Ultra runner Kim Collison told Advnture that his win in this month’s Montane Winter Spine Race was “the perfect fairy tale ending”. After three failed attempts in consecutive years to complete the notoriously grueling 268-mile UK trail running event, the 44-year-old Lake District athlete not only triumphed but ran the third fastest time ever recorded. His finish in 82 hours and 46 minutes, having faced what he described as “the toughest conditions of all four years”, was also more than three hours ahead of runner up and fellow Brit Dave Phillips.
Speaking a few days after his triumph, Collison, a La Sportiva athlete, revealed: “I am absolutely delighted to win the Winter Spine Race. It has been a long journey to achieve this success and I am completely satisfied. “I could not leave this race as unfinished business and after pulling out three times in a row, I still felt I had to keep going until I completed it.
It was actually part of the driving force to do the race again – the more years I failed, the more motivated I was to do the race again. “It is such a great feeling – and a relief! – to have won and to have set a third fastest time, too. It’s a fairly tale ending.
” Taking place in the depths of the UK’s coldest season, the Winter Spine Race is widely regarded as Britain's most brutal endurance race. The event challenges runners to from Edale in Derbyshire, England, north to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders. Collison’s Strava statistics.
