I’ve wanted to do one of the big Arctic ultras for years. But fitting it in around work is tricky; they’re usually in Feb-Mar, right in the middle of the Spring teaching semester. I wasted my one chance (a sabbatical in 2018) on a painful abortive attempt at the Monarch’s Way. Thanks to a boring admin job I wasn’t lecturing in Spring 2019, and while the 2+ weeks off required for one of the big races wasn’t possible, a long weekend trip to Finland for the Rovaniemi 150 was.

150km can be done in a single push, even pulling a pulk, and the race typically has a fairly low DNF rate. But nonetheless I had to face up to several fears: fire, frostbite and falling. As a child my mum put the fear of god into me about fire (some children she taught died in a house fire, which they started by playing with matches), to the extent I was even scared of lighting a Bunsen burner at school. Frostbite was always a minor worry, but the wonky finger incident (and the prospect of having to live with a non-functional finger) has made it worse. Finally, while I’m not scared of heights, I get really wobbly about exposure, and struggle to cross even quite wide areas if there’s a drop to both sides. And one of the features of the Rovaniemi 150 route is ‘The Famous Bridge’, a plank bridge across a small river, which one year someone fell off of into the river.

The Famous Bridge

I’ve been steadily accumulating Arctic kit in sales for years, including a whisperlite multi-fuel stove. Over Christmas I got it out of its box, read the instructions, got scared and put it back in its box again. Instead I bought a white spirit fuelled Trangia-style stove and over several days slowly got to grips with using it to boil water. The snowshoes I’d bought in a sale similarly turned out to be a mistake; overly bulky and hard to adjust. Despite my advanced preparations, the weeks after the Spine Challenger were full of slightly panicked last minute kit buying. I was nervous, in a way I hadn’t been about a race since the Spine. In absolute terms it would be easier to finish, but it was going to take me out of my comfort zone. I like testing gear and practising on similar terrain, which isn’t really possible in the UK for an Arctic race. I did get hold of an old tyre (Tyree), which I sprayed purple and dragged around.

Tyree

Rovaniemi is the home of Santa Claus, and accommodation isn’t cheap. I got a small single room in a hostel which just fitted me and all of my kit. I arrived late the evening before the race briefing, and spent the morning shopping for food and gear. I went to an outdoor shop to buy white spirit for my stove, but also got some extra kit (an insulated skirt and some more waterproof gloves)which would turn out to be very useful in the warmish-wet conditions.

The race briefing went on a bit. Mainly because everyone had to have their sleeping bags checked individually. I’ve got a -50C PhD bag, which will be suitable for any future Arctic races I do. It was overkill in this case though. It’s huge and I didn’t even need to get it out of its bag to convince the race organiser it was warm enough. Back at the hostel, it took several hours to load all of my kit onto my rented kid’s sledge (Pulkee). Since I was treating this as a trial run for a longer race I had much more, and heavier duty, kit than I really needed. Finally, I took Pulkee out for a quick spin around the town centre. The temperature was forecast to rise over the next few days, and the Rab Vapour Guide trousers I’d originally planned to wear would probably be too warm. But right now it was cold.

.

The race starts on the (frozen) river in central Rovaniemi, and on my way there I managed to capsize Pulkee twice. Not a great start. I also got to the start far too early, and standing around in -15 degree temperatures my feet got cold. I’m used to being at the back of the field at the start of races, but the combination of my unstable overloaded pulk and the dead straight first section along the river made this more painfully obvious than usual. There were ruts in the snow from snowmobiles, and sometimes when I crossed one Pulkee tipped over. Thanks to the rigid sled-pulling poles, righting her was non-trivial and required removing my harness. Nevertheless I got to the first checkpoint at 11km, comfortably under my target of 2 hours. The route then came off of the river and through some villages. The race is fairly minimal in terms of checkpoint support (only hot water which you serve yourself is provided), but every major road crossing was staffed, despite the very low levels of traffic. Next came some undulating snowmobile tracks through forests. Despite the overcast weather, these were beautiful. However I struggled to keep Pulkee upright, and the handful of people behind me overtook me as I kept stopping to right her.

race route map

CP 2 was followed by the first ‘Pain in the Ass’ section, on a narrow path over and around trees. It was a pain, but it didn’t take too long to get through. I fancied a break for some snacks at the end, but one of the race support crew was waiting on a snowmobile so I pressed on along the frozen lake and tried (with mixed success) to eat while moving. As dark came the few people visible in front peeled off onto the shorter 66k route. Eventually, I got to grips with Pulkee, redistributing the weight to make her more stable and learning when and how to hold onto the pulling shafts to stop her tipping.

At CP3 I caught up with another person. I only stopped briefly to fill my thermos flasks and left before him. But he soon overtook and disappeared into the distance. The only other person I saw on the way to CP4 was a DNF getting loaded onto a snowmobile. The Famous Bridge came soon after CP4. It wasn’t too bad. I had a bit of a wobble, but I got Pulkee across OK. What came next though was a different story. It wasn’t marked on the map, but it was far worse than the previous ‘Pain in the Ass’ section, or the subsequent ‘Juhlin’s favourite Hell’ section. There was a significant distance (I’ve no idea how far, it could have just been a couple of hundred metres or much further) where the route was really windy in all 3 directions. It was completely impossible to pull Pulkee behind me, or to carry her. I pushed and I pulled. She got caught on branches, one of the cable ties holding my number on tore off, the bungees holding my snowshoes on top popped off (and I had to go back and retrieve one of them). And I swore out loud, lots. In the end, I walked through to the end of the section, stuck my trekking poles in the snow and then went back to drag Pulkee out. If there was much more terrain like this I wouldn’t be able to finish within the cut-off. A bloke on a snowmobile was waiting at the end. He must have wondered what on Earth I was doing, as my head torch meandered back and forth. I got some spare cable ties out to re-secure my number, but they snapped in the cold. The bloke on the snowmobile told me not to worry, but I pointed out that the race rules specified a DNF for a lost number. He then helped warm one of them up and reattach the number, and reassured me that there was no more terrain like this.

The next 2 sections were, thankfully, on much better trails and I even managed to catch and pass a few more people (including some who were sleeping under a wooden shelter at CP5). I reached the halfway point at Kuusilampi at ~5am, 5 hours inside the cut-off. This was the one indoor CP, a small hut with a fire in the middle. It was full of half a dozen people, some of whom were DNFing. I was feeling pretty good. I pondered stopping to sleep (mainly because I wanted to use my super duper sleeping bag in anger), but some quick maths revealed that the cut-off was over-generous and assumed a negative split. I mentioned this to the taciturn Finns running the CP and got the response ‘yes it is’ and a warning that a storm was approaching. I struggled to eat much of a rehydrated meal while I changed my socks and tried to dry off the bottom half of my fleece tights (my improvised ‘slightly warmer than expected weather’ kit wasn’t working particularly well) before pushing on.

‘Juhlin’s favourite Hell’ section, turned out to be quite pleasant, and I caught a woman who’d left CP6 just before me. We back-and-forthed quite a lot along the subsequent long (10k) road section, as one or other of us stopped to eat or drink. Previously the route had been very isolated, but now (just as I needed a poo) it passed through small villages and past one farm after another. I felt sorry for the marshals who spent hours waiting at very quiet road crossings, to usher us across. As the road climbed we hauled in some other people, including a British bloke who was doing the 300k race. A chat to him perked me up, and (after Pulkee’s first capsize for a while) I pulled away, even managing some jogging on the winding, downhill forest path to CP7. It had started snowing, wet snow, so I changed into waterproofs, including my new gloves and pushed on.

The road out of the CP was narrow, too narrow for a car to pass me. I struggled to manoeuvre Pulkee into the verge, and had the embarrassment of a passenger jumping out of their car, lifting Pulkee (still attached to me) off of the road, and then back on again once the car had passed. The first half of this section was on nicely undulating roads and went by really quickly. The 2nd half was a different story. Initially seeing lights twinkling on the shores of the lake was uplifting. But then the storm came in, reducing visibility, covering tracks and blowing wet snow horizontally into my face, hurting my eyes. I put my goggles on, but then struggled to spot the route markers even with my head torch on full beam (I’ve since, belatedly, bought some clear goggles). Coming off of the lake the route was easier to follow, but dragging overweight Pulkee uphill through inches of wet snow was hard. Race staff on snowmobiles were patrolling the course regularly. Getting started again after stopping to speak to them was hard, but being told ‘you always sound so positive’ (I was putting on a front) and ‘you are are so strong’ was a boost for my ego. And ‘I am so strong’ became my mantra, as I struggled to pull Pulkee even downhill through concrete like snow.

I kept prematurely convincing myself that I was nearly at the final CP. Just as the lights came into view, two people caught me, and we ended up with a traffic jam at the CP entrance. This was a surprise since I’d not seen anyone for hours and thought I’d been moving well (I guess I lost lots of time faffing around with my goggles). One was the woman I’d been backing and forthing with earlier, and she gave me one of my rear red lights which had got caught on a branch and fallen off. The other was a woman doing the 300k race (who I’m guessing had stopped to sleep). At this point I acted like a complete twat. There were trophies for the first 3 women in each category (foot, bike, ski) and only 4 women had entered the 150k race on foot. Beforehand I’d thought that there was a good chance of getting a trophy, provided I finished, because surely someone would drop out. However I (correctly) guessed that we were currently in joint 3rd place. Normally I’m not very competitive, and have sometimes won things accidentally. Here, however, despite being almost at the back of the field, a sudden irrational desire to get that 3rd place trophy kicked in and I charged out of the checkpoint like a bat out of hell. There was only 6k to the finish, but I pushed the whole way, counting footsteps in groups of a hundred. At one point a head torch caught me, but it turned out to be a fat biker. The race organiser appeared on a snowmobile with instructions about the route and was confused that I wasn’t the other woman. I finished in just under 40h, 3rd from last. I pulled out a 20 min gap on the other woman and bagged the 3rd place trophy (but I’m too embarrassed to display it, so it’s hidden in a cupboard). The finish was supposed to be in a tent, but the weather was too bad so instead the handful of last finishers were crammed in a small room. Pulks and gear had to stay outside and I struggled to get into dry gear. Leaving Pulkee behind (I wasn’t sad to see the back of her) I got a lift back to the hostel. After a good night’s sleep I got the bus to Santa Claus Village, which was spectacularly naff.

Some sub-optimal kit choices (and in particular the over-loaded pulk) made it a bit slower and less comfortable than it should have been. Overall it was a fantastic adventure though, and has reinforced my desire to do one of the longer Arctic races. However I will definitely be getting a proper pulk, and also trying to test out kit in advance.

In retrospect doing a 100 mile race along the Pennine Way in Winter, without any specific training, for fun, wasn't one of my better ideas. However, despite the best efforts of a short-fat pony and my bra strap, I finished, albeit slowly. And for the first time ever I had some proper hallucinations.

[Pre-blog warning: lots of boring detail, followed by some self-obsessed naval-gazing and finally some thoughts on kit.]

The pre-race hoopla in Edale wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but still I was glad to actually get started. I started even slower than usual, not being sure how well I'd recovered from illness. The weather on top of Kinder Scout was initially OK-clear skies and good views. That changed after Kinder Downfall (which was upfalling, and initially made me think it was raining). As I struggled to stay upright in strong wind, the leading Mountain Rescue runners (who'd started an hour behind us) floated past me. I did a bit of careful shuffling along the flagstones to Snake Pass. Bleaklow was much, much easier to navigate than on my ill-fated pre-Christmas recce, but on the descent to Torside, chatting to another runner I managed to end up on a muddy path above the route. I also got asked the 'where do you come from (with that accent)' question. Which was a bit alarming, it usually takes a lot more than ~5 hours for me to get tired and bumpkiny. Quite a few of the Mountain Rescue runners were passing by now, but that didn't bother me; in previous years the people I'd finished close to had been an hour ahead of me at this point. At the bottom of the descent there was a field of short, fat ponies playing around. And one particularly barrel shaped, short legged pony nearly side-swiped me as it ran across the track.

I got to just after Wessenden Head before it got dark, slightly behind 2013 but ahead of 2014. And then the weather started. Strong wind, driving rain, low cloud and very low visibility. I paired up with Clare (who was doing the Mountain Rescue race, and who'd I met way back in 2013 at a Spine training weekend). Initially we wordlessly (the weather was way too bad for chatting) settled into a routine of alternating the lead. And when Clare suggested that we stick together until CP1 at Hebden I immediately agreed. I haven't teamed up with someone since my first 50 milers back in 2007. The difference between my starting speed and my multi-day plod is smaller than most peoples', and also I usually move slower, but stop less, than the people around me. However the weather was so bad it was a no-brainer. Despite both having done the route multiple times we managed to go around in circles in the mist, trying to find the M62 crossing. I hadn't needed my GPS before this and it had turned itself off, and I struggled to get it set up properly again in the rain with gloves on. I also discovered a bad habit which would plague me throughout the race: I'd remember the mistakes from my initial reces (and think they were right...) rather than the correct route.

Soon I was completely soaked and wearing every single upper body layer I was carrying, which made me nervous. I always prefer to have a spare insulating layer for emergencies. Water was flowing down the paths like streams. Bolle safety googles had been OK when I'd tested them in mildly bad weather but I couldn't see a thing through them. Breaking something by falling over seemed like a bigger risk than wind-blindness. So I took them off and held my hood around the side of my face the wind was coming from. This opened up a gap a between my gloves and jacket, down which the rain poured.

I completely lost my navigational mojo by the reservoirs after the White House. I kept trying to turn right too soon. I guess because in previous years I'd 'shuffled' this bit and it had gone far quicker. After the reservoirs in 2014 I'd turned left too soon and gone off-route for a km. I was keen to avoid a repeat of that, but this time I went past the wrong turn without noticing, and then wanted to ignore an obvious Pennine Way sign and keep going right at the correct left...

Eventually the weather eased off and the last few hours into Hebden weren't too bad, apart from the field crossings which were extremely muddy. We arrived at CP1 at ~3am, slower than 2013, but similar to 2014 (where I'd lost time to my deviation and muddy underfoot conditions). In 2014 I went the whole week without having a shower but, building on my excessive showering habit at the EMU 6-day race, I decided having one would be a good idea to warm myself up, despite the fact I wasn't actually particularly cold. The checkpoint was busy, but well-organised. My feet were in fairly good shape: damp, but only 1 toe blister. I had some food and then tried to sleep for 45 min. I can't say for sure that I didn't sleep at all, but it certainly felt like it. At ~5am I started getting ready to leave. It turned out Clare was doing the same and suggested we team up again. It had worked well the night before and the weather still wasn't great so I agreed.

Leaving the checkpoint at 5.45 (comparable to, or even slightly earlier than, previous years) I made a ridiculously embarrassing navigation error. A right turn was flagged, but I marched straight on between 2 flags. Once we realised we were off-route we tried to climb up to the route, but ended up back-tracking and had to explain to the CP staff who'd come out to meet us, thinking we were new arrivals, what we (or strictly speaking I) had done. I also put too many layers on and had to stop soon to remove one. The weather remained low-grade miserable. Faster runners who'd slept for longer overtook us and we had a brief stop for Clare to be interviewed by some students who were filming her.

We stopped at Top Withins for Clare to put an extra layer on and me to ram my neck gaiter under my bra-strap. It had got rucked up under my rucksack the night before and had caused not just minor chafing but some muscle or nerve damage too. Despite taking painkillers my shoulder was sore, swinging my arm hurt and parts of it were beginning to go numb. I wasn't sure I wanted to finish enough to go through another night like the one before. Would the arm be an excuse/reason to DNF?

Over the next couple of hours the rain stopped and the Sun actually came out. There was a slightly frustrating un-preannounced reroute and the film crew appeared again. We stopped mid-afternoon at Lothersdale at the fantastically well organised rest stop put on by a triathlon club. Within seconds of sitting down we were wrapped in blankets and plied with food. While Clare sorted herself out I rejigged my frontpack to try and take weight off my shoulder and (on being spotted taking a painkiller by an eagle eyed Spine Safety Team member) explained the bra strap issue and its potential for an embarrassing DNF.

It got dark as we were passing Pinhaw beacon, sooner than I'd expected. We didn't get to Garsgrave until after 8.30, far later than in previous years. The fields were really slippy and there was a diversion, but I've no idea how it took us this long. It didn't feel like we were moving slowly. That was soon to change. After a toilet stop at a pub we went to Co-op to get food. Unfortunately everything I'd fancied eating had sold out so I just had a big bag of crisps. I was a bit mardy at this point. I should have been more grateful to the pub landlord, who came out to first welcome us in and then to tell us we'd left in the wrong direction. And I went off on a monologue about how sleeping at Garsgrave was a bad idea and people who do that historically don't finish (turns out the people who did finished several hours in front of me...).

I wasn't at all sleepy. But then all of a sudden, on the moor between Gargrave and Airton it hit both of us suddenly. We were moving at snails pace and I was struggling to stay awake while holding gates open. We tried to find somewhere to take a power-nap in Airton. A chapel on the map looked promising, but as we approached it a dog started barking. So we were going to have to keep going to Malham. The deviation prior to Malham had been cancelled, but as I took us off-route after the ravine crossing some head-torches sped past us on the easier parallel path, rubbing salt in the navigational wounds.

In true Spine style we stopped in the ladies loos at Malham for a power nap. My toes were really hurting and I desparately wanted to take my boots off, but that would lengthen the stop. We both set our alarms for 10 minutes. I got cold lying on my back, so sat against the wall in my usual outdoor power nap position. I got into a half woke-half asleep state, where thoughts seem to drop through my field of view. When I opened my eyes, 11 min had passed. Initially I thought my alarm hadn't gone off, but it happily woke me up (at 0.52am!) the next two nights, so I suspect that actually I did fall asleep and it woke me up. After another 5 minutes I woke Clare up and we got moving again fairly quickly. I tried to eat some cold pizza (usually a staple multi-day food) but retched.

Up till now I'd been going fairly strongly on the climbs, but while the power-nap had rejuvenated Clare I struggled to keep up on the climb up to Malham Cove. I was breathing in and out but no air seemed to be reaching my lungs. I'd been coughing lots at checkpoints, but this was the first time my cold affected me while on the move. I was then extremely wussy about the crossing at the top, as usual, but this time there was someone to witness it. The sky was clear and there were actually some pretty good star-lit views.

As we approached CP1.5 at Malham Tarn someone passed us at speed and shouted encouragement. I was expecting to be passed by the leaders in the full race, but not this soon. I realised what was happening just in time to shout encouragement back before John Kelly disappeared into the distance. Scott and Phil (the race organisers) and Pavel (former winner) were at CP1.5 and I blethered away about how back in the day CP1.5 was a tent (I'm probably the only person who gets more talkative and sociable when tired and sleep deprived).

Clare was keen to have a short nap and move on quickly and I probably should have told her to go on without me and not tried to stay with her and held her up. First I got my toe blisters drained and dressed by the medics, while forcing down a small fraction of a rehydrated meal (I'd tried the alpkit veggie meals out on a fastpacking trip in the Summer, and thought they tasted great. But at this point this one tasted like sawdust). My toes did feel much better for it, but I could have coped with doing a quicker, half arsed job myself. And then while Clare laid down on a pile of maps I got my full sleeping kit out. Storm Brendan was due to hit early the next afternoon and I really didn't want to go into it on essentially no sleep. Again it didn't feel like I slept at all (this time I kept seeing visions) but I probably did for a few minutes. When Clare got up to leave I was awake and said that if she waited for 5 minutes I'd join her. It took me significantly longer to wedge everything back into my rucksack. And then I needed the loo. I'd like to think I'm usually pretty efficient about stops, but I haemorrhaged time here

The stop at Malham Tarn did seem to improve our speed, but I was having a weird issue that the terrain in the centre of my head-torch beam had a green tinge. By the time we were climbing Fountains Fell the path appeared to be covered in a moss carpet, which made staying on it hard. In the end I suggested that Clare took over the lead. Dawn came on the descent. With a shorter sleep break at Malham I'd caught up some time on previous years, but was feeling significantly worse. My shoulder was sore again, my eyes were sore (and I was paranoid about wind blindness) and I was struggling to eat. We stopped just before Pen y Ghent for me to pack away my pole, which again took longer than it should.

On the uneven descent Clare pulled away from me, and I had to put a jog on to catch up with her at gates. Eventually I gave up and watched her pull away. I was feeling not just tired but really spacey. At the monitoring point in Horton I belatedly told Clare to push on without me and set about forcing down as much food as I could. Initially the climb out of Horton went well. But it seemed to go on for ever. And I repeated a rece error and turned off too soon, despite looking straight at a Pennine Way sign. I realised what I'd done after a couple of minutes and was just about to turn around when a runner coming the other way (who was trying to meet up with someone on the full race) kindly chased after me to tell me I was off route.

The climb up the Cam High Road didn't feel quite as interminable as in the past. The wind got up again. I was initially glad as this gave me something to focus on and fight against. But by Ten End I was struggling to stay up-right, stopping and bracing myself with my pole every time it gusted. The flat-ish section past Dodd Fell went on forever, It started raining again and then it got dark. I was half hoping that due to the weather we'd be rerouted down the track into Hawes, rather than staying high on the fells. But we weren't. I wanted to keep my sunglasses on for protection against the wind, so I turned my headtorch on full beam. Then I got paranoid the batteries would run out. I struggled to turn it down, and ended up with it upside down. And then, for the first time ever, I started hallucinating properly. Descending through the fields in thick cloud/mist I thought I saw someone running next to me. If I turned my head they disappeared, but otherwise there was someone constantly there on one or both sides of me. They were real enough that I could 'see' their poles and the colour of their jackets (red and blue), but not so real that I tried to talk to them! When I came off the fields and hit the track a car drove up it, lights on full beam, and stopped. Which was confusing and irritating. Until a photographer jumped out. (The resulting photo didn't capture my running companions)

The finish was very well organised. Someone came out to 'run' me in (I worried at him about what the time was and whether I'd be able to catch the last train home). And then I was swarmed by volunteers who took my boots and rucksack off and plied me with food. I talked multi-day running and running shoes for wide feet with Angela (who ran JOGLE last Summer), gave Clare a glove she'd dropped after Horton and struggled to cram all of my wet gear into my drop bag. I then got a lift to Garsdale station with another runner and just about managed to stay awake until I got home just after midnight.


I finished in 57h 45m. 4 and a bit hours slower than when I did the Challenger in 2013 and ~2.5 hours slower than on the full Spine in 2014. Some (but not all) of that difference is due to the underfoot conditions (2013 was cold and dry, 2014 wet and muddy, but not as bad) and the route being longer this year. In 2013 and 14 we were allowed to short-cut Horton using the 3 peaks fell race route.

Initially I was happy just to finish. But within 24 hours I was miserable, and embarrassed even, about quite how slow and close to the back of the field I was. I'd steeled myself for a DNF, but not a really slow finish (which was a bit silly since I'm more prone to finishing slowly than DNF-ing). During the race it didn't feel like I was really close to the back of the field, so finding myself at the bottom of the women's leader board was a bit of a shock. Having a separate women's leader board is a good idea, otherwise the leading women are buried in the overall rankings (unless they're super-fast). However it also means your bad days are more visible. I then spent a couple of days going around in mental circles. Should Clare and I have split up much sooner? We'd have probably both finished quicker. As well as reducing stoppage time, I could have shuffled the flats, and Clare wouldn't have been slowed down by my Bambi on ice routine on mud and technical terrain. But on this occasion the mental benefits of the company probably outweigh a slightly faster (but still, ultimately, slow) finish time.

Next I felt guilty for being miserable, because there were probably people who'd taken the race far more seriously than me who'd DNF-ed. Then I felt narcissistic for thinking that anyone else would notice, let alone care about, where and when I'd finished. One of the really wierd things about the race was having people I'd never met know who I was. But I'd be a hypocrite to complain about that, given my tendency to drop the fact I've finished the full race into any and every conversation with the subtlety of a nuclear bomb.

In the end it was one of my work colleagues that put a stop to my miserablism. By reminding me that when I did the Challenger back in 2013 it was a really big deal to me. I should be content that I can finish a challenging event, with sub-optimal preparation, and be back to 'normal' (apart from a gimpy shoulder) within a couple of days. I used to run lots of ultras for fun, and was happy to finish at the back of the field. Having discovered that I'm alright at flat,multi-day races I've switched to focusing on one or two a year. Doing races which don't suit my strengths for 'fun' is fine, but I've got to then get back to the mind-set of being satisfied with just finishing. And doing a race which gets a lot of attention, and with which I've got significant history, was a bad idea.

So after a week of navel-gazing and self-flagellation it's time to move on. And start obsessing about cold-weather kit for the Rovaniemi 150.

Some (incomplete) kit notes

Some of my kit (legs and head) was the same, literally, as in 2014. Some changes to other bits worked fine, others not so much.

Gloves
On day 1 I wore a pair of Montane Vortex waterproof gloves, because they were less bulky than my tried and tested Mountain Hardwear Epic gloves. This was a mistake; not only did they wet out really quickly, but they were really hard to get on and off.

Upper body
This time I wore a Brynje base layer, a Montane primino mid-layer and (when needed) a thin primaloft jacket. I did end up wearing all my layers on the first evening. But I think this was because I made a mistake in starting in light-weight versions. Heavier duty version were fine when Storm Brendan hit.

Waterproof jacket
I really like the cut of the Alpkit Balance jacket. It keeps my bum and head covered (neither are small, so jackets don't always manage to do this). It did wet-out on the first night, but so did Clare's super-dooper Mountain Rescue jacket. I'm not sure anything would have remained completely waterproof in those conditions. I then switched to the Montane Spine jacket. It did fine with the wind and rain but the hood is nowhere near big enough for my head.

Phone
My good old Samsung running phone wasn't G3 compatible, so I upgraded to the Caterpiller B35. I was seriously unimpressed (and have subsequently bought a Nokia 3310). It's supposed to be 'resistant to extreme temperatures' and to have 30 days battery life on standby. It gave me a 'cold weather' error message, despite the temperature not even going below zero and the battery was almost flat by the end (I'd only used it to send one text message).

GPS
Similarly my stalwart old Garmin Oregon 450 was due an upgrade. I got an Garmin Etrex 30x for running every street in Chesterfield last year. It was great for that, but not so good for the Pennine Way in winter. The joystick is hard to operate in gloves and mine has a habit of turning itself off. If I was going to do the full Spine again (which I'm definitely not!) I'd probably get a Garmin 64s.

Footwear
I'd initially planned to wear a pair of Inov8 mudclaws but my dodgy foot didn't like wearing them for more than a couple of hours. So I resorted to the Roclite 335 boots I'd bought for the Rovaniemi 150. They were comfy, but not good in the mud. Thanks to my hypermobile ankles, I'm never great on mud and rocks. Fear of injuring myself and writing off Rovaniemi (and the huge amount of money I've spent on entry, travel and kit) made me even more tentative and slow than usual.

I started in kneelength Bridgedale socks, which were uncomfortably bulky and (like everything else) let in water on the first evening. The 360 dry socks I wore from CP2 were much better (but the elastic at the top is way too tight for my calfs, so I have to roll it over).

A B race wouldn't usually warrant a pre-race blog. And having been ill for a lot of the last month, the Spine Challenger has been downgraded to "hopefully finish, failing that DNF in a manner which causes minimal inconvenience to the organisers or myself". I spent last week flip-flopping between "it's nothing more than a standard fast-packing weekend with some sleep deprivation thrown in" and "Arggggh it's a 100 miles on the Pennine Way in January". And today I've been feeling slightly sick and anxious in a way I haven't since the full Spine back in 2014. (I'm desperately hoping this is nerves and not the precursor to another bout of puking...). There's a lot going on in my head, and it's better dumped out now rather than in the middle of a bog in the dark, wind and rain.

Back in 2013 the Challenger was my 'gateway race' into multi-day events, which have turned out to be my (running) thing. I followed the very first Spine Race back in 2012. Which back then involved checking the web-page for daily updates. That Summer I finished a disatisfying weather-shortened version of UTMB, the race which had lured me in to ultra running. By that point I'd realised that I was crap at mountain running and plodding on the flat was more my thing, and was planning to target GUCR and a sub-24 hour 100. However a tweet from the Spine Race saying that they wouldn't stop/cancel the race for bad weather (ha ha!) was enough to make me enter the Challenger to dispel the post-race blues.

I spent the Autumn getting used to the Pennine Way and bivying out. Come the race, I spent the first day plodding along with a huge rucksack, off the back of the field and paranoid that I'd get pulled for being too slow. But as other people slowed down I kept going and worked my way through most of the back of the field. Despite stopping to sleep twice I ended up finishing in 53 and a half hours, in 7th place out of 12 finishers (out of 18 starters) and 1st out of 2 women, which won me a free entry for the full race the next year. [Full disclosure: The leading woman in that year's full race got to the Challenger finish in Hawes before me, and the women's course record is now roughly a day faster than my time...]

Things got very hairy on the Cheviots in 2013, and I didn't decide that I was definitely going to take the free place until September. I was also injured, so my training involved lugging a slightly less large rucksack up and down the Pennine Way and also a steep hill on a local golf course. If I'd realised what a huge step up the Spine race was from anything I'd done before, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I (mostly happily) plodded my way to the finish in 6 and a half days, again at the 'front of the back of the pack'.

I've never really wanted to do the full Spine again. Partly because I've realised that I'm better suited to flat races, where I can deploy my 'shuffle'. Partly because the temptation would be to try and finish faster, whereas the weather plays a huge role in finishing times (and even whether a finish is possible). And partly because I wanted to stick with my 100% finisher record. In fact for several years I convinced myself I'd only managed to finish because of the 'good' weather (in Spine terms: no heavy snow or gale force winds). More recently there have a couple more 'good' weather years, which have removed that nagging fear.

So why on Earth have I entered the Challenger again? Partly to stop myself entering the Across the Years Six Day race this year. Partly as a warm-up to the Rovaniemi 150 in February. And partly to see if my new improved walking speed, which I've been working on for the past 18 months while injured, would lead to a faster finishing time.

Training went OK through the early Autumn. At weekends I did one long run and one long walk with my pack, building both up to 4-5 hours. Mid-weeks were yoga, Body Pump (both mostly for fun), power-walking on the treadmill and the occasional very short run. By December I was really tired, and didn't manage any long-sessions other than a run-walk around the ~40 mile round Chesterfield walk. But this was OK as my now traditional pre-Christmas fast-packing trip was going to be the Challenger route.

It started off inauspiciously with diarrhoea in the public toilets in Edale. At that point I felt fine physically, but going up Jacob's Ladder in the rain (and not heading back to a nice warm pub) took all my will-power. Things got even grimmer over Bleaklow. It was dark and the mist was so heavy I could barely see my feet. The only way I could stay on route and upright was to constantly look my GPS and take every single foot step carefully. It was some of the worst visibility I'd every been out in, and I decided that if my GPS failed I'd play it safe and pitch my tent rather than trying to find my way off the hill. I eventually made it down to Crowden an hour slower than expected, and decided to stop early rather than heading back onto the moors for more of the same.

I initially checked out the public toilets but decided that camping out would be more pleasant. The first sign of trouble came when I barely managed to eat any of my rehydrated meal. I then struggled to sleep, feeling cold, despite a -10 rated sleeping bag, multiple layers and fairly mild weather. I also discovered that my super-duper new lightweight tent isn't great for multi-day trips in wet weather-the rain soaked through the flysheet.

My initial plan was to try and find somewhere indoors to sleep for the next two nights, but as I struggled my way up Laddlow rocks feeling sick I realised my body wasn't right either. Bailing at Marsden, ~24 miles in, was beginning to seem like a good idea. As I plodded my way, even more slowly than usual, off of Black Moor another Spine entrant caught me and figured out who I was (there aren't many women who've finished the Spine, so that information plus my first name was sufficient). Being told "you're Anne Green, compiler of Spine blogs and doer of impressive things" was great for my ego. However having excerpts from my own blogs quoted at me was a bit weird. You can't put your inner thoughts on the internet and then complain when other people read them though! And at least my Spine blogs didn't contain extensive descriptions of chafing...

The company perked me up no end and I was tempted to keep going on beyond Marsden. Sitting at home in front of the fire several hours later I initially felt I'd wussed out. And then the puking started. It was several days before I could eat properly, and a few more before I had enough energy to get out and run-walk again. I managed a couple of 2 hour run-walk-with-a-pack sessions, which went fairly well. And then I got a heavy cold.

Two days out from the race the cold has just cleared up, but I'm feeling spectacularly unprepared. I've no idea whether my baseline fitness (and multi-day fastpacking experience) will be enough to get me to the finish. I'm also feeling anxious, in a way I haven't for years (being well-prepared is my usual defence against anxiety, in running, work and life). But worst-case scenario, if I'm really not feeling it I can DNF at CP1. 'Death before DNF' has never been my thing.

I'm also not looking forward to the pre-race atmosphere in Edale. In 2013 I had a room to myself at the Youth Hostel, in 2014 I escaped to a hotel in Castleton with the OH, but this year I'm in a full dorm at the Youth Hostel (I did briefly consider bivying in a field...). There's also a lot more participants and a lot more internet hype. I've had a few 'it wasn't like this back in my day' moments...

Challenger packs: 2013 v. 2019