Breaking the Spine: John Kelly on how to conquer ‘Britain’s toughest race’ – Runner’s World (UK)

Last week, US ultrarunner John Kelly won the Spine Race, a 268-mile run along the Pennine Way in the depths of the British winter.

Kelly, who’s also one of a select group of individuals to have completed the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee, ran from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yeltolm in the Scottish Borders.

His time of 87 hours 53 minutes and 57 seconds is a new men’s record, although the overall record still belongs to Jasmin Paris, who’s 2019 winning time is 41 minutes faster.

Runner’s World caught up with Kelly, who’s now based in Bristol, to hear about howling gales, sleep deprivation and the appeal of the extreme.

Was The Spine everything you hoped/feared it would be?

Without a doubt. It’s one of those things that you can never really know exactly what to expect until you’ve done it. But in terms of the terrain I had to cover, the depth of the experience and the range of the conditions, it was definitely quite the adventure.

What drew you to the race in the first place?

Just the sheer challenge of it, over terrain and in conditions that I’m not familiar or comfortable with. Having the experience to discover a whole new world new things in one go was appealing to me.

Was the quintessentially British nature of the race an appealing factor for someone who grew up in the US?

After moving over here and wanting to make the most of my time here, and explore as much as I could, this felt like a great way to see a huge part of the country in one go. It’s aptly named ‘The Spine’ as you’re running up the spine of the country. And then of course there were the classic British weather conditions…

You had to contend with Storm Brendan, didn’t you?

Yes, that hit quite hard as we were going up Tan Hill to the highest pub in the UK. That was quite the respite when we arrived there.

What was your strategy with regards to sleep?

That’s something I’ve adapted over the course of doing a number of events like this to see what works best for me. You can go for short but more frequent naps, or less frequent but longer naps. Based on how I’ve responded before, I had a strategy going in of trying to get 2-3 hours at midway and then maybe 1.5 hours at the final checkpoint, and supplement those as needed.

Jimmy Hyland

How about navigation?

Compared with other races I’ve done here, the race is fairly well marked. There are definitely some tricky bits to it, though. I did lose quite a bit of time to navigation; I made a few big errors and a bunch of small ones. What got me was complacency and a sense of, I guess, over-confidence. Thinking, ‘I’ve got a GPS on my wrist – this will be easy to follow.’ Then suddenly you’re wondering a quarter of a mile off the trail in a bog.

Are there any comparisons you could make between The Spine and the Barkley Marathons?

The best way I’ve thought of explaining it is that the Barkley pushes you much closer to the edge, in that it’s less forgiving in terms of error because the cut-off is so tight, but The Spine holds you to the edge for much longer: you’re out there longer and the conditions are consistently worse.

What advice would you give to anyone considering attempting The Spine?

One thing I learned early on in ultras is that it doesn’t always get worse. You’re going to hit low spots where you feel horrible physically or mentally or the conditions are horrible. There are going to be spots where you’re miserable and you think you’re not going to make it and you want to quit. You’ve just got to remember that those moments do end, and you can experience an equal high on the other side.

What’s the next challenge for you?

Last year I attempted to link the three classic UK fell rounds [Bob Graham, Paddy Buckley and Charlie Ramsay], travelling between them by bike. I did two of the three rounds and then had to stop due to sleep deprivation, not wanting to bike up Scottish mountain highways in that state. This year, I’m going to give it another try.

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