UK Ultra Race Planner · Independent planning tool by ULTRALABS
Montane Winter Spine
The full 268-mile winter Spine Race, Edale to Kirk Yetholm. Not the Challenger, Sprint, MRT or summer events.. Organiser: The Spine Race.
2027 edition (10 to 16 January 2027), cut-offs verified, distances secondary · Partially verified · race data 2026-09-09
Partially verified: plan with care, some fields are provisional or secondary. Five full checkpoints in 268 miles, each with a departure deadline on the race clock and a six-hour stay limit. You must be inside a checkpoint 30 minutes before its cut-off. No crew, no pacers, one cheer. The organiser publishes no checkpoint distances on its open pages, so the mileages in this table come from a race report and the constant-speed split between checkpoints is only as good as they are.
Start to finish, including every stop and any sleep. Limit 156 h 00 min.
Enter a target finish time to see your schedule.
The checkpoint list below shows the official distances, cut-offs and access rules for 2027 edition (10 to 16 January 2027), cut-offs verified, distances secondary without a plan.
| Checkpoint | Distance | Section | Arrive | Stop | Depart | Cut-off | Buffer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Edale (start) startcrew prohibited Rules and notes
| 0.0 mi | Start | – | – | – | none published | – |
CP1 Hebden Bridge (Birchcliffe) aid · timing · rest area · drop bagcrew prohibitedmax stay 6 h 00 min Rules and notes
| 46.0 mi +46.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 22 h 00 min after start must have left by 20 h 00 min after start must arrive by | – |
CP2 Hawes (Hardraw) aid · timing · rest area · drop bagcrew prohibitedmax stay 6 h 00 min Rules and notes
| 109.0 mi +63.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 60 h 00 min after start must have left by 59 h 30 min after start must arrive by | – |
CP3 Langdon Beck YHA aid · timing · rest area · drop bagcrew prohibitedmax stay 6 h 00 min Rules and notes
| 152.0 mi +43.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 84 h 00 min after start must have left by 83 h 30 min after start must arrive by | – |
Dufton (monitoring location) timingcrew prohibitedmax stay 30 min Rules and notes
| 170.0 mi +18.0 mi | – | – | min | – | none published | – |
CP4 Alston aid · timing · rest area · drop bagcrew prohibitedmax stay 6 h 00 min Rules and notes
| 186.0 mi +16.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 110 h 00 min after start must have left by 109 h 30 min after start must arrive by | – |
CP5 Bellingham aid · timing · rest area · drop bagcrew prohibitedmax stay 6 h 00 min Rules and notes
| 224.0 mi +38.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 130 h 00 min after start must have left by 129 h 30 min after start must arrive by | – |
Byrness (monitoring location) timingcrew prohibitedmax stay 30 min Rules and notes
| 240.0 mi +16.0 mi | – | – | min | – | 140 h 00 min after start must have left by 139 h 55 min after start must arrive by | – |
Kirk Yetholm (finish) finish · timingcrew prohibited Rules and notes
| 268.0 mi +28.0 mi | – | – | – | – | 156 h 00 min after start must arrive by | – |
Times are Europe/London local time, with the day. Distances are the organiser’s cumulative figures converted to miles. Buffer is the cut-off minus your planned arrival or departure, whichever the organiser’s rule applies to. A missed cut-off is shown even when the finish is inside its limit. Colour is never the only signal; every status carries a word.
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How this works
Method, assumptions and sources
Time budget. Your target is elapsed time from the start to the finish line. Every stop you enter, sleep included, is subtracted first; what is left is the moving budget. If the stops use up the target the tool says so rather than squeezing the moving time.
Sections. In “share the target” mode the moving budget is split across sections in proportion to their distance, so every section is at the same average speed. That is arithmetic, not a model of climbs, mud or night. Lock a section to a time you trust, or give it a factor (1.3 means you expect it to take 30% longer per mile than the rest), and the remainder is shared across the others. In “enter section times” mode your times decide the finish and the target is only compared.
Cut-offs. Each rule is compared against the instant it applies to. A departure rule is checked against your departure, so a stop can turn a cleared arrival into a missed cut-off. Where the organiser publishes a time without saying whether it is for arriving or leaving, the comparison is against departure and marked provisional. Exactly on the limit is judged by the organiser’s stated rule, or flagged when there is none. No cut-off in the table does not mean no limit.
Seconds. Everything is calculated in whole seconds and the total is conserved exactly; displayed minutes are rounded afterwards and never feed back into the comparison.
Scenarios. Changes are to section duration or stop length. Keep-finish scenarios reallocate the reduced moving budget; keep-moving scenarios push later times back with no renormalisation.
Verification is not accuracy. A verified checkpoint table tells you the rules are right. It says nothing about whether the constant-speed split matches how you will actually move.
Official sources for 2027 edition (10 to 16 January 2027), cut-offs verified, distances secondary
- Montane Winter Spine race page · verified, edition 2027, accessed 2026-09-09 · Race Details block and checkpoint FAQ · Start 08:00 10 January 2027, 156 hours, finish deadline 20:00 16 January 2027.
- Montane Winter Spine 2027 - Race Rules (organiser, last updated 6 July 2026) · verified, edition 2027, accessed 2026-09-09 · Cut-off summary; checkpoint stay limits; support rules
- Spine Race Winter Kit List 2027 · verified, edition 2027, accessed 2026-09-09 · Kit checks at every checkpoint; drop bag contents
- Twenty's Plenty: Drop Bag Weight (9 December 2025) · verified, edition 2027, accessed 2026-09-09
- Spine Races Route Info (modified 18 May 2026) · verified, edition 2026, accessed 2026-09-09 · 2027 winter route files due six weeks before the race; current winter links are 2026 files.
- Changes to the 2027 Winter Spine Race (organiser Facebook post, Race Director, January 2026) · verified, edition 2027, accessed 2026-09-09 · 168 to 156 hours; checkpoint dwell 8 to 6 hours; later checkpoint times change, earlier stay the same.
- Change of Middleton Checkpoint Venue for Winter Races (18 July 2023) · verified, edition 2024 onward, accessed 2026-09-09 · CP3 is Langdon Beck YHA, 600 m off the Pennine Way from Saur Hill Bridge.
- iRunFar: 2026 Winter Spine Race Results · secondary, edition 2026, accessed 2026-09-09 · Checkpoint mileages · The organiser publishes no checkpoint distances on open pages. These figures are a race report's.
- Open Tracking: Montane Spine Race 2026 results (checkpoint sequence) · secondary, edition 2026, accessed 2026-09-09
Not verified for this edition
- checkpoint cumulative distances are not published by the organiser on open pages (the race maps issued at kit check carry them); the figures here are secondary
- the monitoring location at Malham Tarn (depart within 48 h, 30-minute stay, arrive 5 minutes before) is not in this table because no source gives its distance; Dufton and Byrness are placed at a race report's mileages (about 170 and 240 miles), marked secondary
- Hut 1 and Hut 2 in the Cheviots (2-hour stay limit) are not placed for the same reason
- which building CP1 and CP2 use in 2027 (race page lists Birchcliffe and Hawes/Hardraw)
- whether the 2027 route files will change the distances
- wave structure (none stated)
Amendments and conflicts recorded
- Time limit reduced from 168 hours to 156 hours for 2027 and the checkpoint stay limit from 8 hours to 6 hours (organiser announcement, January 2026).
Race data version 2026-09-09. Independent planning tool by ULTRALABS; not affiliated with the organiser. The organiser’s own documents are the authority and change between editions.