How I won the 2023 Winter Spine Race
After the traditional wall snog
Credit: The Spine Race
You’re not going to win the Winter Spine Race in the first 24hrs. But you could lose it.
In 2022, my bruva from another muva and GB team-mate, the pathologically compatible Kim Collison and I possibly sewed the seeds for our mutual destruction with an overly brisk start (but it was such fun!).
We were determined to be more chilled this time, literally asking each other, “Are we being more chilled this time?” When Kim stopped to splash his daps, I stopped too. We power-hiked sections we’d run the year before. We stayed longer at CPs and ate more Pot Noodles. Instead of thinking how to drop Kim, I just wanted to get to Hawes (106 miles) in good shape.
The weather was feisty enough for goggles on Kinder Scout, site of the 1932 Mass Trespass, and a bit spicy on the Cam High Road the next morning, but otherwise brill. I wouldn’t normally be pleased to be slower in a race, but we were both chuffed to arrive at Hawes an hour behind our 2022 time. Spine Life was good…
Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, early doors
Credit: The Spine Race
On that second morning, we climbed the white monster named Great Shunner Fell in glorious sunshine. The descent was pretty hard on the body though and I
felt it in my hips. Near Keld, Kim said he’d back off for a bit as the pace didn’t suit him. Like last year, I was torn between being a friend or a foe… He seemed in good spirits, so I went on, genuinely hoping to see him again.
On Sleightholme Moor, snow disguised the thin ice, which covered freezing water, and made me and my toes a little bit grumpy.
I reached CP3, Middleton-in-Teesdale (143 miles), at 8.25pm, around 16 hours into the race, a couple of hours ahead of the course record.
Credit Playing in the snow with Kim Collison on Great Shunner Fell
Credit: Steve Ashworth Media
Tea was placed in my hand before my shoes were even off (see pic below). Though they took a while to be de-iced.
Time to sleep. But, due to leg pain, it didn’t really happen.…
I was up again and out of the door by around 11pm, with fellow inov-8 pal and irreverent whippersnapper Jack Scott having recently arrived in second place.
I was deep into deja vu territory. The previous year, I had a four-hour lead over this section to Dufton, but I was still too concerned with the runners behind me, pushed too much and my groin said no. This time, I was determined not to make the same mistake…
Tea FTW!
Credit :Will Baldy Go