Eden-based ultra-runner Chris Wright said painstaking preparation was key as he completed the 268-mile Montane Winter Spine Race — dubbed one of the world’s toughest endurance events — with 10 hours to spare.
Chris, a 60-year-old freelance mountaineering and climbing instructor (Mountain Mastery UK) who lives at Skirwith, has a background in science and biology which has fuelled a desire to push himself to the limit throughout his life.
“I’m interested in the human body and what it can do,” said Chris, who has a PhD in medical research from Cambridge University and joined the Parachute Regiment Reserves after passing their tough training regime aged 37. “I treat my own human body like a bit of an experiment. I wonder what I can do if I train it and push it.”
Chris has also battled imposter syndrome — an inability to believe success is deserved and has been legitimately achieved — but now believes this has been “put to bed” by completing a series of daunting challenges with escalating degrees of difficulty.
“A lot of it is trying to quash all these pre-conceived age boundary limitations. People saying ‘you can’t do that because you’re 40, too old’. I hate that. People should be able to do things if they can do them,” he says.
Originally from Grantham, Lincolnshire, Chris has been a teacher for most of his life, latterly head of outdoor pursuits at Giggleswick School, Settle.
He started ultra-running aged 50, climbed the Matterhorn that year and more recently scaled the Eiger. He initially completed the Lakeland 50-mile trail race, clocked up two 100-milers and qualified for the renowned Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc which he successfully tackled in 2018.
“My nature is very much to set out and achieve goals,” he said. “It’s one of these things where I feel it’s necessary to stamp some kind of hallmark that you’re still alive and you can do something great.”
And so to the Winter Spine Race, a non-stop seven-day challenge which follows the Pennine Way from a start in Edale, Derbyshire, to the finish in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland.
Chris was a race safety team volunteer in both 2020 and 2022. “That was me saying ‘I want to find out more about this race, I want to become involved, I want to try and do it’. I had a good look up close about how people were faring, failing, how broken they were, how hard it was,” he said.
Participants aim to pass through five different checkpoints, each with cut-off times, and have a compulsory kit list which includes winter clothing, a stove, sleeping equipment and medical supplies.
Chris and others braved tough terrain and winter weather elements which included rain, sleet and snow. “People will look back and remember 2023 as a vintage year for conditions,” he said. “Temperatures were down to -14C wind chill on some of the tops; just very cold.”
There was familiarity, too, passing his “friend” Cross Fell and seeing fellow Penrith Mountain Rescue Team members during a stop at Dufton. Pausing to sleep proved crucial as Chris completed the race in 158hr, 23min and 34sec.
“It was thanks to the preparation because I did a lot of training and a big part of that is testing out your kit: what works, what doesn’t. You’ve got to have your kit right,” he said. “I also bivvied out five times. The safety team director said so many people hadn’t used their sleeping kit and dropped out from exhaustion because they were trying to get to checkpoints to sleep. I just said ‘right, OK, I’m in the middle of nowhere now, it’s time to sleep, two hours, bunker down, off I go again’. I think a lot of people see their sleeping kit as being there for an emergency. It’s not, it’s part of your tool kit to get you through the race; just like your stove is there to make a brew, not just to fulfil your kit requirement.”
Chris is raising money for Penrith Mountain Rescue Team and Alzheimer’s Research UK, his mother Margaret having had the disease for 10 years.
“It’s horrible, ruthless,” said Chris, who is engaged to Teresa Keeling, of Barnard Castle. “It has a massive impact on everybody else, families. The money raised is a drop in the ocean but you’ve just got to do what you can.”
