The Spine Race

Enduro

The Spine race (event website here) kicks off this saturday at 9:30am

It's one of the longest and toughest races out there. 420km, 12000 meters of climb, January and all the crap weather that entails, non-stop along the Peninne way (the spine of England that the name comes from).

I'll be taking part (the only Irish person that I know of). One of the cool things about this race is that all the competitors have to carry trackers, and the race can be viewed "live" on the internet here as a result. Not many races where that happens, so might be worth a look!

With the weather outside at the moment I'm starting to get apprehensive!

RacoonQueen

Sounds like great craic.

Best of luck with it E...look forward to tracking you, from the warmth of my couch.

ultrapercy

Best of luck, looks savage.

martyboy48

Looks amazing. It wasn't until I looked at the race route that I could truly see what's ahead of you, mindboggling

Spent a while on youtube then and watched some clips of it. It will have some amazing scenery but the weather will be a huge factor I'd say.
I'm sure you will enjoy every minute of it though

I'll follow with interest, good luck and stay safe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN7RXm7GkyI

average_runner

Best of luck with this. Fair play to you

opus

The very best of luck, hope the weather gods decide to smile on you all this weekend!

Bulmers

had quick look on the tracker and Enduro is currently 4th on this and the main bunch are a long way back. Seen some weather reports from UK and it must be tough going out there, fair play.

martyboy48

The Spine@10:30 11/01/2015...We are planning route changes due to the continuation of severe weather. These changes to the route will take place after CP3 Middleton in Teesdale mainly to CP4 Alston. They are designed to use available lower level routes and avoid the larger fells such as Cross Fell. For further information on the weather, visit the Met Officemetoffice.gov.uk/

Must be absolutely horrendous out there for them to be changing the route. Conditions were always going to be difficult but it must be getting to the point of an accident waiting to happen for this change.

?? competitors left,?? retirements as of now.... Says it all really..

Pavel Paloncy still on the move... Savage going...
Eoin and damien hall stopped for kip, could be the wise move, who knows...

There'll be some race report

Safe running Eoin, doing great....

snailsong

According to the tracker, Enduro is third and only 9 minutes off second.Horrendous conditions and a long way to go. All to play for.
Go Enduro.

Clearlier

There's a GPS tracker too. It's a little bit glitchy but a great tool nonetheless. No idea why the leaderboard has him in 3rd as it looks like he has lead the way all day out of checkpoint 2 and is about 2 - 3 hours from checkpoint 3 where the leader is still being held. From twitter it looks like lots of runners were held at checkpoint 2 overnight. The leader is probably a bit upset given that he's missed most of the daylight which is easier to navigate in.

Edit: He's probably in 3rd on the leaderboard because the guy behind him has a 20 min credit to his name. It looks like he's at least 20 minutes ahead of him now though.

Bulmers

Looks to be in 2nd now on the leader board and having a rest.

I can't find no. 1 on the map at the moment?

Just looking along the route,there's some people on their own in the depths of the mountains right now, can't imagine it, fair play to them all but Enduro doing brilliantly.

Djoucer

Enduro is now in the lead on course with Paloncy closely behind.

3rd place has a 20 minute credit which puts first on the leaderboard as per last checkpoint.

The race re-started at 3am this morning as far as I can make out. Looks to be about 130km to go.

mloc123

I cannot follow it at all... Was everyone held at CP3? I presume whoever was held longest will get a time credit at the end etc..?

Djoucer

That's a good point actually. Leaderboard is down now but 10 mins ago, the only runner that had time credits was 1st.

mloc123

Yeah.. From what I could see the leader was held for much longer, I think the organisers will need to take some time at the end to work out the placings

lgk

Leaders were all held at CP3 / Middleton while the rest of the field caught up. Organisers made a decision to bunch the field again so they could provide enough safety cover, conditions are pretty rough.

Pavel arrived in there at 5:53 yesterday morning, Eoin at 16:46, so he'll have almost 11 hours credit over Eoin.

Clearlier

lgk wrote: »

Leaders were all held at CP3 / Middleton while the rest of the field caught up. Organisers made a decision to bunch the field again so they could provide enough safety cover, conditions are pretty rough.

Pavel arrived in there at 5:53 yesterday morning, Eoin at 16:46, so he'll have almost 11 hours credit over Eoin.

Eoin and several others were held at CP2 though.

kit3

What effect would that much rest have - is there a point where it is too much & you would have been better off to keep going (hope that makes sense !)

lgk

Reading between the lines of an update the organisers sent yesterday, he was pretty keen to get going.

At the point they got going again, Pavel would have been there for ~21 hours, Eoin ~10. Hopefully Eoin managed to get some food into him, bag some quality sleep, all depends on how quickly the organisers made decisions and let them know.

Djoucer

From organisers:

"FYI - I am currently working on sorting out the time credits for mandatory holds. The leaderboard is not currently reflective of true positions. Your patience is appreciated."

Enduro and Paloncy are more or less beside each other leading the course. Decent gap on others.

Peterx

A very good race report with added weather forced upon tactics coming up so!
Keep 'er Lit Enduro!

Djoucer

Looks like we're set for an epic race. The adjusted times are up.

Paloncy is first but Enduro is just 31 mins behind him. Enduro finished the most recent leg 11 mins ahead of Paloncy.

Both now at CP4.

123 km to go.

Clearlier

Djoucer wrote: »

From organisers:

"FYI - I am currently working on sorting out the time credits for mandatory holds. The leaderboard is not currently reflective of true positions. Your patience is appreciated."

Enduro and Paloncy are more or less beside each other leading the course. Decent gap on others.

The leaderboard has time credits for the first few runners now. Looks like Enduro would have to finish more than 42 mins ahead of Pavol in order to win. The tracker has them both still in CP4 so I guess they're taking a break. Incredible performances.

Djoucer

So is the credit included in the total race time , or are they to be added?

Clearlier

Djoucer wrote: »

So is the credit included in the total race time , or are they to be added?

It has already been calculated in the race time on the leaderboard as in the image attached to my previous post but you need to take it into account when looking at the race tracking website.

lgk

Eoin and Pavel out of CP4 and running together so far.

DubOnHoliday

Fascinating battle going on. Go Enduro!

groovyg

I wonder when he finishes would he be up for this challenge :pac:

Djoucer

Eoin and Pavel both reached the last checkpoint together at 8.40am.

Looks like the two managed to stay ahead of the bad weather. Diversions are in place for the remaining runners.

Looks like it could be a sprint finish between the two with just 40 miles (60km) to go

Open to correction but looks like there's just 42 mins between them.

Both are now stopped at CP5

woody1

JUST 40 miles to go

Bulmers

still neck and neck with Pawel and Enduro, looking at the route left there is still a serious amount of mountains to get over..tomorrow morning will be 5 days since race start, unreal when think of it.

Netwerk Errer

Looks like Enduro opened up a gap on pavel this morning and is eating into his 42 minute lead from the last checkpoint.

Clearlier

He does seem to be going for it. Unfortunately it looks like he has headed slightly off course at the moment.

Edit: Back on course and it seems that everyone is going off course at that point. Must be a slight diversion or a minor tracking issue. Pavel has detached from the chasing pack but at the moment Enduro seems to be still building his lead. Long way to go yet but could be a very interesting finish.

woody1

what kind of distance is left ? finishing today ?

Clearlier

woody1 wrote: »

what kind of distance is left ? finishing today ?

A little under 30 miles. Pavel is about a mile behind. Weather permitting they should finish today. Last year the fastest time from CP5 to the finish was about 17 hours but that's not a great comparison given the breaks that they have had due to being held because of the weather conditions.

DubOnHoliday

I hope they are not getting hit with the weather we had yesterday.

Netwerk Errer

Enduro seems to be under a bit of pressure now and dropped back into the pack, he took his shot earlier and seems to be tiring from that effort now. Pavel has opened a decent gap.
Hopefully, he will bounce back and finish strong.

lgk

Netwerk Errer wrote: »

Enduro seems to be under a bit of pressure now and dropped back into the pack, he took his shot earlier and seems to be tiring from that effort now. Pavel has opened a decent gap.
Hopefully, he will bounce back and finish strong.

Enduro's tracker hadn't updated in almost an hour. Currently showing both of them at the Bryness checkpoint.

freida

It's changed slightly now

Clearlier

The race leaderboard has Enduro arriving in to Byrness 10 mins after Pavel. GPS updates on the tracker are a little sporadic but I wouldn't be surprised if they're together again at the moment.

martyboy48

Looks like they are together now alright..

On second look maybe a little gap in favour of Enduro. The tracker had them together a second ago...

The cheviot hills, sounds like little hills you'd come across in a road race but probably more like small mountains

hmmm

I look away from the Leaderboard for a minute and Paloncy now has a 5 hour lead?!

Clearlier

hmmm wrote: »

I look away from the Leaderboard for a minute and Paloncy now has a 5 hour lead?!

An apt username in this instance!

There was a tweet made this morning about needing to revise times to take into account people being held. Eoin did arrive in to CP2 (where he was held) 2 hours and 51 minutes after Pavel. However after that there only seems to be differences of a few minutes here and there between them.

It's a very confusing situation. They organisers have obviously had to take the decision to hold people back at checkpoints for safety reasons and given the conditions you can't really argue with it. It has changed the nature of the race completely though as the last few days have been fairly fast moving and lots of waiting around whereas it look like last years race was a bit more demanding on the final legs. For example Bellingham to Byrness took Pavel and Eoin about 2 and a half hours this morning. Last year it took Pavel about 11 hours (presumably with a break) and the fastest completion was about 6 hours.

snailsong

The timings have been re-calculated so Pavel seems to have it won.

It seems very difficult to say who benefitted more from the time outs. Eoin was timed out about 10 hours at cp2 and again for 10 hours at CP3, having slept with the clock running on night 1. Pavel slept less or not at all so was through cp2 before they were held, eventually being held about 20 hours at cp 3 while the field bunched up.

There were a few effects of this, Eoin did the leg cp2 to Cp3 on better sleep and had more daylight and was faster.
You might argue however that Pavel reached Cp3 after a very long non stop trek and would have needed to sleep anyway, thus gaining benefit from the time out. Eoin was entitled to some benefit having slept on his own time

This is the situation as I understand it and is of course subject to correction.

Not at all straightforward to sort out.

It seems from the tracker that Eoin is trying to beat Pavel mano a mano on the final leg.

Clearlier

Nearly there now. There's about 10k to go and Enduro is about 2.5k ahead of Pavel.

martyboy48

2-3 km left and he's done... Some going

martyboy48

About 500 meters to go after that update.... Strange to be talking in meters now

Djoucer

And's he finished. 82 hours 40 mins.

Finished at 17.06

DubOnHoliday

Says he's at the finish. Fair play for the strong finish!

martyboy48

And done, absolutely brilliant performance, astounding... Given that course and especially the weather, thats my performance of the year 2015 vote sorted already...

Well done Enduro...

DubOnHoliday

Should be an interesting race report