Runner Completes 268 Mile Race–18 Months After Being Unable to Walk Due to Brain Condition

January 24, 2025 journo

Mel Sykes running the 268-mile Spine Race – SWNS

A brave podiatrist couldn’t walk in a straight line after being struck down by a rare brain condition 18 months ago, but having just completed a 268-mile ultramarathon in less than a week, it’s safe to say she’s found her feet again.

The inspirational Mel Sykes, 42, was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation after losing her balance and slurring her speech in the summer of 2023.

The condition sees the lower part of the brain push down into the spinal canal and brain stem, often causing double vision and balance problems.

Mel was always a keen runner and had previously taken part in 100-mile foot races—something she wasn’t ready to give up doing. Undergoing surgery to reduce the pressure on her brain, she was told there was a chance that she may never run again.

But she has defied the odds just 18 months after surgery and gone on to complete the coincidentally named Spine Race, which sees participants run 268 miles from Edale, Derbyshire, to Kirk Yetholm, Scotland, in an incredible 132 hours.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” said Sykes. “It was just amazing to reach the finish. Getting to the start was a win.”

“I enjoyed it. It was tough but I knew it was going to be hard work,” she said, describing sections of the race that required running through snow as particularly difficult.

“The first two days from Edale to Hawes it was going through deep snow drifts, plowing through snow halfway up your thighs, it was really tough going. The north section then ended up not being too bad.”

Mel Sykes resting along the race path – credit SWNS

“The bit when I was at Hadrian’s Wall, the sun was out all day, it was lovely,” she remembered.

Sykes first started suffering from double vision in 2023, and received a glasses prescription. They didn’t help, and soon it was becoming dangerous to drive. After she began experiencing pins and needles in the left side of her face, arm, and hand, she was referred to the specialist neurosurgery team at Leeds General Infirmary where she received the Chiari malformation diagnosis.

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“Mel is a really inspirational patient and has shown huge determination to recover and return to ultrarunning,” said Dr. Ian Anderson, Consultant Neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, who was on Sykes’ treatment team.

“She had severe symptoms when she came to us and needed surgery urgently. “It’s fantastic to see how well she recovered—completing this race is a truly remarkable achievement.”

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When Mel was running in a storm in the Yorkshire Dales, she started to get hypothermic and needed to pause in a mobile toilet to get warm. Later, when she was just a mile and a half from the finish line, she cracked her ribs after falling while running down a hill.

“I’d done the whole race and fell a few times on the ice but not done much damage,” she told the British news media outlet SWNS. “I just got giddy about a mile and a half from the end, I was running down the hill and my foot hit a stone fell forward and cracked my ribs.”

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268 miles is around the standard extreme for ultramarathoning. For example in America, one of the most popular ultramarathon routes is called the Moab 240, which runs 240 miles through the Moab Desert.

“I didn’t get one blister but my ankles are really swollen,” said Sykes, who’s still recovering. “I’ve just been falling asleep all the time. All I’ve done is just sleep and eat.”

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