Spine Race

So that one I went into it a little bit injured and I think the thing I really loved about it was like the camaraderie gets you through that because there's a lot and no one's having a good time and there's a lot of runners and I kind of found that a lot more like teamwork related than I was expecting it to be.

And then this year I did the spine race and I got disqualified for dropping my phone off a ridge, which is always helpful.

Yeah.

Well, I think you hit on a cool point or topic, too, is like the community is what is so important in this world.

So you can gladly use that.

um so news for the for the podcast so as we get to towards the end of october we are going into obviously going into november obviously and november is with this year is the official start of spine season for us so we're going to have lots of stuff that's geared towards the spine race culminating in possibly one or two i'm hoping it's going to be two live podcast recordings actually at the Spine so I'm still figuring out the details on a location for this but basically come January we're going to be set up somewhere hopefully on the Friday night and the Saturday night at a venue we'll be recording a live podcast and we'll hopefully be getting a few spine famous people on to sort of have a chat about the race and do all the usual pre-spine gobbins.

Hopefully we'll get some runners on who are actually doing the race this year, and at the very least we'll get some of you guys out of the WhatsApp group.

I know Kingsley is racing again, so Kingsley, you're going to be Dragged in for an interview, possibly on the Saturday night.

It's a completely unvetted mountain race that, you know, they don't want to take those same risks because of their, you know, probably less experienced people in those events.

So, yeah, there's just no comparison, in my opinion, anyway.

Yeah, there's a few people sort of saying, you know, it's like saying that, You know, the conditions that the spine race sees, like some years, you know, the year that I did the spine, the full spine 2024, the race got held because of the weather.

And that is just that's like normal.

had no idea who he was.

And I'd heard of him because of the spine race and, you know, dot watching.

And I think he's a past winner of the spine race.

He's nearly always in the top five anyway when he enters.

And I've heard James Elson on the Centurion podcast talk about him.

But I also think that maybe a lot of that hardiness, if you like...

And maybe it was easy.

I'm not saying easy for him, but in comparison to running umpteen spine races in the middle of winter, I mean, his discomfort of laying on whatever bed he had would be fantastic compared to laying in the bogs in a spine race somewhere.

... and my result will be what it will be."

Well, the Spine Race is a great, like, analogy for that because if you can just get to the end, then you... 'Cause there's a lot of carnage can happen in front of you, and if you're just in the game, you might actually find yourself-

Stay in the game

... winning on, on the podium.

[laughs] He doesn't always do that.

I mean, one of the craziest races he's done in my eyes is, uh, the Spine Race.

He did the winter version.

Okay.

Like, you kind of want a race that's a bigger field, so I do kind of wanna look for some of like those bigger races.

I know there's like, I think the Spine Races, those are in the UK I think.

Um-

Yeah

Yeah, there's only 100 places available, but the price is £1,495.

Now, bear in mind, this is the people who put the spine race on, yeah?

Yeah.

Which are people from Barnsley, if you didn't know that.

So the company that puts the spine race on, they're from Barnsley.

They bought the wrath.

They bought the rights to the wrath.

stick to

Lucy is, I think it's fair to say, an icon in the UK ultra running scene.

She's had a fantastic couple of years with a win at the Spine Race last year and South Downs Way 100 course record.

She followed that up with an FKT on the South West Coast Path last summer into autumn, uh, which I spoke about with her last year.

Almost exactly a year ago to the day she came on the show to talk about that.