Spine Support

 This week, the Spine Race is is full swing and a bunch of hardy runners (or complete loonies, depending on your view) are making their way from Derbyshire to Scotland up the Pennine Way, which includes some of the toughest and boggiest country in the UK. I took part in the Summer Spine Challenger last year (and hope to be back again for more) this takes in 40% of the Penning Way and crucially does it in the summer. Not only does the weather tend to be better, in the summer you get 16 hours of daylight and 8 hours of dark, in January the proportions are swapped.

Craven Energy are a triathlon club based close to us in Skipton. When the Spine and Summer Spine races take place, they organise a much appreciated but unofficial feed station. Last summer it was on the edge of Ikornshaw Moor, but in the winter it tends to be held in the car park of the Hare and Hounds pub in Lothersdale. Although I am not a member of the club, and I certainly have no intention of ever doing a triathlon (I don't like swimming and I'm scared riding my bike down steep hills), by a complex series of interactions, I found myself helping out at the feed station over the last weekend.

The feed station consisted of two gazebos, one outfitted as a very efficient kitchen and the other with chairs and blankets so that runners could have a sit down and a bit of a rest, while getting some much needed calories inside them. Lothersdale is around 65 miles from the start of the Pennine Way and 20 miles from the first check-point proper at Hebden Bridge. 

The first race, the Spine Challenger, set off on Saturday in absolutely awful weather. There were a significant number of people who dropped out at Hebden Bridge or even before. The first person came through Lothersdale at around nine pm, having covered the distance in about 13 hours. I was on duty from four am, by which time they had been going for 20 hours. Lothersdale is in a steep valley and comes after a long stretch of hilly and boggy country (I do a lot of my running over that stretch and it is lovely in the summer, less so in the dark in January). The team consisted of three people who were there for the three days that the feed station was in operation and people like me who ducked in and out for a few hours at a time. Because there were people who knew what to do in the kitchen, my main role was to greet runners as they dropped down into the village, find out what they wanted to eat and drink, make cups of tea and coffee and ensure that they were as happy as anyone who had plodged over sixty odd miles of bog could be.

A runner dropping down off the moor into Lothersdale

The feed station provided bacon sandwiches with veggie and vegan options for those who wanted them, soup, rice pudding and a variety of hot drinks and snacks. From my experiences over the summer, I can vouch for the restorative value of a well earned bacon butty and a couple of cups of sweet tea. 

Each runner carries a tracker which allows anyone to follow their progress. We watched for when people were about ten minutes away from Lothersdale and then the folks who were cooking put some bacon on, or prepared veggie food for those who preferred it (we had a list of those who wanted veggie or vegan food). When things got very busy (as they did on Monday) it was hard to keep up with demand and sometimes people had to wait a few minutes for their sandwich of choice, but everyone was served.

I was back on duty on Monday and stayed from four am till midday. By then all of the Challenger runners were through and we were helping those who were running the full 268 miles of the Pennine Way. In the dark, when the tracker told us that people were on their way, we could look out for their head torches appearing over the hill, it became harder to pick them out once daylight arrived, but we did our best.

It is exhausting and very cold standing around waiting to provide cups of tea and an encouraging word to a bunch of runners - though less exhausting and probably less cold than actually running the whole Pennine Way. However, it is a massive privilege. I'm not sure that I will ever have the guts or the energy to sign up for a Winter Spine race, but I wallowed in the reflected glory of supporting and helping them. As night fell, after my last stint, I found myself wistfully wishing that I was out on the fells in the cold and dark, carrying a pack and heading north. 

My part in this whole thing was very small. I made quite a few hot drinks, I answered some questions, I carried bacon sandwiches and I filled up water bottles. The Craven Energy team were amazing and their dedication and endurance was just as impressive as that of the actual runners. For anyone who is interested in ultra running (or if anyone who benefitted from the sarnies, seats and tea is reading this) the team organise a charity collection as part of their efforts. This time the money is going to Heart Research UK in memory of Iain Murray, a former chair of the club and a  Spine finisher who died suddenly of a heart attack a couple of months ago. If you would like to make a donation, it would be very much appreciated.

A friend who lives in Lothersdale came past the station on Monday morning and remarked that I was on the sensible side of the race this time round. Well, I'll be back on the less sensible side over the summer and I'm looking forward to my sandwich already. But if they'll have me back next January, I'd love to greet runners in the dark and ask them if they want tea or coffee. It was a real privilege.