SADDLEWORTH’S ultra running expert Colin Green has completed another unbelievable challenge – only this time he is ‘royalty.’
And as pictures show, his feet certainly bare the hallmarks of it.
The Greenfield-based neuro physio trekked the 268-mile course of the Montane Winter Spine Race, which takes in the entire Pennine Way.
Having started in thick snow in Edale, Derbyshire, he waded through the melt, then the mud, then more snow in Northumberland’s Cheviot Hills before touching the finishing line in the Scottish village of Kirk Yetholm.

After 161 hours 48 minutes of racing, Colin reached the finish at 1.48am on Sunday, January 19, inside the 168-hour time limit.
Mind you, the first 15 minutes were spent making it to the start line after being caught in Peak District traffic.
But as he said: “I’ve got seven days, what is 15 minutes?”

Colin, who became the first person to run the 200-mile Greater Manchester Ringway in one go, teamed with Robert Spalton and Bruce Humphrey at Malham Tarn in North Yorkshire.
Completing the Spine Race involved two-minute and eight-minute ‘sleeps’, sleeping in a bivvy bag in woods, chilli con carne and sponge cake at breakfast and microwaving muddy gloves.
And when the trio crossed the line, they were billed as ‘Spine Race’ royalty when they took their collective Winter Spine medal tally to 16.
Colin was not the only person with a Saddleworth connection to get involve with the Spine Race.

Diggle’s Stephen Hurren achieved a unique feat by not only doing the Spine Sprint but also the full Winter Spine.
Firstly, his 47-mile ‘warm up’ took him from Edale to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire.
Then he went back to the start and did the full 268 miles, just like he did in the summer race.
And at just after midday on January 18, Stephen – who completed it in 148 hours seven minutes – became the first ever double-finisher of a Winter Spine series race in the same year.
When asked his thoughts about achieving such an unbelievable feat, the initial response to summing everything up was just one word – “Why?”
A Spine Race spokesperson added: “We have all watched to witness something incredibly unique.

“This was by no means an easy year to undertake the challenge. This was a year where the Snow drifts gave way to bogs, with diversions on Pen-Y-Ghent and Cauldron Snout and not forgetting the collective agreement of everybody that the Cam Fell high road was persistently exposed to evolving miserable conditions, either above their heads or beneath their feet.
“The mental capacity to keep moving forward took away his memory of the word sunrise, despite enjoying several along the way and identifying them as perhaps the most beautiful moments of his over 300-mile adventure.”
But this is far from the end. For Stephen, known to many as Keen Runner, has already signed up to take on both the South and North Spine Sprints in the summer.
Former Saddleworth School pupil Ryan Townrow also raised more than £6,400 for Huddersfield’s Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice by completing the 108-mile Challenge South race in 60 hours.
Travelling from Edale to Hawes in North Yorkshire, it is described as ‘a physically and psychologically demanding route that requires concentration, good physical fitness, resolve and respect.’
And when temperatures dropped to minus seven, he really had to keep going as he did the race in the name of 11-year-old niece Isla, was born with a rare genetic and life limiting condition called Mucopolysacchairdosis, which is also known as Sanfilippo Syndrome or MPS 3A.
Children lose skills and abilities which they had previously gained, in a similar way to dementia but in children, they often do not reach adulthood.
And Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice has provided vital respite and support not only to Isla, but hundreds of children and families throughout West Yorkshire.
Now Ryan has more than quadrupled his initial fundraising target of £1,500.
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