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.”
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The Montane Winter Spine 2025
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 complete 268 miles non-stop along the Pennine Way from Edale in Derbyshire, England, north to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders.
Collison’s Strava statistics for the race, which started on January 12, show he ran 275 miles (443km) and ascended 44,242ft (13,485m), which is 15,000ft (4,636m) more than the height of Mount Everest.
This year’s weather also made the feat more challenging. Collison says: “To start with, there was a lot of deep snow. Trying to race through the snow was very tiring and the pace was slower than previous years.
“Then, by day two, temperatures had risen and everything started to thaw. The ground became very wet with slushy snow, over-flowing rivers and big patches of ice. There was so much mud and bog.
“This was so different to last year’s race when the ground was harder with frost. I would say it was the toughest conditions of all my four years doing the race.
“But then, on the last day, the sunshine came and the conditions were ideal. It was the best crossing of the Cheviot hills that I’ve had.”
How the men’s Winter Spine Race 2025 unfolded
It was the 2020 winner and former men’s course record holder American John Kelly who led the start of the race to checkpoint one, some 42 miles along the Pennine Way, although Collison was only a couple of minutes behind along with Spain’s Eugeni Roselló Solé, another former Spine winner.
But by checkpoint two and 104 miles in, Collison had taken the lead with Eugeni Roselló Solé in second place and Tiaan Erwee (South Africa), Sam Skinner (UK) and Dave Phillips (UK) running together in joint third place. Kelly was by now 25 minutes behind the leaders.
After this, Collison stayed strong and ahead while Roselló Solé pulled out of the race completely at 120 miles and Kelly moved into second place.
After checkpoint three, Collison remained in the lead, while Kelly received a 26-minute time penalty – later reduced to 13 minutes – for failing to to follow a weather-related diversion around an icy waterfall called Cauldron Snout.
By checkpoint four at 175 miles, Collison was still ahead although Kelly had reduced the lead to 55 minutes. In joint third were Erwee and Phillips.
At the next checkpoint at 211 miles, Collison had extended his lead over the rest of the pack to almost 2.5 hours and Erwee was now in second place ahead of Kelly and then Philips.
At Byrness, the final station where runners could get food and rest, it looked very likely that Collison would win. He was quoted as saying “this is my year” and so it proved to be as he raced across the final section over the Cheviot Hills to win.
Behind him, second place went to to Phillip in 85:58:05, third to Erwee in 86:05:09 and fourth man was Kelly 87:55:32.
In fourth place overall was the female race winner, Lucy Gossage.
Kim Collison’s race to success
In the three previous years, it had been injury that put an end to Collison’s Winter Spine bid. Last year, a ligament issue in his knee led to his DNF.
“This meant that to be successful, biomechanical preparation was key," he says.
“I worked with a physio to deal with some one-sided imbalance problems. It worked well because although I suffered the normal pain you would expect from such a long and hard race, I didn’t have any specific pain from injuries.”
Collison also revealed he focused on improving his mental resilience. He says: “I needed to be able to cope with the ‘hump’ moments that inevitably come with endurance races. When I felt at my lowest and impulsively wanted to quit, I needed to be able to create space to find a solution in my logical brain.
“There are inevitably some very hard times mentally during the race when you are really feeling the effects physically and you think you can’t find a way to deal with things.
“For example, about 40 hours into the race, my legs were very sore and I was suffering muscle spasms. I found the mental space to ask for help. I asked a medic what to do and they suggested electrolytes. I also used a foam roller on my legs and had a bit more sleep
“My motto for this race at the checkpoints was, put on stuff and go. Then ‘let’s just see’. “
Collison reveals that he also received a welcome injection of self-confidence by winning the demanding 360km (223 miles) Swiss peaks 360 race the previous September.
Collison: ’I slept more than ever before’
There is a growing a trend in ultra running races for competitors to sleep less, thus offering more time for being out on the course. But Collison decided to take a different approach in this year’s Winter Spine.
He explains: “My strategy this year was to aim to have more sleep and to move faster in between.
“In previous years, like many ultra runners, I had been following a schedule of less sleep and therefore more time to run but I am much better cognitively when I’ve had more sleep.”
In the end Collison slept for 30 minutes at CP 2, had another 2.5 hours of sleep at CP3 and also took three or four shorter naps as the trail headed along Hadrian’s Wall later in the race.
Collison says: “It was a different race for me with a lot more sleep. There were times when I worried that I would risk losing my lead and then I would need to chase another runner who had overtaken but this didn’t happen in the end.
"By sleeping more, I was able to run better and to feel in better shape mentally. I pushed hard to create a good lead right from the start and I kept it throughout the race.”
Fuelling for winning
Collison also focused on good nutrition on the trail. He says: “I took in a lot of carbs in the first part of the race to reach CP1. This is the most intense part of the race in terms of pace and I needed carbs to fuel me,
“Then I concentrated on high carbs and also real foods plus fats to the next CP.
“Later on, I switched to expedition style eating with 50 per cent real foods and 50 per cent quick sugars.
“I made sure I kept putting the calories in, even when I didn’t feel like eating, and this showed not only in my physical well-being, but also mentally. While I obviously suffered and hurt, I generally felt really well throughout the race.
“I think my nutrition was a major part of why I did so well.”
The euphoria of the final miles and triumph
Collison told Advnture that the final three hours of racing were “euphoric”.
With “only” the wilds of the Cheviot Hills to cross to reach the finish, he found the energy and strength to push hard. Collison says: “I was even able to run some of the gentle hills and that felt great because of how far I’d already come.
“My mind and body could see the finish and I felt like I was chasing the ghost of Jasmin Paris [she formerly won the Winter Spine Race outright].
“All the fours years of hard work were over and I’d finally done it.”
