The Spine Take 2. A race for closure.
When I finished the Spine race in January last year, stumbling across the finish line after 268 miles, in floods of tears, I genuinely thought that was a one-and-done. The race had emptied me physically and emotionally, but it had also given me everything I wanted. I’d found my limits and I’d just about pushed through them to reach the end. I didn’t think I’d ever feel a need to go back.
Yet here I am, just a few days away from standing on that start line again. Here’s why.
24 hours into last year’s race, my friend Nikki, who had been sharing my and my partner’s progress through the race on socials, capturing the imagination of so many of you through her storytelling, received a message from a woman claiming she had been dating my partner of over 3 years, without knowing about me, for the prior few months. Nikki’s first instinct was not to believe it. She, as did many others of our friends, were expecting us to get engaged after the Spine. But after exchanging messages with this brave woman, it became clear this wasn’t some cruel hoax. It was true.
This left Nikki and her partner Bex with a dilemma; what do they do with this information given we both still had at least 3 days of racing left. Eventually, they decided to wait until they could get me alone while he was in London, so, five days after finishing the Spine, they surprised me after work to tell me.
It was the woman he had been dating who first suggested that some of the things he had told both of us about his career were lies. And, as I started to piece things together over the next few days, it became clear that much of what I thought I knew about him had been fabricated from the start. Two weeks later, I discovered he was back on dating apps—and of all the people in the world, he was messaging someone who knew me. As a friend told me this, I couldn’t help but laugh. You literally couldn’t make it up.
He’s only ever admitted to the dating; he’s denied everything else. And even now, despite so much evidence of deceit, I occasionally find myself questioning if I misinterpreted everything, wondering if maybe it’s me that’s wrong. I guess that shows how sucked in I was. When you’re under the spell of someone who twists the truth so glibly, it’s all too easy to start doubting yourself.
It’s hard to articulate the feeling of going from the high of finishing the Spine, something we’d worked towards for three years—to what came next. It felt surreal, like my life had turned into a Netflix documentary. How do you go from the high of achieving something so crazy, so impossible, so big together, to discovering the foundations of your relationship were built on lies in one fell swoop?
Moving on from this has been incredibly hard—and at times, it still is. I’ve felt as though I’ve been grieving the loss of someone who never truly existed. When so much of what you believed is turned upside down by lies, can you hold on to any of it? I still occasionally find myself flitting between missing the man I knew and loved and then having to actively remind myself that so much of what I thought I knew about him was lies. Oddly, I barely think about the dating, which feels so insignificant in comparison to the web of lies I uncovered.
I look back at the adventures we shared, the conversations about our pasts, and wonder how much of it was real. Was any of it genuine? It frustrates me that I’ll never have those answers. Sometimes, I question my own judgment, but I remind myself that nobody else—except perhaps my sister—ever questioned him.
A few days after I found out, I found a voice message he had sent during the race – one I had missed at the time. He sounded so loving, so genuine. It was hard to reconcile that warmth with the lies I now knew. Was that love real? I still don’t know.
You might be wondering why I’m sharing this. While I do share some aspects of my life on social media, I’m selective about what I post and rarely share anything personal. As an oncologist, I try to keep my professional and personal worlds separate. It feels counterintuitive to open up about something so personal, yet I feel compelled to do so. If I can share my experience, perhaps I can help break down the stigma surrounding betrayal and manipulation in relationships.
There’s this perception that manipulation only happens to people who are vulnerable, or desperate. As an independent, self-sufficient woman, I never thought I would fall for someone who lied so effortlessly and so persistently. I call out nonsense and as a doctor, I pride myself on my ability to read people. I never, ever imagined love could cloud my judgment so easily. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how strong or feisty or outspoken or independent you are. Deception can sneak up on anyone.
Part of me wonders if people will judge me differently when they read this, but another part of me knows that this fear is exactly why I feel compelled to share it. If I can own my experience and talk about it, perhaps even normalize it to some extent, maybe others will feel empowered to do the same. I should not be defined by the lies someone else told.
But for now, this story is why I find myself on the start line for this bonkers race in just a few days’ time. Last year’s Spine race was about working towards something together with someone I loved. It was about 3 years of adventuring together to finish something utterly crazy. But as it turned out, I had just 5 days to celebrate this joint achievement before my world came crashing down. This year, I want the time to savour this sense of satisfaction for myself.
Yesterday a friend asked me what I thought I would view as ‘success’ at this year’s race.
Yes, I’d like to find the sleep jigsaw piece that I didn’t find last year.
Yes, I’d like to put together a more sensible race so that I finish the race moving with purpose across the Cheviots rather than stumbling over them as a blithering, incoherent mess.
But more than anything, success will be drawing a line under the chaos of the last year and reclaiming my memories of the Spine for myself. Success will be shuffling down the hill to the finish feeling pride that I’ve survived 2024 and have found it within me to tackle the Spine again, for myself. Success will be celebrating resilience, and the new friends I’ve made along the way.
When I think back to my words before the race last year “The journey to the start has been life-changing. I have no doubt the race will be life-changing”, I realize how true they were. Last year’s race changed my life in ways I never expected. I’m sure this year’s race will too.
But this time, I hope it will be about finding closure and finding myself again.
