Despite going into the race with injuries and being faced with a forecast for horrendous weather, Vicky Hart, of Dumfries, was determined to complete the 108-mile Montane Spine Challenger race on the Pennine Way. She dug deep to keep going and finally crossed the line on Monday January 15 after setting off on the Saturday at 8am.
Here is her story of a seemingly ordinary woman achieving the extraordinary.
A competitor in the Montane Spine Challenger. Pic credit: Mick Kenyon
What is the Spine Challenger?
Competitors have a time limit of 60 hours to complete The Montane Spine Challenger. The race is 108 miles non-stop from Edale to Hardraw (new finish point for 2018) along a challenging and technical section of the Pennine Way.
The organisers state: “It is both a physically and psychologically demanding route that demands concentration, good fitness, resolve and respect. The Montane Spine Challenger is a notoriously difficult event.”
This year’s winner was Wouter Huitzing, of The Netherlands, in a new course record of 25:44. Second-place UK runner Simon Bourne was almost three hours behind and third-place Ian Magee, also UK, came home another 20 minutes later.
Women’s Spine Challenger winner Emma Hopkinson, also UK, was fourth overall and set a new course record in 29:39. The second and third placed runners are also from the UK. Runner-up was Cass Chisholm, some was five hours after Emma, with Jen Scotney third.
Vicky came home seventh lady.
Start of the race. Pic credit: Mick Kenyon
Another even more brutal race, The Montane Spine Race, takes place on the same weekend and into the following week. It is described as “ one of the world’s toughest endurance races”. It’s a huge outing of 420km along the entire length of the Penine Way, from Edale to Kirk Yetholm. It is also non-stop and there are up to seven days in which to complete.
This year, conditions were so bad overnight mid-week that organisers dictated an enforced rest overnight.
This year’s winner, for the third time is Pavel Paloncý in a time of 109hrs 50mins. The Czech ultra runner arrived at the finish at Kirk Yetholm on Thursday ahead of Simon Gfeller of Switzerland and Britain’s John Knapp.
As I publish this, Carol Morgan looks likely to be the first woman home.
Vicky and her husband.
Vicky’s bid to take on the Montane Spine Challenger
Vicky has been a keen ultra runner for the past decade and has to juggle training around her work, her husband, who is also a runner, and their two young children.
Her first ultra race was the Devil o’ the Highlands after which she went on to complete The Fling and the West Highland Way Race, among other Scottish and northern England races. See the many Scottish ultra races.
Her Spine Challenger entry came after many years of watching others do the event. She said: “I’d watched the race from a distance for a number of years, always thinking it was far beyond my capabilities but I was hooked on dot watching [the runners have a GPS marker] every year.
“Then I mentioned the race in a conversation with my dad and he said that in his younger days he had walked and wild-camped the whole Pennine Way. This switched on a light bulb in my head.
“With some very strong encouragement from my husband, and thinking it would be a great way to connect my running hobby to my parents, I decided to brave an entry.”
Windy conditions in the race. Pic credit: Mick Kenyon
Vicky reveals she spent all of 2017 feeling terrified about the race. Worse still, she seemed to pick up injury after injury and the final straw was a hip injury that meant from October until race day she could not run without being in pain.
She said: “I ended up in so much pain that I could hardly run so I just walked. I did question whether I should do the race and over the Christmas period I was quite low about it all but I had invested so much into the race – researching and buying new kit, training on the route, by way of family holidays in the rain in Yorkshire, studying the route maps, reading every blog I could find – that I couldn’t let myself not at least try to start, even if I couldn’t run.
“I knew from the beginning it was going to be a very long race for me and that I just had to accept that and get on with it.”
The weather was described as horrendous. Pic credit: Mick Kenyon
Racing the Montane Spine Challenger
The route is challenging and when you add in tough weather conditions, overnights, lack of sleep and time spent racing alone it adds up to a gruelling event.
Vicky added: “The trail is pretty grim for long, long periods, with bogs everywhere. And it is so gnarly and rocky and completely unforgiving. It’s not the type of terrain I enjoy. To be honest I hate bogs.
“So as each section passed I was ticking it off my list, thinking thank goodness I don’t have to do that bit again.”
The weather was generally fairly kind in the early stages, considering it was January, but there was a severe wind on top of Kinder Scout, just a few miles into the race, and Vicky was lifted by a strong gust of wind and knocked flying on to the ground. She badly hurt her shoulder.
Vicky at a checkpoint.
She said: “The pain was awful and especially as I was carrying a backpack that weighed 9kg. Despite being furious at making things even more difficult so early in the race, I had to shake off the anger and carry on. You can’t just quit after five miles if you haven’t actually broken something, I thought to myself.”
By the time Vicky reached Wessenden at around 22 miles, she could feel her shoulder and arm becoming more of an issue. She said: “I was struggling to use my left arm and as the night I found it going from generally sore to excruciating to weirdly numb and lifeless.
“It was during this first night that everything else started to get painful too, especially my feet and my hip. But I had been prepared for that. It was getting really cold and I had spent a long time on my own as well.
“Knowing my progress was so slow, I just kept wishing for the checkpoint to arrive. It was frustrating to know that if I could just run, I could reach there in half the time, but I just couldn’t. The pain was excruciating.”
Hugs for Vicky.
Reaching the race checkpoint
By the race’s major checkpoint at 45 miles (Hebden Bridge), Vicky described her body as “pretty finished” She said: “My head was really struggling, too, despite all the mental practice and visualisation I had done in the lead up to the race. As I went into the CP, I wasn’t entirely convinced I would be coming out. I was battered.”
Vicky decided that efficiency was the key at the CP if she was going to start again. However, she also needed medical assistance, so once she was changed, restocked and fed, she went to see the medics.
She said: “I was with them for the best part of an hour and I was advised I may need an X-ray, but if I wanted to continue then they would allow me. I took 30 minutes of sleep as I was starting to get wobbly. Then the amazing CP staff helped me get sorted and back out on the trail.”
Very difficult conditions for many competitors. Pic credit: Mick Kenyon
The bog – and more bog. Then rain and wind
The next stage would be the toughest for Vicky. It was her most dreaded part of the course, over Ickornshaw Moor, which includes a lot of bog. She said: “All I could be grateful for was that I was crossing it in daylight. At this point I was using the ‘it could be worse’ strategy.”
The next night-time section brought with it torrential rain and gale force winds.
She said: “Crossing Malham Cove was scary in the dark as the limestone was as slippery as a sheet of ice and, as I rose up the hill to Malham Tarn, the wind was battering down on me.
“I was frozen cold, my waterproof socks were no longer waterproof, my waterproof gloves were no longer waterproof. I still faced the prospect of Fountains Fell and Pen-y-Ghent in the horrific weather.
“I was all ready to throw my toys out of the pram when I got to the mini checkpoint at approximately 85 miles. I’d had enough. Everything hurt. I was exhausted. I’d even stopped earlier for a 15 minute nap in a phone box.
“I was pissed off beyond compare and I was in no mood to spend who knows how many more hours in the dark on my own crossing those fells.”
Again she was seen by a medic and again advised to consider whether she should continue. She said: “There were tears then and a minor tantrum inside my head. The CP staff were amazing and so encouraging and really wanted everyone to get to the finish if they could. And I wanted it so bad. So bad I ached inside.
“I’d had so many mini phone calls with my kids and my husband saying, ‘You can do it mummy, we’re so proud of you.’ I wanted to show my kids that we hadn’t wasted all that time with mummy out training at silly o’clock in the morning, missing the start of Junior Parkrun, the holidays in the rain while mummy runs the route.
“I wanted to show them that hard work can pay off and that we can overcome obstacles. I might not be fast, but I get stuff done. I didn’t want to let them down.”
So she continued and described this stage of the race as “the worst conditions I ever ‘run’ in” and “the worst descents I have ever done”, in the dark.
Vicky finds the energy to race to the end
She said: “There were more tears and swearing. I was really starting to worry about my safety as I came down off Fountains Fell. I couldn’t see the road until it was literally five feet away from me as I flailed around in yet another bog and countless slips and falls coming off the hill. I felt beaten.
“But there was nobody there to comfort me, to encourage me. I was alone. I had my SOS tracker button if the worse came to the absolute worse.”
Somehow she remained positive. She said: “You can only enter the race if you’re deemed capable. So I knew that ‘I had this’, I just needed to remind myself and keep moving. The more you move the sooner you are down from the fells and moving out of the wind heading to easier trail.
“And then there was daylight. Everything seems better, even if it’s only a little better, when the daylight comes.”
After leaving Horton, Vicky thought she just had one last section to do. But the torrential rain had caused serious flooding on the route. She found herself wading hip deep at one point because she couldn’t see a way around the flood.
The rivers were in spate and the wind was freezing and so strong it was again blowing her off her feet.
She said: “I couldn’t wait to get down the final hill. My feet felt like every bone was broken and each step was agony. But I forced a run. Okay it was more than a shuffle but it felt better. I just needed it to be over; I needed it to be done.
“I caught and passed two runners about a mile from the finish. I had barely seen anyone for any length of time for the previous two and a half days!
“But I did it. I finished. I thought I would cry, but I didn’t. I was just so deliriously happy – and probably dehydrated.
“It is an amazing feeling knowing that I beat all my demons. I rarely feel proud of my running, but this is one time that I do. I even feel a bit different. This is such a cliché, but for once it is true.”
Vicky earns her much deserved Montane Spine Challenger medal.
My mummy is powerful
On returning home, Vicky was chatting with her mother-in-law, who had been looking after the children during the race. Vicky said: “My mother in law told me they had been watching my dot during the race. She had said she didn’t know how I managed to keep going for so long in all the awful weather. My daughter Annabel replied: ‘It’s because my mummy is powerful.’
“That’s my ‘why’ right there. What more could a mum want than to inspire her kids and have them be proud of her?
“The longer or harder the race, the more important the ‘why’ is. Why are you there? Why are going you to push yourself to finish the race? There needs to be a why.”
What next for Vicky?
For now Vicky says she will be hanging up her running shoes, especially as she has found out that she needs to allow her injured hip to recover. She said: “I had the results of a scan and the good news is I haven’t done any further damage to it but I do need to work out how to make it better. I have bursitis and a tear in the cartilage. Once that is sorted, who knows what I will do next but I do know that anything is possible.”