HP3 Full Winter Spine Race Plan — Intermediate
Twenty weeks to the start line of the most demanding winter ultra in Britain.

Who it is for. Runners taking on the full Montane Winter Spine Race, 268 miles non-stop along the Pennine Way from Edale to Kirk Yetholm in the depths of winter. You already have an ultra background and a solid aerobic base, you can train around 8 to 14 hours a week through the build, and you want a complete, structured path to the finish rather than a pile of long runs.

What it is. A full 20-week periodised plan built around the things that actually decide a Spine: staying aerobic and efficient for days, looking after your feet, eating real food around the clock, managing cold and wet, and sleeping smart rather than not at all. Every session is structured to heart rate using the HP3 zones, with lap-button warm-ups and recoveries, so you always know exactly what effort to hold.

How it is built. Foundation, two Build blocks, a race-specific phase, a Peak and a full taper, with a deload every fourth week so you absorb the work and arrive fresh. Volume and pack weight climb steadily from a light 3 to 4 kg in the base to full race weight of 10 to 11 kg in the Peak, and the long days build to five-hour single efforts and back-to-back weekends that teach your legs to keep moving on accumulated fatigue.

The Spine-specific work, built in.

Pack carriage periodised from day one, so race weight feels like a small relative load by the start.
Eccentric descent work and a midweek hill or treadhill session to protect your quads on the flagstones.
Gut-training to 60 to 80 g of carbohydrate per hour, deliberately including real food, runs that stop at a shop to resupply, and eating on the move.
Terrain days on the boggiest, roughest ground you can reach, where speed is low and skill is everything.
Three foot-care tests to lock in the exact sock, tape and lotion system that will carry you to Kirk Yetholm, including running on soaked feet.
Night and sleep rehearsal done safely: an optional night run with structured sleep-extension beforehand and nap practice afterwards, so you learn to bank sleep and restart cleanly without wrecking your training.
A multi-day overnight expedition rehearsal as the centrepiece of the Peak, a continuous effort into the dark with a real sleep-out in your full race kit, then a big second day on broken sleep. By the end of it you will have rehearsed the whole race in miniature.
A full taper with sleep-banking and logistics built in, finishing with a race-day card that carries your complete execution brief: pacing, fuelling, feet, warmth, sleep and mind.
What you get. Twenty weeks of structured, heart-rate-based sessions that drop straight into your TrainingPeaks calendar, each one explained in plain language with no jargon, plus clear guidance on pack weight, fuelling, terrain choice, night running and recovery at every stage.

Pairs with. Any HP3 Spine Strength bolt-on. The running plan leaves the Tuesday and Thursday strength slots open and points you to the Home or Gym strength plan, which builds the load-carriage, bog-extraction, descent and pack-posture strength this distance demands.

Please note. This is a demanding plan for a serious event. It assumes you are healthy, training pain-free, and already comfortable with long days in the hills. Build sensibly, respect the recovery weeks, and never push the night and sleep work into genuinely dangerous fatigue or cold. The rehearsals are there to teach the system, not to test survival.