This is exactly what you'd want to use root motion to accomplish (just to make sure, you know there is a Root Motion unity script for Skeletons/Mecanim? I think it was added around 6 months ago).
If you absolutely don't want to use root motion, you could probably move the character when you switch between animations (to basically counteract the fact that the character is getting 'reverted' back to the root bone being at 0,0), but that would be tricky.
I would suggest testing out root motion on a super basic spine project, and then applying it to your real characters. Once you have it set up its super nice and easy to use!