It's common for runners of the Spine (whether the sprint or the full or anything inbetween!) to complete a post race write up, but it's rare to see anything from the other side. So here is a perspective from behind the scenes!
A little bit of background - I volunteered for both events in 2022 as a medic, but this year made the jump across to Spine Safety Team (SST) because I wanted to have some more hill time, and dealing with people's feet really doesn't excite me. SST do everything that isn't being a medic or helping in checkpoints. We set up diversions & make assessments on the safety of the course; we collect runners that have decided to DNF and take them to checkpoints or Broom Wagon collection points; we complete welfare checks on runners that are going in the wrong direction/moving too slowly; we offer water top ups at key locations; and the final group bring in diversion signs once every one has gone past and watch out for the runners at the back of the pack. The best set are the final group, though I may be biased in saying that!
Kit Check
Though before all of that comes registration and kit checks. I volunteered to help with the Friday & Saturday kit checks for all the runners starting in Edale as my SST team weren't starting until the Saturday night. Kit checks are a wonderful beast, at least from my side of the table. Mr L is in charge of kit. He has the final say on all things kit, and will happily not let someone start if they don't meet the kit requirements. Every single item on the required list comes with a story, please don't ask him about the poo shovel.
There is a system to kit checks that are as fair as possible without every single runner having to do a full check - what you're checked on depends on the last digit of your race number. This year everyone was checked on having a sleeping bag, roll mat, and bivvy bag. A full check left some with dread and others with joy. On the one hand, it takes more time, there's more jepody (what if I fail on something?), on the other hand you know that you've got absolutely everything required to be as safe as possible. Those that zoom through kit check bring all their stuff in a box or a large shopping bag so they don't have to stress about unpacking and repacking. The most common failure I saw was people not understanding what clear goggles meant (zero tint, if it's held over a piece of paper & it changes colour it's a fail, goggles are required because the wind can cause damage to your eyes and cause temporary blindness, they need to be clear because especially in the dawn/dusk a tint can alter your depth perception, if you want to also carry tinted ones for the daylight you can, but clear ones are compulsory).
I don't know why I add 2 days of volunteering on, but I didn't have work scheduled for those days and I get to have a nosey at lots of shiny kit! I can now say which sleeping bags go to -6° or 0° based on the colour of the outside bag & which shade the straps are. This is not knowledge I feel I need to retain, but it's in the noggin now.
SST
I've tried to keep this in bite sized pieces! All of the place names except Edale & Kirk Yetholm are where SST sleep, it's kind of split up per day, but as you'll see time is complicated! (I've not used the checkpoint names because that's not where we stay most of the time!)
Edale - Mankinholes
Wake up time - 6am
Go to bed time - 11.30pm
Time awake - 17.5hrs
The day started with going down to the village hall in Edale to cheer on the full spine racers (having done so for the challengers & MRT challengers the day before, and having gone to the roadside to cheer on the Sprinters as they passed). It was still dark and wet. Proper Spine weather.
We had a team briefing of what the plan was for the day. Our job was fairly easy to begin with because the field of runners was going to be quite bunched up, there would be a few SST's all working in the same places until it became more spread. My main task was to buy some new waterproof trousers, having left mine on the sofa at home! We also needed some team food to suplement the starter pack we were given.
We agreed to meet in Glossop, next to the Lidl & the mountain warehouse. Myself and D went shopping while V & A went and started to do some SST work of sitting by a roadside near the route "just in case".
Food (and new shoes, new waterproof trousers, and new umbrella) grabbed, we headed up to Mankinholes YHA to sort dinner and rest before doing an evening shift. On arrival we discovered the car park was far too small for the number of people already there, let alone the 2 more teams of people yet to arrive, and to top it off road works. Not some extra traffic lights on the route, but planned redoing of the road directly outside the hostel, it had been dug up and the tarmac truck was booked for the morning.
A system was worked out between the TLs that were on site which resulted in each team being allowed 2 cars in the car park, + the doctor. I stayed out of it and sorted out dinner, other than relenquishing my keys to someone at some point so they could move my car around the car park.
Pasta Bolognese with cheese, garlic bread & salad was our menu for dinner. It turns out everyone else had very similar ideas! Some teams got fancy and added vegetables. We shared ours with 2 guys who hadn't cooked yet as there were proposterous amounts left over.
Post dinner myself and D were then dispatched down to a key location which meant it was easy to get to all 3 roads the route crossed without doubling back on yourself. The fact there was a pub there which did the best hot chocolate of the entire week is completely irrelevant.
As the runners moved up the course we popped by Nicky's food bar to check all were ok after some very confusing messages about a DNF runner (they were safely tucked up in an SST vehicle awaiting the Broom Wagon). Then we went across to the MRT base to watch the last few runners come through there. This happens to be the MRT team that D is apart of. There may have been alternative motives in his suggestion to head that way.
On return to Mankinholes (with my car being abandoned this time on an unsuspecting street, and a lift up with D) it was promptly bed time. V & A were still up and dot watching on the request of one of the other TLs, I'm not sure what time they headed to bed but were told by D that he didn't expect them to be up before midday.
Mankinholes - Old School
Wake up time - 6am
Go to bed time - 11pm (followed by a very interrupted sleep)
Time awake - 17 hrs
Myself and D headed up to Pondon for the mornings duties. When we arrived there was no snow...
Runners would come across the top skyline from right to left, down the road roughly where the sun is, then go left to right along the far water, over the close hill then near enough a straight line up and cross the road we were on a bit further up. Not all the runners physically saw us, but we saw them! We were a little off the route because it was where it was safe to pull over & also have phone signal for HQ to contact us.
Initially we were down by the water, once D found a better spot to relocate he asked me to come up via checking on a runner that was heading in the wrong direction. By the time I found them they were back on the route, but had gone up to the village to find signal to call in as a DNF. I let D know who found the broom wagon on the special dot watching page (the bag vehicles, SST, mobile medics, broom wagons and probably some other all have trackers to be able to see where we all are as well, it's just not on public pages!) And said that they were about 20 minutes away or so. I bundled them into my car to wait in the warmth (thankful for a recent tip of buy seat protectors!). It really wasn't long until the broom wagon arrived, so we switched them over and I returned to the top of the hillside.
A little later we were told there was a runner the other side of the reservoir who had phoned in to DNF. We were both slightly confused as their tracker was still saying Hebden Bridge! I went on a hunt to find them and bring them to the land of signal to await another broom wagon. In the process I found another runner who was trying to find signal to DNF who thought I was some sort of miracle when I said to get in my car and we'd sort it out. They couldn't quite get their head around the fact that I was there already like a mind reader! We found a group of 5 or so who said the runner we were looking for were "by the D on the map", they were close enough! DNF #2 climbed into the car (also somewhat surprised at how quick I was to get them!) And we returned to the top. As we were getting close to the back of the pack rather than get a broom wagon to us the plan was for me to drive them up to Gargrave (where a broom wagon was on their way) and then be stationed there. Immediately after leaving we saw a couple more runners, pulling over to just have a quick friendly chat one said that their hip had gone and they were really struggling and wanting to DNF. I bundled them into the car as well and sent D a message.
3 for the price of 1? Not sure that's how it's meant to work!
In Gargrave I met up with SST4 and handed over my loot (is it ok to refer to runners as loot?) To the broom wagon which was filling up quicker than they had anticipated.
I was joined by V at some point while A joined up with D somewhere else. We had been told that the accomodation that night would be an old school with very limited facilities so needed to buy some microwave meals. As it was we ended up staying in Gargrave for much longer than anticipated so may have tasted the delights of a spam fritter (much to the others judgement) and sausage & chips.
V & I went on a welfare check mission to one of the runners that seemed to be going in circles in a field adjacent to the route, we found them after they had righted themselves, they appeared mildly embarrassed that we'd come to check they were ok, but other than that they were as we would expect after some 70 odd miles.
Then it was time to head to the accomodation for the night. We already knew it was going to be a "sleeping on the floor" kind of night, but what we didn't expect was that the tiny toilets in the corner of the room were the ones everyone had decided to use, or that there were automatic lights that would turn on every time the door was opened. On the plus side I got to use my new thermarest and it was definitely worth the investment! (Yes, I got a lot of new kit ready for this, I fought my energy company to give me some of my money back and was at that stage of needing to replace some bits through age, and wanting to upgrade some other bits, so may have gone on a little spending spree!).
Old School - Hawes
Wake up time - 6am
Go to bed time - 8pm (though no real sleep until about 10.30pm until 11.45pm)
Time awake - 14 -16.5 hrs
V and I were being paired for the day & joining with SST4 to help cover the back of the pack while D & A slept from being on later into the night. We had a look at the course and were entered into their team WhatsApp group. I sent a message suggesting we head up to the middle of the Cam road. J was happy with that plan but only if the roads were clear, and we were asked to go via Hawes (CP2) to pick up some SST kit that had been left there. No kit could be found immediately, but a rather delicious sausage sandwich could be found (oh no, what a shame 👀). As we were leaving to head up to the Cam road the kit arrived.
This was the road up (I wasn't the one driving!), We had absolutely no concerns about making it to the top, even though everyone else seemed to think it would be icy!
The top offered beautiful views and we got there at the perfect time.
I live somewhere fairly flat, that doesn't get a whole lot of snow. I was blown away by it all, and probably said it about a gazillion times (sorry V!).
This was the first real test of my layering system as it was -6° when we arrived. I was in my walking trousers, waterproof trousers, gaitors (because I'm so short, if I don't wear gaitors to keep all my trousers off the floor it's a disaster!), long sleeve top, t-shirt, summer spine volunteer fleece, winter spine volunteer jacket, buff, hat, & mittens, and was TOASTY. I know it would have been colder for the runners over night, and that in some respect I have no right to comment on the weather, but I've not trained for 5 months to enter and haven't spend 3 years buying kit specifically for the event!
We waved through a few runners, asking everyone if they needed to top up water and letting them know they were about 5 miles away from CP2. Many commented saying their water was completely frozen from overnight, often they were surprised to see anyone in such a remote location, especially with a car.
In between runners I attempted to make a snowman (it would have been significantly bigger but the snow wasn't very sticky!) We named him Cameron, of the cam road.
We had some lunch, of the rat pack variety for myself, though forgot to bring cutlery so borrowed V's spork, which is gaffa taped together! V had said just round "that corner there" you can see the viaduct, so we decided to go for a little leg stretch. It's worth noting V did the challenger in the summer (and I helped with her feet at malham tarn!) so remembers the course, though apparently has a very skewed sense of how far away things are because "that corner there" (the one we could see) turned out to not be quite the right corner, and was in fact 3 miles away!
We started to head back to the car, purposefully slowly because the last 2 runners were near us, but we could only see 1 of them, and felt like we should have been able to see the 2nd. We ended up between the 2 of them for the 3 mile return journey, and caught the final runner with a photographer before returning to Hawes.
It was a day of learning courtesy of my friend via whatsapp, we learned these were drumlins (which apparently everyone that has done GCSE geography knows, I did not do Geography so feel I'm allowed to not know):
And we discovered this which is Hoarfrost:
On return to Hawes we joined back up as a 4 and tried to make ourselves scarce until 8pm when the chackpoint officially closed for runners. We grabbed some dinner from the team there and made a plan. 2 were to stay up until about midnight, and 2 would start at midnight with D being one of them. I analysed the sleeping situation and decided to also be up all night because it sounded like it might have been the best bet for where beds were guaranteed (in retrospect this was not the correct decision!).
Me and D ended up sharing a room, I discovered he snores (loudly & consistently) so my 4 hour sleep turned into a nearly 2 hour sleep as he got up at 10 ish. I had a midnight shower (and it was glorious) and returned downstairs feeling moderately human. D explained that the TL of the SST now on duty on our patch had to drop out last minute for good reasons, and he'd been asked to take over them for the next 2 shifts (both night shifts) hence the change in our predicted pattern.
Hawes - Langdon Beck
Wake up time - 11.45pm
Go to bed time - 10am
Time awake - 10.25hrs (though really 6am - 10am with about a 2 hour nap, so 26 hrs awake in that time!)
The night shift was fairly uneventful for us. I made sure D stayed awake (and as sane as possible), watched some dots and was ready to go somewhere if needed. We made some beans & cheese on toast at maybe breakfast time (but maybe 4am). There were some questions over the welfare of a couple of the runners but other members of the team (stationed slightly higher up the course) were in a better position to assist than us, so we continued to watch dots and work out the plan for the next night. The guys at Langdon Beck commented that the heating there automatically turned off at 11pm and that they were quite cold, D made a note to buy wood for the fire for the next night.
The checkpoint staff who had all stayed the night started to drift downstairs from about 6am to start the cleanup effort, and we got ready to head up to Langdon beck to sleep. The staff offered me a bed before driving until the checkpoint closed because they are all lovely and wonderful people whether you're a runner or not, but I decided I'd rather be able to flop into bed and know I don't need to get up any time soon.
The drive over was fuelled by sugar and cold, and I was glad that there was space in the car park (why are old YHA car parks so small??). I was even more glad that as soon as I walked in the door J told me 1) which room I was in and 2) that nobody else was going to be in there (no snoring to keep me up!).
I got upstairs and sat down and had a little cry. I suspect it was due to a few reasons, the main one being completely over tired, followed closely by having a bed to sleep in in a non-shared room. When I was volunteering in a very different way (nothing remotely running related) 10 years ago I was in a situation which has lead to some PTSD which is particularly triggered in the bedroom, and more so in unfamiliar places while volunteering surrounded by relative strangers and trying to sleep. Maybe this was my body feeling safe for the first time in a while? I have discovered our bodies hold onto memories much longer and deeper than our thinking brains do.
I don't use the phrase "I cried myself to sleep" lightly, and I also don't use it with any shame or guilt.
Langdon Beck - The Sill
Wake up time - 2.30pm
Go to bed time - 3pm
Time awake - 24.5hrs
I was woken up by one of the other SST groups getting ready for their shift at about 2pm, which was followed by people showering & people making phone calls outside my door. I was not very impressed but did not have the energy to get up and tell them to move. I laid in bed for a few more hours (my shift not due to start until 11pm there was, for the first time, no rush).
Eventually I decided it was time that I should see people again (if this sentence does not make it clear, I am the biggest introvert I know). There was a lot of things going on in the lounge downstairs, I chatted to a few different people about now their weeks are going and also what they do outside of their spine world. Eventually most people drifted off to bed or to their postings for the night, then there were 4.
This picture shows a car in the foreground, then 3 lights of a house, then above that the trail of the headtorches of a runner or 2, so once more we could spy on people without them being aware just how close we were.
Early on there were a few runners that HQ thought might have tried to bivvy when they shouldn't have, on the very outskirts of patchy signal. 2 from Langdon were sent out to investigate. 1 SST member returned, while the other asked if it was ok for them to go on a general walk in the area. They walked down the route and saw a couple of the other runners as well and reminded them of the rules & the WiFi password for the WiFi set up halfway through the no signal area as a safety feature.
I tried to read some of my book, I listed the mountains I've climbed over the last 11 years since doing my mountain leader training in a bid to eventually do the assessment in the next year or 2, and we made pancakes, at 5am. One of the things in the starter packs was golden syrup, and as this was the last shift this team would have, we decided to see how much of the syrup we could use.
HQ asked that we do a welfare check on a runner that we had expected to ping across to the side of signal a while ago and hadn't yet. 2 were sent up oncoming to the runners, and 2 were sent from our end to try and pincer them. The 2 from our end were also asked to check that the WiFi was working at the patch in the middle because the ping for the trackers had stopped working, though they weren't concerned as long as the WiFi was on.
The tracker for the runner pinged across just after the 2 from our end arrived near the WiFi, so they didn't go on a long adventure but did confirm the technology was working as it should. The runner was ok just cold and slow, they were heading down into dufton which is a bit of a rewarming station along the route.
As those 2 returned the shift was coming to a close so they headed up for a couple hours sleep or on their way home. Just as D was about to hand over to the oncoming shift HQ asked us to check on one final runner ( the last one, at this point). The incoming SST were higher up the course so it made sense for our team to deal with it. His tracker had pinged out the other side but was incredibly slow moving. The medic & 2 SST were dispatched from Dufton end to meet them, and we did the maths to see if I could get to them any quicker from this end (we worked out that answer to be no).
D said I could go to bed once we worked out I wouldn't be any quicker, if they needed any more help from there it would be a case of calling in Mountain Rescue and not SST volunteers. I made the case that if I went to bed all I would do is lay there watching the dots. D agreed and said he'd do the same. HQ advised the runner had now called them to DNF so it was now an extrication rather than a welfare check.
Here was the sunrise out the kitchen window while I was doing the washing up.
We watched the SST trackers be painfully close before they made contact because of how thick the fog was. I believe they got HQ to tell the runner to blow their whistle (there's a reason it's a requirement!). While the dots were circling and D was making contact with other SST & HQ I started the clear up operation. I figured we'd need to sweep the whole of downstairs and now that the place was empty I might as well start.
It was interspersed with finding grid references and checking dots. We waited for the SST to let us know if they would be able to walk the runner out or if MRT would be needed. They said they'd be ok it would just be slow.
Me and D had a chat about sleep and practicalities - we had Langdon Beck for a while, but not for as long as we wanted to sleep for in it's entirety, so if we wanted to sleep there we could, or we could go to the Sill and sleep there knowing we wouldn't need to move again. We agreed it was better to deal with the clean up and move on so it's all sorted. The cleanup took longer than we expected for reasons not suitable for a blog. We ended up leaving with significantly more food than we arrived with, and 5 extra water containers, which very nearly didn't fit in our 2 vehicles with everything else.
The big draw for leaving sooner rather than later was to go via the famous/infamous Alston Lasagne. They are also known as CP4, and are the only checkpoint I know of to have their own Instagram page. We swung via there for lunch where I saw C briefly who is some of the driving force behind the deliciousness. I sat down and very nearly fell asleep. The lasagne arrived and far too quickly it was gone again! In the summer I was a medic based there for a bigger stint of time so got to know a few of the volunteers quite well, and really wished I'd been more awake to have more meaningful chats, but on the other hand there was a busy period so I was once more trying to be scarce and not in the way.
On the drive over to the Sill I had to keep stopping to take photos, and even then they don't do the scenery justice!
On arriving at The Sill YHA there were a lot of words being said over bedrooms, and I really wished J was there handing over a key card and giving very clear words. Not someone asking questions like "are you ok", at this point I've been awake for 24 hours, again, and really just want to sleep. They couldn't find the keycard and I nearly slept on the sofa instead because I didn't want to wait much longer. I think they saw the brokenness in my eyes and came up with a solution which involved a shoe being wedged in a door.
I woke up fully dressed with the room light on still. Apparently I face planted the bed & stayed there for 6 hours (after another cry once I was in the room, for all the same reasons as previously).
The Sill
Wake up time - 9pm, food for an hour, back to bed, until 6.30am
Go to bed time - 10pm
Time awake -15.5hrs
When I woke I checked my phone and saw that some pasta had been left on the microwave for me, at the same time I realized I was painfully hungry. I grabbed the pasta and sat at a table eating, I read through the messages and saw that we were officially "on call", rather than "on", over night and that the next time we were expected to be awake would be the morning (not the midnight that had initially been discussed). HQ would ring/knock on our doors as we were now where they were based if they needed us.
I returned to bed, this time in PJs with the light off (especially as there were now 2 others in the room too) and didn't wake until gone 6 the next morning. I had a shower and the world almost felt better.
I went on the hunt for breakfast/people and V said she'd gone for a run up to The Tree the night before. I had completely blanked that we were walking distance from it and very quickly formed a plan to pay it a visit. V came along and we timed it to be able to catch the runners passing by for some photos there.
We decided to head back to the road along the lumpy bumpy wall which meant bumping into a few runners along the way too. We bumped into one of the runners everyone was not so secretly routing for, they seemed in much better spririts than when we saw them first in Gargrave, it's amazing the difference in people between day time and night time.
As we were heading down the road they came back along the route and shouted for us. There was a dog loose with all the cows. We said we'd sort it and for them to continue on.
We had seen the dog near the car park but assumed it was from someone about to exit a car. Now we absolutely could not see it, until V spotted it going down the little road towards the main road. We were the wrong side of it to not heard it directly into the road, so I called D quickly who was still in the Sill on the other side, he grabbed his spare dog lead from his car (not SST kit, he happens to have a dog and therefore such things are found easily in his car!) And came up the hill to catch it. We were watching from above and were very glad to see it was all sorted. I then got a message from D saying the dog was tracking something, nose down and going for it. He went with it and it lead him to the pub!
It didn't seem to belong to anyone from the pub, but they knew of a dog walker a couple of doors down so went and got her, she was happy to take it to the vets and check for a chip. We're guessing it's a local dog from how well it knew the pub!
Myself and V were then asked to go to cover near Horneystead farm, which obviously meant a trip to the farm where we met the absolutely lovely H. She has a little outbuilding on the farm just for people doing the Pennine Way - it's open 24/7, not just for the Spine, but she dot watches and makes sure there's a constant supply of soup in the slow cooker. She tries to greet every runner that comes by. I think she's in need of a new calender, though I'm not offering to make it!
After the visit to Horneystead Farm we were asked to head down to the woods to collect in a few diversion signs. It's not a diversion, the Pennine way route has changed, but if you downloaded an old GPX file it would take you the wrong way. The new route is very well signposted but they'd added some spine ones to avoid confusion (and included it in briefings). There were still some runners in the woods, but by the time we'd walked out to the furthest one they would have cleared it all. As we were driving out we paused to see a runner who exclaimed "hooray, you're people and not trees!" They didn't stop, but there was a definite spring to their step afterwards.
We parked up and caught all the rest of the end pack of runners. As we were getting to the middle of the 3 signs we were to collect we got a call from D saying one of the back runners had called to DNF, we were to ignore our sign duty and go to them "800m away" (what he meant was 4k away, there's a them of the team not being very good with estimating distance!).
We were told they had got in their bivvy because they were struggling with walking and needed to keep warm. We came across the 2 runners who had helped him before being told by hq to keep going as we were close by. They said he was against a fence post round the corner. We rounded the corner, found the beginning of the fence post and couldn't see them at all (the fog was coming in here!). We shouted their name and a red light appeared on the ground another 100m or so away. (Again, reasons why these things are required kit). They said they were nice and warm in their bivvy bag & were just making some pot noodles. We liaised with D who looked into vehicular extrication. These paths were icy. We were told that there were no 4x4s available, which is what was needed in an ideal world. I said to D we would reasses once the pot noodles were complete and he was walking. We were a fair trek from the road.
He could walk, albeit slowly, and with me carrying his pack. 2 of the others had come up to reccy possible alternative routes out. I had a brainwave and said we could use the route a previous runner had taken (which gave them a time penalty), because we knew it was passable and definitely shorter. The others walked up, which included a medic and I had a further chat with D. He asked if a Fiesta with snow socks on would be ok. The roads were used by logging lorries so the road underneath was ok, just the ice on top was the danger, but as he was used to that to some extent we decided to give it a go. The only fear then was the gate being locked behind him once the car was in, cue 2 more SST on gate duty to make sure that didn't happen!
We bundled the runner into the car which then tried to go and collect the furthest out sign, since they were up here now anyway. It was a feat not to be done as the road became significantly worse. The rest of us walked back down to the cars and agreed that I would give V & the runner a lift up to CP5. V and I wanted to catch up with a friend who was volunteering up there anyway, and had some more SST kit to maybe collect. The initial plan was that we might sleep up there that night too, though that plan changed in the end.
CP5 was the happy chaos I remember of volunteers in a kitchen far too small for what is being asked of it, and runners sleeping in a cold hall floor next door. We managed to give a bit of an update to the runner that told us about the dog and that it was safe thanks to them. I told my friend up there that I was planning lots of silly adventures and he agreed to come on some with me (the fool).
We were then offered food at the pub next to the Sill so we had to leave, prioritising lamb over friends (I'm not sorry, and would do it again, the lamb was amazing). Rolling into bed that night we were told we needed to be at tomorrows points by 8am which would mean leaving by 7. My alarm was set for 6.50.
Proof of how good the lamb was:
The Sill - Kirk Yetholm
Wake up time - 6am
Go to bed time - 6am (1 hr nap), 6pm
Time awake - too long.
Our little team of 4 had grown temporarily over the last couple of days, myself and Y were to go to near Byrness and catch the last few runners coming through there (read, speed them up and make sure they got to the half checkpoint on time). About 5 minutes after arriving we were asked to welfare check one of the runners who HQ said were moving very slowly.
We walked up the path to them, they were going slow with bursts of energy, and I don't know if there was an element of us saying they were a couple of miles out of Byrness or just generally seeing people that sped them up, but they were cognitively all there and now moving slightly quicker. There were 4 or 5 runners behind them that had been slowly catching them all night. 2 sped last us quickly saying they were worried about the cut off. They made it in and out in plenty of time (given it's only 30 minutes there anyway!). The rest came past too as we were heading slowly back towards the car.
The final one looked to be struggling more than the rest and was dejected for the first time I'd seen them all race. We waited by the car for a little bit for instructions, on heading out we came across the final runner, having missed their turn. We pointed them in the right direction and off they went. There was a niggle of concern but they were now 2 miles out of the checkpoint on a well marked obvious fairly flat path. We called D and talked it through with them, we met up at a point that looked across a large chunk of their path and could once more essentially spy on people. We checked the dots and saw the runner we initially went to welfare check taking a wrong turn, but before we could get down to them at all they had corrected and now were paired up with the other person who had gone wrong. This is always either a recipe for success or disaster. They both made it in and out of CP5.5, with one choosing to sleep in the church before tackling the Cheviots, alongside a couple of other runners. I caught up with one at the end and they said someone had told them (hello Chinese whispers) that your success rate of getting to the finish goes up significantly if you take a sleep at the church vs if you don't.
The morning frost while we waited for runners:
The others had gone to a bakery after returning to collect the diversion signs so we met up with them and had (in my case) rocky road which was delicious. We were going to head up to CP5.5 once it was closed to runners until they were all on the cheviots & closer to hut 1 than coming back.
Once we were done in Byrness we were going to be off duty. None of us felt quite right leaving there so agreed to meet for one final meal in Kirk Yetholm. The runners that would be finishing at that time would be the ones we've supported all race, the ones that have been out the longest, and I would argue the ones that have shown the most grit to get to the end.
The end in daylight (when there aren't runners approaching)
The finish when runners are near with all the tunnels lit. With the traditional team photo!
I cannot comprehend what it must feel like to collapse against the wall of the border hotel, the true finish of the Montane Spine Race. Maybe one day I'll find out? For now though I'm content with volunteering for it and doing my best to help others get to the very end!
