There is something special about the Pennine Way. It draws you in, it brings a sense of adventure. A journey from point to point though a real mixture of terrain, at times really remote and wild. A place I feel comfortably uncomfortable in.
After the Spine Challenger DNF, something was missing from my race calendar, I hadn’t planned on another race before the TMB fun in July but I felt I needed a fix and the Pennine 39 fitted in perfectly. This is a race run by Nav4, who also put on the equally awesome Tour De Helvellyn in December and a few others. I got such a good vibe on that race that I just had to do this, plus it covers some of the most iconic parts of the northern part of the PW; Cauldron snout, High Cup Nick, Dufton, Cross Fell and Greg’s Hut. Even though it’s the “39”, it’s actually more like 37 miles (58ish km) and has around 1700m of hills. If you know of the nav4 events, then they are pretty low key and work on minimising waste. Only two small aid stations, no bibs, no trackers (but there are safety teams) and no medals. They take your safety very seriously but treat you like adults. Their is a kit list that has your basic mountain safety in mind but the main item listed, at the bottom is: A sense of adventure and commitment. That sums up Joe and Stuart’s philosophy.
Once I decided this would be my training race of the summer, I soon persuaded friends Ilona, Shirin and Yvette to come. Then after Phil had to pull out, we got MRP MVP, OJ on board.
The race finishes in the town of Alston (famous for its lasagne on the Spine) in the YHA. Nav4 take the whole hostel for the weekend but sadly we were too late to book in on the Friday night but we did get Saturday and Joe (RD) suggested the Garrigill village bunk room, just 4 miles down the road. At £17 a night pp, it was a great choice. I drove 4 of us up and OJ made his own way from work. They do offer a shuttle bus service on a Friday night from Penrith if you want to come via train. I also prepared a vegan ragu for dinner and we settled down for a quiet night.
The race offers two start times and thus two shuttle buses to the start. There are no cut off times as such. It’s made for fast walkers and runners alike. If you feel like you need more time then you get on the 7am bus for an 8am start, or you can go on the 8am coach for a 9am start. When I say there are no cut offs, what we found out if that you are being assessed about your ability to continue along the route by expert members of the team. If they feel you can’t continue then a discussion is had but you are given plenty of time, I think the last runner came in around 14 hours and was greeted to cheers.
Back to race morning. We were on the 9am start, so arrived just after 7am. Registration was, a simple case of what’s your name, then you are given a reusable tag with your name and number on, which you attach to your pack. Thats it! We were told our hostel room for the night was ready, so we dropped our bags in there to save walking back to the car after the race. Then chilled out and got our final bits of kit ready. We all had 3 bottles of liquid as it was 27km to the first CP, even though there is some water on the way, we just felt that was sensible. Then just before 8 everyone walked over to the coach to be driven to the start at Low Force waterfalls (30mins drive), which is just up the trail from Middleton-in-Teesdale, another CP on the spine route. There is a toilet at the visitor centre as an FYI but the race starts just over the road down by the waterfall.
We were checked in by Joe, then waited for it to be close to 9am, walked up the steps, then just told to go. No fanfare, no faff. 60 runners off on an adventure.
I was accidentally near the front as was walking away from the morning midges before we started but just settled into my easy pace and let people pass me if they needed to. This wasn’t a race race but I did want to move with purpose and treat it with a solid effort. My guess was to finish around 8-9 hours but otherwise it was about fuelling well, running strong and hiking when needed. This first section moves gradually up and along the valley of Teasdale by the river tees, the path is a tourist path at this point and you soon pass High force water falls. I didn’t stop to go down and take photos though. Even though you’re slowly climbing, it’s very runnable. I remember at some point it started drizzling, the wind picked up as it was funnelled though the valley. It was predicted to be a bit of a rainy day and we all knew it was coming, so I put on my jacket. Some didn’t, personal choice, for me I wanted to be dry. Soon the trails turned to a mixture of fields and more rocky technical bits that slowed me down. This is a skill I don’t really have, hoping over and through boulders and that’s ok, a few people passed me but I just kept going at my pace, chatting with other runners.
Then before I knew it, we turned in to Cauldron Snout. I knew this would be a scramble up and it was fun, big rocks and a pretty easy to navigate route up to monitoring point one. They checked my number, I noticed they had some water but I was all good. Truck on and head up to the more remote moors.
I loved this next section as it wound up and along a very runnable track. It rained occasionally but the wind was less of a bother now. It’s just stunning, even on a grey day. This is what I am here for! After a short time, I caught up with the first of the 8am starters. I noticed a guy from a couple of YT videos of the event, Dom, he had previously DNF’d twice. I didn’t mention this, obviously but gave him some encouragement and mentally hoped he would make it 3rd times a charm. I also got chatting with a lady from my start time who said her husband was out on his bike for the day and might pop up to cheer. We did see him a lot, which was really nice to see. For this race I had chose to wear the La Sportiva Prodigios. They are not the most grippy but I had been told it was a very runnable course and the cushion would work well. Just perfect for this kind of terrain. I was running well and seemed to catch up to a few others here too. Before I knew it we were at High cup Nick.
I have been here twice before and the views were 1million times better, lols but it was still lovely to be in this special place. I also know the route down to Dufton very well and knew I could run this really confidently. One thing I would like to point out is that I made a gpx for the route using OS maps and shared it with my group. At this point on the early descent it seemed either I made a small error or Garmin decided to change the path on the conversion as it has been known to do. It was showing the track as off to the right. There is a path there but it’s right near the edge and if you fancy it you can go that way but it’s more sketchy. I found afterwards that Ilona a took that route with another runner who said he would show her the “fun” path.
Before long I was off the more technical part of the down hill and onto the fire/farm road and caught up with a lovely guy who was telling me about the last time he was here, on the winter spine 2023, when there was a lot of snow but also he was pretty spaced and could remember much about it, lols. I was looking forward to getting to a toilet though, time for a number 2 and a refill at the aid station. As you enter The village there are public toilets by the carpark, I thought that would be less congested than in the hall so stopped there before going on. Quickly into the CP. I didn’t plan on taking any food here but they did have flapjacks, fruit, some other snacks, then juice, water etc. not a lot BUT that’s the point of this race. I refilled my bottles, I hadn’t drank quite enough water, so maybe my only error was to have drank a bit more before leaving. What I did do is get my wrap out to eat half on the walk out as it was lunch time. Also it was warm now and not raining, so put my jacket away and put on my Leki pole gloves as it was going to be the long climb up to knock fell. This is around 650m in around 5km. But its does kind of then roll into the next one too, so more like 750m ish.
The climb starts gently up through some woods and muddy paths to a farm. It was the only time really I struggled in my shoes and it was over quickly. Out the other side of the farm I crossed the infamous stone foot bridge where my friend Jules slipped and hurt her back in 2021 (thats another story), I used caution crossing! I also passed a lady that I thought I recognised from somewhere, maybe on IG. I had seen her on the coach and in the last aid station. We shared some words and I pushed on. This climb was a true douche climb. It’s not that steep but it’s relentless and in the clag that was rolling in, you just couldn’t get any idea when it would end. I caught up and passed the guy I met on the way down and a couple more people.
I think this was the weakest I felt in the race but was still moving well for some reason. I was glad to hit the summit though, even though I knew it would soon be up again, the gentle down was lovely on some slabs. Then it was on to the road, where I made a small error and stuck to the road instead of going off onto trail up to Great Dunn Fell. I think this added a bit of distance too. Once up though I knew where I was. Then the lady who I passed on the climb came bounding past me. I said something like, oh you got your 2nd wind, she said yes and headed off into the clag. I decided at this point to put my jacket on as the rain was coming in. I even got my WP mittens out as it was cold and we were 850m up now, heading towards cross fell. I ran a lot of this section too. It just rolls along, yes my feet got wet in missing slabs but I didn’t care. When things click it just feels really great.
On the final climb up to across fell I caught up to the lady again. This time I said, I think I recognise you and she said the same. She asked if I knew Ally. “Yes”, I said! it’s funny how this works. She said her name was Mel, we took photos of each other at the trig then struck up a conversation that would then last all the way to the finish. I helped us navigate off cross fell, as I remembered it can be a little tricky as the path an sometimes just vanishes, we soon made it to Greg’s hut (another safety check point). It was after this photo that I found out she had finished 2nd in the Spine challenger south just two weeks earlier and was using this race as a recce for the full winter Spine. I also found out she was in full recovery from brain surgery last year.
The long descent from Greg’s was a little crazy. It was up and down for a bit on rocky track then went to road and then fields. It went on quite a while but we ran with purpose and pretty sure it was non stop chat about all manner of things. Time flew by and before long we entered the village of Garrigill. I directed us to the 2nd and final aid station as it was in the village hall where we stayed the night before. Same fare of snacks and drinks. We took off our jackets as it was nice and warm again. Topped up some water, Mel downed a tango and we left. It was about 6km ish to the finish now. Nice and simple river side path with no issue right…wrong
About 2km outside of the village, we came to the bridge to cross over and it had a sign on it saying it was closed and we shouldn’t cross here. We complied and took the path on our side of the river. This was an error. What then happened was a lot of bush whacking on what can’t really be described as a path, we missed a ford, just round the corner and eventually crossed much later, then had to clamber over a wall to rejoin the path. We possibly lost a place or two and definitely added some distance but it didn’t matter now. Mel kept running and I kept following. Running all the way to the finish. Which was just simply up some steps to the YHA courtyard to some cheers and a member of the event team cutting the race tag off our packs. There was soup, chairs and a nice cold can of red ambulance to enjoy. It was sunny now too! 8hrs28mins, that’ll do.
OJ was there, having finished about 15mins earlier, Illona came in about 30mins after us, getting her sub9 and she was super happy. Then Yvette and Shirin came in another 15mins later. The whole team safely home. We sat around chatting to other runners, enjoying the early evening sunshine and some tales from the trails. The evening was spent inside filling our belly’s with some lovely home cooked food and a few drinks, sharing more stories and meeting new people. I truly loved that about this event. We even cheered in the last runner at 9.45pm and yes it was Dom. on his 3rd try he had finished it and enjoyed his winners meal.
Reflecting on this race, it was a solid effort. I ran a lot and I finished strong. I have to thank Mel for that. I truly believe that sometimes running with stronger athletes helps you push a bit. I have done my fair bit of pulling but it felt good to be pushed on this day and stopped me being lazy. I also love that fact that this race won’t appear on my itra score, it doesn’t have any pebbles and the results are on a private Google sheet. The memories of an awesome weekend spent with friends, old and new will always be remembered.
This is what it cost, thought it might be of interest:
Race entry: £60 (includes bus to start, soup and snacks at the finish)
YHA Saturday stay (including dinner, drinks and breakfast) £55
Bunk room Friday: £18 + £5 for bedding or bring a sleeping bag
Petrol shared out was around £30 each.
If you are ready for some mountain fun on unmarked courses please do check out Nav4. Go explore some wild places.
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