Mark Hines' Path Through Ultra-Endurance Challenges

Mark Hines, an ultra-endurance athlete and lecturer in exercise physiology, has dedicated nearly 20 years to conquering extreme races across the globe. From the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara to the grueling Iditarod Trail Invitational, his adventures reflect both his passion for exploration and his commitment to pushing physical limits. This article explores his remarkable journey and the challenges he faces along the way.

Tell us about yourself

I’m Mark Hines. I live in Oxfordshire and I have been participating in ultra-endurance races and adventures for almost 20 years. Professionally, I’m a lecturer in exercise physiology, and a researcher in biomechanics at Oxford Brookes University. I’m also a writer and photographer.

Can you tell us about the sorts of races and adventures you have done?

My first proper race was the Marathon des Sables – a fairly straightforward multi-stage race in the Sahara. After that I competed in a similar format event in the Amazon, and then a 430-mile, single-stage race in the Yukon. That was my trajectory for getting into the bigger, international races and the extreme environments. I competed in plenty of UK races too, and the Hardmoors 110 sticks in my mind as a favourite. I’ve competed in mountain ultras too, including the Trans-Alps and La Ultra/The High.

What were the non-race adventures?

In the UK I ran Wainwright’s coast-to-coast route, and have run and hiked sections of the southwest coastal path, and the Pennine Way. The best adventure I ever did was to solo sled-haul the 1000-mile route of the world’s toughest sled dog race – The Yukon Quest – beginning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and finishing in the Yukon. I have also paddleboarded from Big Ben to the Black Sea, and cycled from Canada’s Arctic Ocean down to the US (albeit over a couple of visits – dividing it into winter and summer sections).

One of the more relaxed, but still very cool adventures, was when I decided to do an overland journey from Roehampton University – where I was studying for my doctorate – to Transylvania, where I planned to compete in a friend’s race. I would run and hike some sections, until I felt I had seen that part of a country, then I would jump on a bus or train to get to another starting point, and go for another few days or a week, then repeat the process. It was a fantastic way to enjoy Europe, without having to stress that I had to do it all on foot within the time available, or having to stick to the most direct route. I spent time mostly in the rural areas, passing through villages and going along the coasts and rivers, but I got to enjoy Paris, Venice, Zagreb, Belgrade and other cities too. As an all-round experience it was great.

How did you get into all this?

I think a lot of people get into the Ultras from either seeing a documentary on TV, or reading a book about a race, or, they get talked into it by someone who watched or read something about a race. In my case, I watched Ben Fogle’s documentary about him competing in the Marathon des Sables, in which he walked most of it. By the time I watched it, I had spent years going back-and-forth visiting friends in Cairo, and had a lot of experience hiking in the Egyptian Sahara.

I saw the Marathon des Sables as a way of building on that experience, using my background as an exercise physiologist to develop a training programme to be able to run as much of the race as I could. I had a cautious approach – because I only really wanted to finish – but I realised it was a great way of experiencing different parts of the world. It was breakfast the morning after finishing that people were talking about a similar race in the jungle, and that’s where it all grew from. Ultimately, I trained harder, performed better, and started getting good at the races, so I was getting so much out of them I had to keep competing.

How do you train for these events?

Well, my training has changed a lot over the years. I have always had to fit the training around work, studies, commutes and relationships – challenges I think the majority of us face. I find the training programme design to be quite straightforward, but creating something realistic that meets the demands of race preparation, which fits around everything else in life, can be very problematic. Training enough days is not so much of a problem (covering frequency and intensity), but training for hours at a time can be (volume) – there are definitely compromises, but that’s life.

For my earlier races, when I worked at a health club in Hammersmith, I would run more than a half-marathon most nights after work. Ahead of my first Yukon race I was living in East London, and would run anything 13-20 miles, but because that race was going to be in the cold, and mostly in the dark (because of short days that far north), I would head out around midnight or 1am. The Yukon race would be sled-hauling, so the fitness demands would be high – hence the running – but the sled-hauling would mostly be at a fast walking pace, and for 50-60 miles a day, so I would integrate long hikes over weekends. It was as specific to the race as I could make it. That is the approach I have always had – trying to match the specifics of the race (day-to-day efforts, race intensity, and race speed), with what I can achieve in training.

What was your most recent event?

This year I competed in the 1000-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational race, which is comfortably the toughest of the Arctic and sub-Arctic events. In the 24 years that the event has existed, there were only 36 finishes in the foot category, so some years nobody finishes. Unlike the Yukon race, the trail is nowhere near as hard-packed, and there is not trail support, meaning that you have a huge responsibility to look after yourself on the trail, and it can be frustratingly slow trail if it is too warm, or if there has been a lot of snowfall. After the 350-mile finish point, in a town called McGrath, there is no race support at all. Racers have to send communications to the race staff via satellite devices, to inform on when they have reached certain towns along the way.

When you say ‘slow trail’…?

This year it was too warm, and there was too much snowfall before the race, meaning the trail was soft and deep. Your feet and the sled dig-in to the trail, meaning you are really having to drag the sled along as if you are ploughing the trail. It requires a much higher workload than when it is cold and compacted, and the trail is hard – then the sled just slides along over the top.

What were the real challenges for you this year?

There were many! Starting a new job and not having a home nearby meant my training was not where I needed it to be. I had the days of training, but not the volume, which left me susceptible to overuse injuries. The conditions in Alaska were really rough a lot of people chose not to start this year, because it had been so warm and there was so much snowfall, meaning the trail was going to be mostly slow.

Within the first 200 miles of the race we cross the Alaska range, and a lot of us got stuck doing this in brutally high winds. This meant a lot of racers dropped-out, typically with respiratory problems or frostbite. This all coincided with the temperatures dropping towards -40C overnight, so the windchill added to that was pretty dangerous. I managed myself safely through that section. Although there were cold temperatures at times, it was often too warm, which, added to the snowfall that happened, meant the trail was really slow. I was dragging more kit than I would have liked, because there is so much that I might have needed to deal with over that 1000-miles, so heavy kit and slow trail were the biggest challenges.

With frostbite and respiratory problems for some racers it sounds dangerous. Were there any other dangers?

There were animal dangers throughout – moose kill people (and sled dogs) out of defensive behaviour. I saw four moose, and one of them was on the trail, necessitating me to lose time waiting for it to move along, before eventually leaving the trail a long time after. There were wolves and wolverines too, but these don’t bother people. Polar bears are out there along the coastal sections, but not near the trail (and attacks are virtually unheard of, but it is still a non-zero risk which can play on the mind).

More common dangers are overflow and open water. Overflow is where ice has fractured and water come out over the surface and started to re-freeze. Until it has fully frozen, there is a risk of falling through and getting wet. Thin ice and open water on the rivers and coastal areas can be lethal – the currents would pull you under the ice with no chance of surviving. There are specific dangers in the ITI too. When I crossed Norton Bay – a marathon distance – it was with a south wind, which I had been told to avoid at all costs. The wind destabilises the sea ice, causing the floes to break-up, and there can even be surges from the Bering Sea coming over the ice to a depth of two metres. Again, that would be a ‘game over’. During the final 40 miles there is a 10-mile section of ‘blowholes’, where the mountains funnel the winds – increasing them to 3 times or more what they are along the coast. Again, these can be lethal, and were cause for a delay in a shelter cabin – where I had to wait for the winds to ease-off and a white-out to clear. I started that final section just after midnight.

It sounds horrible – why do you do it?

A great question – and one I asked myself a lot during that race! I have been doing events in that environment over the last 15 years. For most of that, the trail has been great and the sun has been shining. For me, it is the most beautiful place in the world. It is also one of the world’s last true wildernesses. This year the race was brutal, but there were so many good times in it too – lots of special moments that nothing else could compare to. I really struggled this year – I wish the conditions had been better, that I had trained more, that I had organised my race better (food and equipment), and that I had pushed harder at the start, to get ahead of the storms that caused delays later on in the race. Still, the applications for next year’s race opened the day that I got back to the UK, and I was genuinely feeling depressed that I did not have the funds or time available to compete again next year.

How does it feel to finish an event like that?

It’s a real mix of emotions, which tend to kick-in before even reaching the finish. You know there will be relief that all the struggles paid-off and that you succeeded in reaching your goal. At the same time, there is a mounting disappointment that the adventure is coming to an end. I do not sign-up to these events because of the finish line, but because of the trail – all the incredible highs and challenging lows. All the adventure happens on the trail, so I am pining to return to it – all those hundreds of unknown wilderness miles stretching-out before me - before I have even reached the end. By the time I did finish, I already wanted to sign-up for the next year’s race.

What was on your feet?

Salomon XA Pro 3D V9s! I have been using successive iterations of XA Pro 3Ds for almost 20 years. They offer perfect comfort and stability for this environment. I opt for Gore-tex to help shift any snow that falls onto them. They are breathable and they keep my feet nice and dry. People often imagine I must need really well-insulated boots because of the cold, but that really is not the case. All the warmth comes from movement, so really I need something that is not restrictive at all, which has the added benefit of reducing the risk of certain injuries. I just wear a pair of liner socks and a thicker pair of winter hiking socks, and I am fine with that.

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So what is next?

Books! I have books due out this year about my Yukon Quest 1000 miler, and the ITI. I am hoping to have a third book out on my other experiences in the cold too. I write them to share the stories – as well as some of the science – but mostly intended to be amusing. The writing used to be a great way of enabling me to work less and train more, and I would love to get back to that. I wish I could have signed-up for the Iditarod for next year, but it took a lot to negotiate that time off work, and away from home. Maybe I will return to that the year after. I am actually taking students on an exercise physiology field trip to the Atlas Mountains in September. I’m itching to do some running, hiking and pack-rafting or paddle-boarding, but my passion for races is really for the cold stuff nowadays, so I will have to come-up with a solo event for next winter, and ideally a return to the Iditarod in 2026. It is such an epic event that nothing else comes close for me.