Winner of 'Best New Writer' – British Sports Publishing Awards.
Winner of the 'Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape and Tradition' – Lakeland Book Awards
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and for the Boardman-Tasker Prize.
An inspiring insight into one of the oldest extreme sports, and a lyrical tribute to Britain’s mountains and the men and women who live among them, this is the definitive story of fell-running.
With an introduction from bestselling author Robert Macfarlane, this is a complete portrait of one of the few sports to have remained utterly true to its roots – in which the point is not fame or fortune but to run the ancient, wild landscape, and to be a hero, if at all, within one’s own valley.
Richard Askwith’s journey takes him into a world of forbidding rockscapes, horizontal rain, fear, exhaustion and stunning natural beauty, as well as his own attempt at one of the purest and toughest challenges imaginable: the Bob Graham Round, the sport’s traditional test of 42 Lake District peaks in 24 hours.
Along the way, he encounters some of the most prodigious – and unsung – athletes Britain has produced, such as Joss Naylor, who covered the equivalent of four Everests in a single run. Gripping, funny and moving, this is a story that any aspiring runner, endurance athlete or mountain-lover will understand well: of extremity, heroism and the experience of a lifetime.