the net showed that you wouldn't get much change out of £100 for a pair these days. I post-rationalised that the chance of use wasn't worth the cost, in any case in the UK the wind tends to scour powder from ridges and only leave it in valleys and depressions, and my drop bag was heavy enough already. Had I got to the Cheviots in the deep snow conditions they had this year this would have come back to me as rather questionable logic!

Getting fit enough for the Spine is no big deal if you are aiming for a 7 day completion. At this pace it is basically a long walk with odd bits of jogging on the downhills, and sometimes on the flats (for example across the miles of artificially laid flagstones across some of the moors) thrown in to use different muscles at times. I was covering about 30 miles on most of the reccie days, at a faster speed than needed for the event, without feeling in any way stressed, so I was fit enough.

I've been through this fairly long preamble mainly to remind myself that I was taking this event seriously and had prepared as well as I felt I could. By the end of December I was good to go.

The Race

I'm going to record my participation in the race in some detail, even though it lasted less than 24 hours. This is mainly for my benefit; I want to be able to look back over it in future and remember how it was, rather than remembering just the upsides which is how our unconscious selective memory tends to work. If you're bored by this but still interested in the motivation issue, then there's a fair bit you can skip now - go to the last section.

I had booked a hotel in Castleton for the Friday night before the start to avoid the high adrenalin scene I expected would be happening in and around Edale. Edale is only about an hour and a half from Chester so I drove over with Jan just after lunch. We checked in at Castleton then I left her in the hotel while I went over to Edale for the registration procedures, which were all pretty relaxed and went quickly. I was soon back for a good meal and an earlyish night. I didn't sleep particularly well but I often don't before big events, brain too active I suppose.

Jan dropped me in the Edale car park just after 9am on the Saturday and headed off for home. No going back now. I dropped my drop bag, had a cup of coffee and chatted briefly to one or two people in the field that I knew; Greg Crowley who I had met in the summer while walking the Dales Way with Jan; Javed Bhatti who I had run a few miles of the White Rose Ultra with late last year; Mark Dalton who I knew from the Hardmoors races. I also ran into Mark Rawlinson who was not running but had come over for the start and said he would probably do a bit of the first day's course just for fun. Before long we were gathered behind the starting arch in, appropriately, a field churned to mud by the Spine Challenger start three hours earlier. It was raining.

I felt none of the nervous excitement that I normally do on the start line of an adventurous race, and it seemed almost an anticlimax as the countdown was done and we were off, the runners at the front running, the majority of us walking steadily out of the field.

I walked up the road towards the traditional start of the Pennine Way with Mark Dalton, chatting about what we had been up to recently and plans for the year ahead. As we neared the start of the track I told him to push on as I expected him to be going a lot faster than me, so he jogged off. We were a fairly continuous crocodile over the gentle first mile or so then the field started to spread out as we hit the first climb (in fact one of the very few real climbs on the Pennine Way - it gains a lot of height over its length but usually on very gentle ascents). The ground on the Kinder plateau was a lot drier than it had been on my reccie, crossing the Downfall was an easy step rather than a wade and the couple of miles of slabs leading to the Snake road were mostly above water level. I chatted to one or two other runners across here as I passed and was passed but none for long. The bouldery and peaty ground here requires concentration so I almost didn't notice that the early rain was passing and the clouds lifting to give us some visibility. For January, it was turning into quite a nice day.

There were marshals at the Snake road which allowed an easy water top-up, then I headed up Bleaklow. Not far up the track a voice hailed me from behind. It was Mark Rawlinson and I spent an enjoyable half hour or so chatting with him as we walked steadily on. Mark wished me well and turned back for the day when we reached the pile of ironmongery on Bleaklow Head. I took a quick bearing because this is a place where you can easily set off in the wrong direction, then loped off downwards. 

Apart from short sections of slabs, the first 25 miles of the route is typical gritstone and peat moorland terrain; any path developed by passage of feet quickly becomes a mixture of rocks and boulders with peat in between, and in winter, unless the weather is exceptionally dry, the peat will be in the form of mud. It's difficult to get much of a rhythm going on this sort of ground, almost every pace has to be judged individually and when you land in the peat a certain amount of sliding is likely. It's generally quite hard work. Life gets easier after the A635 is crossed at Wessenden, with good firm tracks and slabs at times, but the bouldery moorland keeps reappearing in two or three mile sections, notably on Castleshaw Moor, Blackstone Edge, and again before Stoodley Pike.

I overtook a couple of runners on the way down from Bleaklow to Torside, where there was another marshal and another water top-up opportunity. From there it is a steady pull up again to the moor above Laddow rocks. The track along the top of Laddow is a winding singletrack, rocky and slippery so I was hoping to get along it before dark. I just about made it, switching the torch on at the descent to the flattish area by the top end of Crowden Brook. It's difficult to avoid a fairly continuous shin-deep squelch here as the route crosses the stream several times, but it wasn't a lot worse in the dark than in my day-time reccie. A gentle climb on occasional slabs up to Black Hill follows. I could see the lights of one or two runners ahead and behind but they soon disappeared as we moved into an area of quite thick mist. The track was easy enough to follow here though. The knowledge from the reccies was very helpful; I'm normally fairly competent at remembering routes, and I only needed to take a quick look at map or GPS about three times all the way from the start to CP1. I was slightly concerned descending Black Hill because on my reccie the crossing of the stream at Dean Clough had been quite exciting even in daylight, but this evening the water was a good foot lower so no problem at all. There was another marshal at the A635, which was great. I had topped up with water from a fast stream on Laddow and put a chlorine tablet in it, but it was pretty brown and I was glad to swap it for a much cleaner-looking bottleful. I was carrying two half litre bottles on my front pack and needed to refill them fairly often as I tend to drink a half litre every couple of hours. I had another half litre in my backpack but I was saving that for cooking supper.

But by now it was raining heavily and a nippy westerly wind had sprung up, so I wanted to push on from the exposed road crossing without delay. The next section was much easier, good tracks across to Standedge apart from a muddy but short down and up to cross a valley at one point. Standedge is another fairly bleak road crossing, but the marshals there had set up a tent, and invited me in for a cup of tea - brilliant! With the rain hammering down on the canvas I took the opportunity to put on an extra layer; up until then I had just had a vest under my Paramo jacket, but the wind and rain had just started cooling me down. With a thin fleece as well I carried on feeling much more toasty.

After another couple of wet, muddy moor crossings I was approaching the bridge over the M62. My torch seemed to be fading quite rapidly after only 4 or 5 hours which was a bit concerning. I later remembered that the batteries in this torch were not new, but I needed to do something about it now. There were several vehicles in the little car park by the radio mast, and a Mountain Rescue guy in one of them kindly shone me a light while I dug out my other torch. I asked him if he had any water; he hadn't but he offered me a Mars Bar which I gratefully accepted. I carried on over the motorway then onto the mud and boulders of Blackstone Edge.

I had been grazing on snackfood fairly regularly since the start - I later worked out that I took in around 3000 calories between Edale and CP1 - but when it's cold, wet and dark there is a big psychological boost in stopping for a hot meal. Before the race I had thought quite a bit about how to manage this on day one. Once past CP1, opportunities become much better, in the form of pubs and cafes but also sheltered places to cook - barns, bothies, bus shelters, toilets and so on. But from the start in Edale there is no shelter at all, unless you go quite a long way off route, until you reach the White House pub on the A58 which is about 35 miles in. In early years when the race started at 8am, most competitors could get to the pub in time for a meal but nowadays with the 10am start it's beyond the comfortable reach of many, me included.(Note: in recent years the White House has not allowed Spine racers inside their premises, removing a real focal point from Day 1 for most runners). I had decided that if the weather was bad I would get to the pub at around 10pm, go in and have a coffee and a warm then find somewhere sheltered in the lee of the buildings to make up a meal. I had plenty of freeze-dried meals that you just have to pour hot water on then wait a few minutes before eating. But when I arrived at the car park next to the pub the Mountain Rescue guys were there in force and immediately offered hot drinks. I gratefully accepted, then asked if I could have some hot water to make up a meal. They invited me inside their ambulance and I spent a wonderful fifteen minutes drinking tea and eating curry in the warm and dry. They were checking people through the road crossing and I asked how much longer they expected to be out there. I was surprised to learn that they were still waiting for at least twenty more runners after me.

I stepped out of the van to find that although the wind was still chilly, the rain had pretty well stopped. I pushed on along a very easy track beside a string of reservoirs. The easy going was short-lived though as I was soon into the boulders and mud again for the mile or two up to Stoodley Pike monument. I caught up two or three other runners here and we all huddled in the shelter of the tower for a bit to eat and drink. The descent from Stoodley Pike was very tedious. Unavoidably muddy ground on a significant downhill slope meant a lot of sliding around and slow going. Over half way down the slop gave way to a better track which led down to the river and road crossing in Calderdale. 

I remembered the climb up the other side as being steep in places - a lot of it was on a good cobbled track but it also had its share of slippery mud. I got a bit ahead of the group near the top; I knew there was a right turn into a field coming up but I didn't concentrate hard enough and missed it, which cost me an extra couple of hundred yards to get back on track. The route here goes up and over a hill on grassy fields. These again were very slippery, more of a barely controlled slide down the other side. We had caught up another group of runners and everyone was having a hard time on the descent. At least I remembered the slight jag to the left just before the final road and avoided all the tangling with cottage gardens that I had done on my reccie. Once on the road, the Spine diverts from the Pennine way for a mile down to CP1 at Hebden Hey. As we jogged down the road we were passed by runners leaving the checkpoint who were back on their way up, though some of these were Spine Challenger runners who had started earlier from Edale. The final few hundred yards down to the CP were down a very slippery mud and rock path. I doubt if I managed better than one mile and hour down here. The only consolation was that the lights behind weren't going any faster.

I eventually reached CP1 seventeen hours and twenty-five minutes after leaving Edale. At the start of the day I thought I might manage 16 hours but I'm sure the additional time was down to the slow going through the mud. I had heard tales of CP1 being a crowded and chaotic place, but when I got there it was working just fine.

There was an outside tap where I could wash the majority of the mud off my trousers and shoes, and a porch where you could leave your dirtier stuff. The first person I saw as I unpacked my drop bag was Greg, just getting ready to leave after two and a half hours sleep and looking strong. I had a shower and cleaned my feet. They were fine. The socks had obviously started leaking at some point but my feet were never cold and I had no blisters or hot spots. I then had a big bowl of chilli and several cups of tea then went up to a bunkroom for some sleep.

Without setting an alarm, I woke up after a couple of hours or so feeling OK. I went downstairs and had some porridge, It was still dark but looking outside I could see that it had snowed while I was asleep. I started packing my rucksack ready for the next stage, but halfway through this exercise a thought came powerfully into my head. I was doing this event and I was doing OK, but I just wasn't enjoying it. I wasn't excited about it in any way. And I was going to go on not enjoying it for another six days.

Hang on, I thought, don't make any quick decisions you'll regret. I hung around unsure. I went back to bed for a while, mulling it over. I don't drop out of races unless I simply can't, or unless someone says I can't, go any further. I couldn't put my finger on what the problem was. I wasn't bothered by the cold, or the dark, or the snow and rain. I was just overwhelmed by the sheer tediousness of it all. 

After a couple of hours I felt no differently. By now it was 8.30am and I had to be out by 10.00 if I was continuing. I handed in my tracker and went home.

Understanding what happened.

As I write this it's now 10 days since I left the race at Checkpoint 1 and I think I've had long enough to gather and marshal my thoughts on what happened.

Since I started participating in ultras I've completed 55 and pulled out of 7. Early failures were mainly due to an inability to get my eating and drinking right, but with experience I now know how to manage this. In the last three or four years I have only had to stop in events where for one reason or another I wasn't going fast enough to beat the cutoffs. Yet in the Spine, a race that I believed (and still believe) that I was quite capable of completing, I simply gave up when I was in good shape and had plenty of time in hand.

I think I have to resort to two little anecdotes to explain what happened.

Fairly late on in the Tor des Geants in 2012, I think on day 5, when the field was getting really strung out, I was running with a French guy who I had kept company with for the past 12 hours or so. At around midnight we came upon a small mountain refuge and went in for a warm by the fire and some soup. My companion said he would stay and get an hour's sleep, but I was still well awake and thought I would push on for another couple of hours. Be careful if you go on alone, said the guardienne. The path is very exposed for the next few kilometers and a fall could be fatal. I went out into the night, and once I had gone maybe fifteen minutes the lights of the refuge faded away behind. There was no moon but a million stars overhead. It was a chilly night, well below freezing and with a chill wind. For the two or three hours it took to reach the next refuge, another little one still high in the mountains, I saw no other runners' lights, either ahead or behind. And yet as I wound my way carefully along the narrow path clinging to the side of the mountains, I felt that there was no place in the world I would rather have been.

When I was new to ultras, my first longish one was the West Highland Way. At 95 miles it was at least 40 miles further than I had gone before. When it came to the race there was something definitely wrong. I never found out exactly what it was but I was really struggling from 20 miles onwards. I felt exhausted and nauseous was unable to eat and drink more than sips and nibbles. But I really wanted to finish my first "proper" ultra so I toughed it out for another 24 hours or so, hating every step but getting to the finish eventually.

On the Spine I never felt the elation of just being there that I did on the Tor des Geants, nor the drive to get to the finish that I had in that first West Highland Way. 

As ultra runners we engage in activities that sometimes involve a bit of discomfort, but we do this because we get a lot of pleasure out of them. We often get pleasure in situations that some people might find difficult to understand. We put up with periods that are no fun, either because (a) we believe that they won't last too long, or (b) because we have an overall achievement goal that makes it worthwhile. The balance that we see as personally right for us between pleasure and achievement may vary from event to event, or it may change during our career in the activity in question. 

So I'm pretty clear now what went wrong with my Spine race. If I'm totally honest, the reason that I entered is that I thought it would be a good adventure, a winter trip up the Pennine Way with a team of people helping you to stay safe and a warm place to sleep every 40 miles or so. I never thought about the finish, I just assumed it would come along to round off the week. I'm not sure why I found the only day's participation that I managed so tedious; maybe having spent nearly 100 hours on the Pennine Way in the previous two months had taken the edge off the adventure, maybe not. But when it became clear to me that it was just going to be a chore all the way then I was never going to finish. That wasn't my main reason for going and I simply didn't want it enough.

Would I go again? Well, I'm wary enough never to say never, but I think it's unlikely. Not next year for sure, too soon after the bad experience. But I do find a score to be settled a powerful motivator. Perhaps the Spine Challenger Race (the first 100 miles of the PW) would be logical for next year, but it's not the best part of the route, the Pennine Way doesn't really get attractive until Malham; a winter trip along a route like the West Highland Way is maybe more appealing. So I guess at the moment I would say that while the Spine is a great concept and a well-organised event, and I certainly respect and admire anyone who can see it through to the end, it's probably not for me.

If anyone is reading this who has not done the event but is perhaps contemplating an entry, my main (and only) piece of advice would be that you need to be very clear about why you are entering, what you want to get out of it, and what you are prepared to put up with if it doesn't work out quite the way you planned.  I'll just leave you with a couple of quotes that probably sum up what is required for a successful completion.

"The Spine Race is not about speed but about managing resources, pain and boredom" (Mark Rawlinson, finisher 2015)

"I have never wanted anything more" (Anna Buckingham, finisher 2016)


Postscript 1 (31 January 2016)

Yesterday I ran as sweeper on one of the "official" Lakeland 100 reccies, a job that I've done a few times over the past year or so. It was a night outing from Ambleside to Coniston. Two or three miles from the end, just after the steep little uphill out of Tilberthwaite, four of us who were together took a short breather and switched off our lights to enjoy the darkness for a few minutes. It was an uplifting experience, one that I never got on the Spine. But it must be there somewhere so I put in an application for next year's Challenger  -  all I need to do now is learn to love those muddy brown moors. If I get a place, I will get to the finish.

Postscipt 2 (4 February 2022)

For reasons I can't remember, I never started the 2017 Spine Challenger.  I did get around to it in 2019, and again stopped at CP1. I had some sort of illness but I'm sure with more motivation that wouldn't have been a problem. I am a bit older, and you would have thought wiser, nowadays. I enjoy winter outings such as the Tour de Helvellyn and have completed numerous trips in pretty poor conditions on events such as the Hardmoors 55 and Lakes in a Day. I have now notched up 40 more ultras including four more 200 mile events over the years since my Spine failure. When the Cheviot Goat was first annouced it sounded initially attractive, but I managed to reason eventually that it really wasn't my thing, so sensibly I have never entered.

And yet last weekend I found myself on the inaugural running of the Lady Anne's Way, a 100 mile trip in February through the northern dales. Rolled over from 2021 due to Covid, it wasn't really part of my gameplan for 2022 but I thought I would go along anyway as it seemed like a good weekend out. I planned to complete the event with minimum stress so that it wouldn't compromise future plans. At around 7pm on the first night, just 13 hours into the race, I was making my way through a series of muddy fields with stone step stiles, almost invisible at night until you are within 10 yards of them, and no track on the ground between. A situation that is mentally and physically demanding, frustrating yet really dull, all at the same time. I just don't want to be doing this for another thirteen hours until it gets light, I was thinking. So again, while in easily good enough shape to finish the event and with no time pressures, I simply stopped with less than half the course done. Almost a week later, I don't feel any need to go back and settle the score, I'm happy with the decision I made.

I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that for me, travelling in darkness is occasionally very rewarding, but that these occasions are very few and far between. The majority of time spent travelling in the dark I just find tedious and dull, so much so that if it is likely to occupy the major proportion of the time spent on an event, then I really should steer clear. Eight or even ten hour nights can be got through with the reward of a longer period of daylight to come, but I fear that is about the limit for me. I don't do events to prove I can, life is too short (well, mine is at this stage anyway) to spend hours doing stuff I don't enjoy. I'm hoping to get back to a Spine event in summer before I finally have to give up this game, but when the winter series comes around I'm happy to admire the skill and determination of the participants from armchair comfort. But no participation for me. It's not my game.