The Final Leg

I tip-tap my way through Bellingham, passing the Co-op I’d been rushing to reach before closing time. After four baked potatoes with beans & a handful of satsumas at the checkpoint, I feel satiated, so I decide not to stop. Now that I’m moving again, I just want to keep going.

The road out of Bellingham feels far steeper than I remember, but I’m feeling good. The medics sent me off with another dose of codeine & even though I didn’t sleep, the simple act of lying down gave my body some much-needed rest.

It’s just gone 7pm & because I only took four of my six hours at the checkpoint, I have more daylight ahead of me than I was expecting. I know I can make good progress before sunset in three or so hours.

Through a large gate, the Pennine Way turns onto a stony farm track winding through a field. The grazing sheep seem particularly noisy this evening, bleating loudly as I approach before scattering in my wake.

The first six miles or so out of Bellingham are pretty much all uphill. It’s a steady, continuous climb that, on a better day, would be perfectly runnable. Through a farmyard & back onto rough grasslands. I turn briefly to look back at Bellingham sprawled below. The last large sign of civilisation before Kirk Yetholm, still some 38 miles away.

Rising on the horizon is another bleak stretch of moorland. In April, I found this section tedious. This evening, I move on autopilot. I don’t think; I just move. Left foot, right foot, left pole, right pole. I’m listening to a second audiobook & already engrossed, paying attention to nothing else but the story unfolding in my ears. The moorland is nondescript, offering no noteworthy views to command my attention. Navigation is straightforward. I simply follow the path on the ground, checking my watch periodically, “just to make sure”.

The ground is covered in browning heather, tufts of grass & the odd puddle. I cross a few small streams. In winter, I imagine these would be wide & deep, but in the dry summer, they’re barely noticeable.

Just before 9pm, somewhere across Troughend Common. I don’t remember taking this photo…

I pass over Whitley Pike with its small cairns & signposts. I’m feeling physically & mentally stronger than I have for many hours. I fly across Toughend Common, passing another runner in the process. We exchange a few words; he also has knee issues. But I’m on a mission & don’t pause for long. My mission: get to the forest looming in the distance before dark.

Nor this one…

The Safety Team are stationed at the road crossing just before Padon Hill. They tell me I’m looking good, comment on how well I moved across the moor towards them & then ask me to keep an eye out for a runner a little way ahead who’s struggling with his feet & moving very slowly. I stop for only a few moments before rushing off. The light is fading, but I can now see the edge of the forest.

I switch the sound in my ears to music. Gorse that scratches at my ankles & tries to trip me up has taken over the path across Padon Hill. The Pennine Way doesn’t cross the actual summit, but it’s visible to the right, overlooking expansive views across the Otterburn Moors.

The light drops further. I just need to make it up to Browned Rigg, then I’ll turn my head torch on. The beat of old-school 90s dance keeps me moving & I sing along. A one-woman Thursday-night party on the Pennine Way.

The path rises steeply to meet the forest, becoming one with a stream. It’s wet & slightly slippery underfoot as I pick my way around rare patches of mud. And then, all of a sudden, I’m here. Redesdale Forest, just as night falls.

My head torch goes on, the volume goes up & my head goes down.

I know I have about five miles until I reach the Blakehopeburnhaugh monitoring point, just before Byrness. I remember the route; navigation through the forest won’t be challenging. I expect this to be a fairly straightforward & uneventful five miles…

From Brownrigg Head, the trail initially skirts the edge of the forest. Tall trees rise high into the darkening sky on my left; a fence line runs parallel on my right. Any notion that this section might be easy is quickly discarded. The path is stony & rocky underfoot, seemingly never-ending, twisting & turning with alarming regularity. Tired & heavy on my feet, I stumble several times & swear angrily at the rocks causing my poor feet such anguish.

Eventually, the path joins a Forestry Commission track through the indomitable Kielder Forest. After what feels like hours of negotiating poor terrain, it’s a relief to move fractionally quicker on the smoother surface. The track is hemmed in by tall conifers, various species of spruce & pine, grown & managed for timber production. Kielder Forest is England’s largest man-made woodland, planted largely from the 1920s onwards on previously treeless land & used as a major source of timber for the UK.

While I was chasing daylight across the moors, I ignored the waves of tiredness that periodically tumbled over me. I promised myself a rest in the forest. I imagined finding a soft patch of moss, unrolling my bivvy bag & snuggling down beneath the shelter of the trees for a few hours’ sleep.

Only, in my idyllic dreaming, I hadn’t accounted for the midges.

Once inside the forest, I can’t pause for even a moment without swarms descending hungrily on me. I realise very quickly that I won’t be sleeping in the trees. I have to get to Byrness before I can rest.

I stagger on, tired & increasingly emotional. The forest is vast, deep & dark. And I am completely alone. My senses are heightened in a way they weren’t on the open moorland the night before. For the first time, tendrils of fear creep in. Every sound is magnified. The quiet rustle of leaves in the slight breeze feels amplified.

But neither fear nor the sounds of the forest is enough to keep me fully awake.

My eyes droop, heavier & heavier. I can’t keep them open. I sway; my head drops. I catch myself on my poles. Startled, my eyes snap open. I weave across the track, unable to walk in a straight line. My eyes droop again. I sway. My head drops. I stumble… again, and again, and again. Waves of tiredness crash down & submerge me. I slow to a crawl, barely able to stand, let alone move.

Some subconscious instinct must have kicked in. My tiredness is so heavy, so all-encompassing, that I have no memory of how I made it through Kielder Forest to Blakehopeburnhaugh. But, suddenly, there’s a beacon of light shining ahead of me.

John Bamber, iconic custodian of Greg’s Hut during the Winter Spine & in summer, keeper of the tented monitoring point at Blakehopeburnhaugh.

He greets me warmly & tells me I can stop for 30 minutes. Then, in the same breath, he warns me I might not want to, the midges are out in full force. He’s cleverly clad in a midge net, no patch of skin, except his hands, on offer to the hungry insects.

He makes me a cup of strong black coffee. I free-pour sugar into the dark liquid, hoping for a small, sweet, caffeinated miracle. While I drink the nectar, John fills my bottles, stressing the importance of carrying as much water as I can for the final leg to Kirk Yetholm, some 27 miles away. There’s no water on the Cheviots. This is the last chance to top up.

A short while later, I leave with three litres & a very heavy pack. The trail into Byrness follows the river & is fairly flat, easy going. As I approach the small village, I pull out my phone & call Race HQ to tell them I’m going to stop for a couple of hours’ sleep in Byrness Church.

St Francis of Assisi

St Francis of Assisi, a small 18th-century church nestled at the foot of the Cheviots, has become something of a legend within the Spine community.

Now under the care of the Right Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle (a keen runner herself; rumour has it she’s lining up for the Spine Sprint North in summer 2026), the church sits 240 miles into the route & has offered a quiet sanctuary to weary runners for years.

A sign outside welcomes us in, with a reminder to call HQ if we’re stopping. Call already made, I turn the iron handle & the heavy wooden door groans in protest as it swings open. In the early hours, it’s darker inside than out. Even with my headtorch, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.

The nave is scattered with sleeping bodies. Running poles rest against stone walls, bags & shoes lie in haphazard piles. A few runners, cocooned in bivvy bags, are stretched out along the pews. Others are curled up on the floor. One lies fast asleep on the altar.

I spot an empty pew, no one in front, no one behind & hallelujah, it even has a cushion! After sleeping on a toilet floor, this feels positively luxurious.

As I settle in, I become hyper-aware of every sound I make. The clatter of my shoes on the wooden floor. The creak of the pew as I shuffle into position. The ear-splitting crinkle of my foil poncho as I unfold it & pull it over my head. But any guilt fades as a roar of snoring erupts from somewhere a few rows back, loud enough to shake the stained glass.

The pew cushion is maybe 30 centimetres wide, but it’s surely softer than the bare wood beneath. I lie back & lift my legs over the edge of the pew, hoping to ease some of the swelling & inflammation. It’s not a position I’d ever choose to sleep in, but then again, nothing about this is normal.

Even with my awkward sleep position, not even the snores are enough to keep me awake.

It feels like I’ve only been asleep for moments when I’m jolted awake by the clatter of the door opening & closing. Another handful of runners file in, three, maybe four. One drops into the pew in front of me. I don’t think he even takes his shoes off before falling asleep.

Looking around, there’s a faint glow of daylight filtering through the window above the altar. I glance at my watch, it’s just gone 3 am.

I weigh it up. I could stay here & try to sleep a little longer. Or… I could get up, get moving & aim to be on top of the Cheviots before the heat of the day kicks in.

I decide to move.

I’m no longer worried about making noise, not when the entire church is echoing with a symphony of snores. I eat a flapjack while I quietly repack my bag, giving my feet a quick once-over before shoving them, not entirely willingly, back into my shoes. A couple of hot spots have definitely started to brew. I pause, wondering whether I should deal with them. But I’ve never really had blisters before & I’m not sure what to do with them. Rightly or wrongly, I decide to leave them be.

I ease the heavy church door shut behind me & step out into the cool, still air of the churchyard. Dawn is breaking. I stop for a few seconds & just breathe it in; the quiet, the freshness, the promise of a new day.

This moment feels significant. The final morning.

Just 25 miles stand between me and the finish.

I look up at the sky. If I’m quick – relatively speaking – I might just make it onto the Cheviots in time for sunrise. I’ve got around 40 minutes. And a steep 600-foot climb ahead.

Let’s go.

The Cheviots

With sunrise calling me, I move swiftly along the narrow woodland path. The tall conifers rise high into the rapidly brightening sky above me, their fallen needles softening the ground beneath my feet. 

Higher up, the trees have been cut back, so it’s quite desolate. I am so driven by the thought of sunrise that I barely notice the steepness of the climb. Halfway up, I turn my headtorch off & stash my poles before the final rocky ascent to the cairn. I need my hands to steady & pull me up & over some of the larger boulders.

Near the top of Byrness Hill, I pause briefly & look out over Catcleugh Reservoir before turning back to the sunrise prize. The view over the reservoir is impressive, but I know better is to come the deeper into the Cheviots I go.

The final 20-odd miles of the Pennine Way traverse across the Cheviots. Large, wild, swampy & at times isolated & bleak, the Cheviots are a range of rolling, often windswept, grassy hills straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland & the Scottish Borders. On a very clear day with good visibility, you can see Cross Fell from the Cheviot summit, the highest point of the range. 

It’s wild that 65-odd miles & two days ago I was on Cross Fell.

Once past the first cairn, I continue to follow the flagstone path snaking across the moorland. It acts as a line guiding me towards the slow rising sun. Although with patches of low clouds muting the vibrancy of the colours, the sunrise is not quite as spectacular as I had hoped it would be. 

But how can I be disappointed? Here I am, on the final day of this epic adventure, standing atop the Cheviots at sunrise. It’s not yet 5 am, I raced up the climb from the Church & I truly feel as if I am on top of the world. Reflecting now, several months later, I may not have fully appreciated it at the time, but this was another of those special Spine moments that I will never, ever forget.

That feeling didn’t last. 

It was all going so well. 

And then it wasn’t.

Tiredness abruptly comes crashing down. I was awake, joyfully scampering across the rugged grassland plains & then I’m not. Suddenly, I am stumbling along, barely able to keep my eyes open. Sleepiness hits hard & I struggle to focus on where I am going.

At Raven’s Pike, I throw my poles to the ground & collapse onto the cairn. With no energy to take my pack off, I rest it on the pile of stones & lean on it. The stones take the weight off my shoulders & support me quite well. 

In the warmth of the early morning sun, I fall asleep on the cairn.

The sleep is fleeting, two, three minutes at the most, before I wake with a start. Disoriented & confused, it takes me several moments to remember where I am, what I am doing & why exactly I am lying on a pile of rocks on top of a hill… 

I sit up, look out over the view & as we do at these times, I eat.

I do not want to eat, but even in my stupor, I know I have to. My mouth is dry with thirst, but I am so worried about running out of water that I am already rationing my drinking. Food is no longer an enjoyable treat, but an unpalatable necessity. If nothing else, I need the energy. 

It takes all of the willpower I have to get up from the comforting pile of rocks & move. But surprisingly, after the first few faltering steps, those few minutes of fleeting sleep have given me the push I need. From barely moving, I have half an hour or so of pretty decent hiking. 

One foot in front of the other, step by tiny step, just keep moving forward. 

Until I crash again. 

And again. 

And again. 

At times, quite literally. I crumple to the ground as I fall asleep on my feet. I learn to quickly set the alarm on my phone, just to be on the safe side.

Each cursory nap, only a minute or two at a time, gives me a little respite. Perhaps a mile of better movement. Before I crash again. 

And again. 

And again.

The Cheviots are vast. Miles & miles of open moorland land with not a scrap of shade. I am quite literally sleepwalking my way across the hills.

At around 8 am, I reach Hut 1. For the past two hours, it had become my all-encompassing focus. Like the visitor centre way back in Walltown, it is the place I have set my hopes on. Another tick on the landmark list. Another step closer to the finish.

The basic, wooden structure is a mountain refuge hut designed to offer protection from the elements & a place to rest for hikers on the Pennine Way. 10 miles from the Blakehopeburnhaugh monitoring point, the Spine has a Safety Team stationed here as a vital check-in point during one of the toughest sections of the race. We are permitted to stop here for a maximum of two hours; some take this time, but I don’t.

Even at 8 am, the heat is already oppressive & the promise of some shade is what has kept me going over the last few miles. I gratefully step into the small room & sit on the narrow wooden bench. It’s a joy to take the weight off my poor feet. A safety team member offers me a biscuit, which I politely refuse & asks how I am. I don’t remember my answer. It was probably “hot”.

I can feel my skin burning, so I take the shady opportunity to reapply suncream. Back in Bellingham, knowing that today was forecast to be hot, I put on a long-sleeve top to keep as much of my skin covered as possible. I am far too warm, but I know that protecting my skin was a sensible decision.

The mountain refuge is buzzing. There are already several runners there when I arrive, including a couple sleeping on the grass outside.

A few more runners arrive. The STT are flitting around, checking in with us, making sure that we are all okay. They have an (unexpected) emergency supply of water. It’s only small & they can only offer us 500ml or so. There is no water source at the hut & so the team hiked for several hours up the hill carrying as much water as they could. They are stationed here for several days & so this is also their own personal water supply.

Although I could quite happily drink (a lot) more water, I still have 2.5 litres from Blakehopeburnhaugh & turn down their offer, knowing that the supply is very limited & later on in the day, there are going to be people in much greater need than I am.

After 15 minutes or so, I stand up & leave. I am finding the number of people in the small confines of the hut suffocating, a bit like at Horneystead Farm. I want to get moving whilst others are sitting there with their shoes off, feet up, eating & drinking. Not because I want to ‘get ahead’ but because I want to be alone.

I question many times during the course of the race my need for solitude. The occasional flirtation with another runner, volunteer or SST member momentarily refreshes me. Difficult at the best of times, the deeper into the race I go, the less mental capacity I have to deal with social interaction & the more I feel the need to withdraw from those around me.

As always, the brief rest gives me renewed vigour, enabling me to move well up the next hill. I push a little harder. Partly because I feel refreshed after a break & partly because I want to get space between myself & other people.

This is the epitome of the loneliness of the long-distance runner & I wonder where the antisocial streak has come from.

The renewed vigour is short-lived. My feet are in agony with blisters that I know are there but stubbornly don’t want to acknowledge or see. Every single step feels like I am stepping onto sharp splinters of glass. My knee screams in pain on every downhill & my whole body is burning in the heat. 

The bouncy post-Hut 1 optimism doesn’t last very long.

As an aside, I am not exaggerating about the heat. This was not a passing warm spell but a true heatwave, the kind that settles over the country & refuses to move on. Temperatures climbed well into the 30s, the air thick & unmoving, the landscape bleached beneath an unforgiving sun. 

Out on the wide, rolling emptiness of the Cheviots, there was nowhere to hide, no trees, no shade, no softening of the light, only an endless horizon shimmering in the distance.

And there we were, the Spiners, stubbornly & somewhat absurdly marching 26 miles across it with only three litres of water each, squinting into the glare, salt drying on our skin, quietly negotiating with our bodies one step at a time.

I become so worried about running out of water that I start to ration my drinking. The resulting dehydration does little to improve my mood. I left Blakehopeburnhaugh with three litres at around 1:30 on Friday morning. This is all I have to last me until the finish, 30 miles & however many hours it takes. In 30 degrees. With no shade.

Can you feel my misery tumbling off the page?

Somehow I keep moving, slower & slower. Up & down. Up & down. The path stretches endlessly ahead, refusing to change, refusing to end. Every step demands more focus & energy than I have left. I scan the horizon constantly, desperately, searching for anything that might offer relief, a wall, a tree, a dip in the ground, anything at all.

At Windy Gyle I crouch behind the stone windbreak, hoping for shelter, but the sun sits high & merciless in the sky. The shadows are short, useless. There is nowhere to hide.

The hole I have fallen into is getting deeper. My thoughts spiral faster than I can control them, looping & tightening until panic hums just beneath the surface. I remember almost nothing between Hut 1 & Hut 2 except misery, heavy, suffocating misery that presses in from all sides.

I see none of the beauty. None of the vast views or rolling hills. None of the climbs or descents that should have marked my progress. I know where I went. I know what I should have seen. But my memories belong to April’s joyful scamper across the Cheviots with Rel, not this slow, painful shuffle through heat & exhaustion.

My body is broken. Every joint aches, every muscle protests. I want to cry, properly cry, but when the sobs come, they are dry, violent things that tear through my chest & leave nothing behind. No tears. Not even that release. I am too far gone for tears.

Still, somehow, I keep moving.

I grit my teeth & ride the pain as it comes in waves. Paracetamol & cooling gel on my knee dull it briefly before it surges back again. Uphill is strangely easier; downhill sends sharp jolts through my legs that make me wince with every step.

The heat, though, the heat is unbearable. It wraps around me, presses into me, fills my lungs. It is all-consuming, oppressive, inescapable. My skin burns. My thoughts scatter. I feel myself slipping, untethered, half-wild with exhaustion.

Then, somewhere in the vast emptiness of the Cheviots, my searching eyes land on a bush beside the path. Ten feet high, unremarkable, except for the small gap beneath it, barely three feet between branches & ground.

And there, impossibly, is shade.

An oasis.

I drop my pack without thinking & scramble underneath like a feral creature, collapsing into the cool earth. The air is still hot, but the sun is no longer burning me alive. For ten precious minutes, I lie there, curled into myself, breathing, existing, letting the world narrow to survival.

A man passes & slows, staring longingly at the patch of shade. He says he wishes he’d thought of that. There might have been room for two, just, but before I can speak, he moves on.

Eventually, I have to stand.

I have no idea where the strength comes from. Every part of me wants to stay there, hidden, to sleep until it is over, until the pain, the heat, the effort all disappear. Lifting my pack feels impossible. Stepping back into the blazing sun feels worse.

I have never been in such a dark place.

And yet, somewhere beneath the exhaustion & the despair, something remains unbroken.

Stopping is not an option. Even under that bush, even at my lowest, I knew it. I had spent months picturing the final descent into Kirk Yetholm. I could see it waiting for me now, just within reach. This was the moment to draw on whatever was left, every stubborn, bloody-minded scrap of strength I possessed.

That dark place showed me who I am.

I do not know how I did it.

But somehow, I moved.

My body has completely given up & I am moving at less than two miles an hour. But I am still moving. Still progressing. One step at a time.

I return to an old trick, counting every step.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…

The rhythm becomes everything. Mechanical. Hypnotic. It dulls the edges of thought & numbs the feelings threatening to overwhelm me, shrinking the world down to ten steps at a time.

On the approach to Hut 2, I begin crossing paths with others. I slowly reel in a few ahead; a few behind eventually catch me. None of us look strong. All but one of us are stumbling down the endless descent, each person locked inside their own private battle. I stop again & again, bracing myself, trying to soften the glass-edged impact of every step downhill, silently begging my knee to hold together just a little longer.

---

Hut 2. The second & final mountain refuge.

Like Hut 1, it is staffed by the Safety Team & laughter drifts out across the hills. The atmosphere is lighter here, almost celebratory. We all know what it means; the end is close enough now to feel real.

I stop only briefly. Long enough to sit, force food down & refill my front flasks with the last of my water. The hut is warm, welcoming, dangerously comfortable. Staying would be too easy.

So I leave.

Less than twenty minutes later, I’m back on the trail, the safety team calling after me that it’s just seven miles to go. Seven miles, a distance that would normally mean nothing, but at this pace it could still take more than three hours. And the Schil still stands between me & the finish.

Hut 2 gives me no revival. Within minutes, exhaustion crashes over me again, heavy & irresistible. My eyes refuse to stay open as I weave along the rough path towards the final climb.

The Schil rises ahead, the last real hill on the Pennine Way before the descent into Kirk Yetholm. Unlike the soft grassy Cheviots, it is harsh & rocky, jagged outcrops breaking through the hillside, demanding effort I no longer possess.

Halfway up, I surrender to the tiredness.

I set a five-minute alarm, sit directly in the middle of the path, lean my head against a rock & disappear into sleep almost instantly.

The alarm drags me back. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Then instinct takes over. I stand, pick up my poles & move again, surprised by a discipline that feels borrowed from someone stronger than me.

Trail naps…

Near the summit, I meet a safety team member heading down to find me. They had been watching the trackers from the top & grew concerned when mine stopped moving. I explain about the nap. He laughs, warm & easy & for a brief moment the heaviness lifts.

The nap & the laughter buy me twenty, maybe thirty minutes of lightness.

I descend the Schil quickly, relatively speaking & smile faintly as I step across the quiet, almost invisible border into Scotland. A few steps later, the trail splits into the high & low routes.

Thankfully, the Spine follows the low path. I call back to a runner heading confidently up the high route; he doesn’t believe me at first, pulling out his phone to check before turning back sheepishly behind me.

After resisting for 260 miles, I finally flip my watch screen to see how far I have to go.

Four miles.

Four.

On a good day, that’s less than thirty minutes.

Not today.

Not today.

The black cloud crashes back without warning.

The trail winds through a fern-lined path, looping gently as I descend. A small herd of cows stands motionless in the shade of a lone tree. The deeper I drop into the valley, the hotter it becomes. The heat gathers & traps itself between the steep hillsides, thick & unmoving.

Through a deserted farmyard, the dirt trail turns to tarmac. Sheep scatter as I approach, bleating indignantly while lambs bound effortlessly after their mothers, all energy & ease, while I drag myself forward step by tiny step.

The heat radiates from every direction now, bouncing off the asphalt, rising through my shoes, pressing down from above. The suffering on the Cheviots feels distant compared to this. That was hardship. This is torment.

Anger rises.

Anger at my knee.

Anger at my feet.

Anger at the heat.

And most of all, anger at myself.

I had imagined this moment for months. The final miles filled with triumph, relief & overwhelming joy. Less than two miles from the finish line, I thought I would feel unstoppable.

Instead, I feel empty.

Disappointment that I am not able to run these final few miles settles heavily in my chest & the anger steals the joy I thought would be waiting for me here.

Occasionally, a tree casts a sliver of shade across the road & I pause beneath it, absorbing seconds of cool relief before forcing myself onward again. Tip, tap. Tip, tap. The steady rhythm of poles & feet. Somehow, the smooth tarmac feels harsher than any rocky climb in the Cheviots.

Then, ahead, roofs, buildings & signs of civilisation.

I stop briefly, gathering myself. I change the music to something louder, heavier, something with enough rhythm to carry me forward.

The final 400 metres slope downhill.

And then I see it.

The Montane finish arch.

I take a deep breath, steady myself & run.

The Finish

Waiting for me at the finish are the two people I had searched for in Malham: my Mum and Dad.

For a moment, everything else fades, the arch, the noise, the people & there they are. Familiar. Solid. Real. A small piece of normal life standing at the end of something that has felt anything but normal.

I hug them, awkwardly at first, my pack still on, poles tangled between us. I don’t cry. I thought I might, but instead, there is a strange stillness, as though my emotions are lagging several miles behind my body, still somewhere out on the trail trying to catch up.

My Dad gently steers me towards the wall of the Border Hotel. I had completely forgotten that the finish line isn’t actually the finish. Spine tradition says you must touch the wall to complete the journey.

I laugh, or something close to it & mutter a few choice words about the extra steps. After 264 miles, even five more steps feels like an unreasonable request.

I reach out & place my hand on the stone.

Cold. Solid. Final.

And just like that, it’s over.

Then comes a moment I will carry with me forever. My Dad places the medal around my neck. Not an official handing-over, nor a race organiser, just my Dad, quietly finishing the journey with me.

©Spine Official Photography

The weight of the medal settles against my chest, but it’s the removal of something else that I feel most.

I take my pack off.

I sit.

No watch to follow.

No checkpoint to reach.

No miles left to count.

Just stillness.

I’m done.

The finish: Kirk Yetholm

• Distance covered: 264 miles
• Elevation climbed: 42,000ft
• Arrival time: 15:49:09, Friday 20th June 2025
• Finish time: 127:48:54
• Sleep: 8 hours (max)
• Finish positions: 40th overall, 8th Female (results here)

Next up: Summer Spine | Epilogue

Touching the wall of the Boarder Hotel, the official end of the Pennine Way