Paul Fennessy

20 YEARS AGO, when Richard Askwith was getting ready to publish his first book, about fell-running, expectations were not particularly high.

The feeling was that it would sell a couple of hundred copies at best.

After all, its subject was and remains, a niche sport.

Yet the book connected with a wider audience than expected, selling in the tens of thousands eventually.

It also received considerable acclaim. It was shortlisted for the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize. The Sunday Times dubbed it “a masterpiece” and The Independent on Sunday described it as “one of the best books about the extremes of sporting endeavour that you will ever read”.

Two decades on, ‘Feet in the Clouds: A Tale of Fell-Running and Obsession’ remains as impactful and fascinating as ever.

It is a story about the author’s gradual immersion into the world of fell-running, from painstaking attempts to tackle one of the sport’s most formidable and famous challenges — the Bob Graham Round — to interviewing several iconic figures.

To an extent, it is also a portrait of a vanished world. What distinguished the top fell runners documented is their humble nature and sheer disinterest in fame or fortune — qualities that seem even starker reading the book in the post-Instagram age.

The 42 recently caught up with Askwith to reflect on this seminal sports book, how it came to fruition and why it reads differently in a modern context.

What made you decide to write the book? 

There was never remotely a plan to do a book about fell-running initially. I’d got into running years earlier, as a source of health and well-being.

And then I was introduced to fell-running in my early 30s. Initially, it didn’t occur to me that it would become a passion, I thought it was just something that I would try once or twice because it was an interesting thing to try.

But then gradually, because I got involved in trying to do this ridiculous challenge called the Bob Graham Round, and failing to do it. And then I found myself sucked into this compulsion to keep coming back and doing more and more of it.

For years and years, a decade and a half, I was doing a lot of fell-running, going up to the Lake District and elsewhere at ridiculous times. And all that time I hadn’t thought about writing about it.

I was earning a living as a journalist, thinking: ‘I want to do more.’ I’d been trying to write a book about this and that, but nothing came out. I kept abandoning things. I was doing plays, poems and screenplays, but nothing worked.

And in my early 40s, I suddenly realised: ‘The most interesting thing in my life is this thing that I’ve been doing for all these years.’ Not only was it occupying so much of my waking life, but I was also meeting such amazing and inspiring people.

The whole culture of fell-running seemed so exciting and wonderful and life-enhancing. It seemed crazy not to write about it.

And I was lucky that simultaneously there was a publisher, Graham Coster at Aurum Press, looking for someone to write a book about fell-running because he discovered the sport and thought it was wonderful. 

I did further research, specifically trying to get material for the book. But at the same time, I had a lot of stuff in my memory bank. Now and then, I wrote down a few notes about my experiences, because they seemed so vivid and important.

But then I’d always say: ‘No one’s going to want to read about fell-running.’ I think that was my overwhelming thought until some time after it was published.

Athletes compete in a fell-running event. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Your attempts to complete the Bob Graham Round is the primary idea that animates the book. Was that happening before or while the book was being written?

That happened before I started writing the book. I’m still quite vague about the time scale of various points in the book because, on the one hand, there’s this strand of one particular fell-running year running through the book.

There are 12 chapters, one for each month, I think that year was 2003. I’m going to all these races, and hearing about all the other races people are doing. But the Bob Graham Round already had happened by that time.

At the same time, I was also talking to people who set records for the Bob Graham Round or other amazing long-distance challenges.

So it all became a bit of a jumble. But it seemed to work somehow because I always thought no one was going to want to read about me and my experiences, I shouldn’t put any of this in.

But when I started writing about people like [accomplished fell runners] Joss Naylor, Billy Bland, Kenny Stuart or Helene Diamantides — I knew they were interesting. All I need to do is write down what they did and said, and people will be interested.

So writing those interviews gave me the confidence to put in a bit about myself. And I think it was important when I was interviewing these people, some of the greatest athletes of Britain’s ever produced, to do the same challenges as them, but at a much lower level, so I could at least understand what they were talking about.

Everything that had previously been written about fell-running, was either by people who were just very good at the sport, but inside the sport and didn’t understand how weird it seemed to outsiders. Or it was written by journalists who’d never tried the sport so they didn’t have a sense of what it was like.

Do you have a favourite of all the characters in the book?

For many people, Joss Naylor will always be the ultimate fell-running character, because he was so indestructible, brave and generous in his dealings with the world. As an interviewee, he was probably not one of the most exciting.

Speaking to someone like Billy Bland who is a much more eccentric figure, much more difficult figure, some people say — although I always found him incredibly kind and charming — it was much more fun. But at the same time, there’s only one Joss Naylor.

But also, what I liked about doing that book was there were very different people. And it’s almost hard to see what they had in common

I remember interviewing Bill Teasdale, a great fell runner of the 1950s and 1960s who hardly anyone has heard of anymore. And I think he left Cumbria once in his life. And he was living in this tiny little cottage and most of his fellow villagers didn’t know he was there. It was just his dog and him going off for walks in the fells.

I felt so lucky to be able to talk to him and once he started reminiscing about how he used to live — he’d do the farming and then go off on his bicycle or hitch a lift or something to go to a race. Then he’d win it and have to work out how to get back again. And then when he did get back, he had to do more farm work.

It’s giving a glimpse into the world that didn’t exist anymore. And that also felt like a fantastic, interesting thing to do.

The popularity and nature of what constitutes fell running has changed in the 20 years since the book's publication. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The purity of the sport shines through. Yet in the new chapter for the 20th-anniversary edition, you suggest the sport has become corporate and less pure. Is that a fair way of putting it?

I think so. It’s hard to measure because everyone disagrees about where fell-running stops and where trail running or ultra running starts. There’s been a lot of change in the last 20 years. Fell-running no longer has the fells to itself — there has been a huge explosion in ultra and trail running.

Since 2000, the ultra-running market has grown by about 1700% or something like that. I read somewhere that the trail running shoe market is worth $8 billion a year globally.

Insane numbers of people are doing these things. And there’s a lot of contrast in how those races take place, and the traditional fell race where it’s simple, all you need is a pair of studded shoes, or in some cases not even that.

And you bring your safety pins and are told: ‘Here’s the start, you’ve got to go to the top and come back.’ And it’s just you and the mountain. It’s not about equipment, it’s about your inner resources rather than things money can buy.

But I think if you look at some of the biggest ultra-running events in the world, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, they had 26,000 people applying to run last year.

There are qualification races and branded leisurewear that you can buy. It’s much more like the mainstream running industry.

The good thing about that is that it has empowered people who had just been running on roads or doing marathons to realise that you can stretch yourself, and have adventures running.

They can have a managed, safe experience in a trail race. And they pay quite a lot of money for it. But it works for them. And for some people, maybe that’s an entry path into something.

I think fell-running is a more extreme sport in terms of the terrain you’re doing, and sometimes the speed at which people are trying to do things. That certainly doesn’t suit everybody.

And I think there’s a slight culture clash between hardcore traditional fell runners and the softcore urban trail runners venturing onto the fells. They’re not always looking at it in the same way.

And so you get top runners who have kit sponsors, for example. Most modern elite fell-runners have social media accounts.

And there are better kits. There’s all this running science that has gone into stadium athletics, and marathon running and things like that, that same running science is going into off-road running as well.

People are better with nutrition for races, having special pouches, gels and things like that, devised with endurance running in mind.

Whereas 20-30 years ago, smart nutrition was putting a bit of salt in your orange squash.

And so, there’s a very high standard at the elite level of fell-running. But some of the records I wrote about in ‘Feet in the Clouds,’ the Bob Graham Round, the Pennine Way, they’re held by Americans now. The most famous mountain runner in the world, Kílian Jornet, is a full-time athlete.

So it’s a different world from when shepherds, gatekeepers, and gardeners were going off in their spare time and seeing how fast they get around the local mountain. 

The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, which attracts thousands of entries every years. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

It’s a portal into a world that no longer exists, right?

Absolutely. It was such a modest culture, all these unbelievable athletes. Many of them could easily have competed in the Olympics, rather than what they were doing.

You’d meet them and you would never know there is anything exceptional about them. They wouldn’t say: ‘I’m a champion, I’ve done this and that.’ You’d get to the end of the race and you’d meet them, they’d be asking: ‘How did you get on?’ Or they’d be talking about the weather and the scenery.

It was a very egalitarian sport. Everyone will line up on the same start line. The champions and all the people like me at the back — we’d wash in the same stream afterwards. That gave the sport a wonderful character. And that’s why a lot of us love it.

You tend to find that a few high-profile, big races have changed in character. There are far more people, different expectations, far more razzmatazz and far more kit and sponsorship, etc. But the vast majority of fell races are still local events, and most people barely know they’re going on.

And it is still the sort of thing that no one in their right mind would do unless they love mountains and running and can’t resist the challenge.

Would you still compete these days? And would you have kept in touch with some of the characters in the book?

I still go up to the fells. I compete occasionally, very slowly.

I still keep in touch with my old fell-running friends. But time takes its toll on them as well. They’re not all around anymore. Of those who are still around, a lot of them can’t run anymore.

The most sobering thing about the book being 20 years old is to realise time passes. And it’s not just your own life that passes. It’s a whole world that passes. And so when I wrote ‘Feet in the Clouds,’ I thought I was writing about contemporary life. I look at it now, and [realise] I was writing about ancient history, a lost world, which includes part of my life.

You write about the sheer joy and relief you get when you finish one of these events. Do you think that applies to everyone? Do elite athletes experience that relief as much as average runners, or are they built differently and more likely to relish the experience?

It’s a good question. I’ve always wondered that and tried asking. It’s never really been answered.

I spent a lot of time thinking: ‘Is it just me?’ My joints get cold and my legs start wobbling. And you think: ‘I don’t want to be doing this.’

I think they experience the same pain as the rest of us. They push themselves so much harder and faster. I get to a point and think: ‘I can’t stand this, I’ve got to ease off.’ They reach this point of seemingly intolerable distress and think: ‘I’ve got to push myself further.’

I wrote a book a few years ago about Emil Zatopek, the great Czech runner. And his motto was: ‘When you can’t keep going, go faster.’ This is a bonkers thing, but I think that’s what champions do.

But one of the great champions famously said: ‘It feels great when it’s over, doesn’t it?’ It does.

And what’s wonderful about fell-running is not just the thrill of a race being over, but you’ve survived all these other things. You’ve just run down a rocky mountain slope, and you haven’t broken your legs, you haven’t come last, you haven’t become lost and you haven’t frozen to death, all these potential hazards, and you’ve survived them all.

What I’ve sometimes found is during the race, I thought: ‘I can’t go on, I’ve got to give up.’

And what’s kept me going is knowing you have to keep going because otherwise, you die on the mountainside. But then you get to the end a few hours later. And you think: ‘Wow, I’ve just done something that a few hours ago I thought was impossible.’

A fell runner reaching the summit of Place Fell at sunset. English Lake District. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

When you wrote the book originally, you described it as an “old man’s sport” as there weren’t many younger competitors coming through. It’s different now?

Yeah, there are a lot more young people coming into it now. And I think that’s great. It contributes to the change of style and values.

Old people are still doing it because it’s such a great sport that they don’t want to give up.

But when I wrote ‘Feet in the Clouds,’ there was this worry that the whole sport was dying out.

And I think now maybe as a result partly of the trail and ultra running boom, more young people are aware of it, more people think there’s a bit more glamour to it, people want to try it again, so it’s in rude health.

And now that I’m an old person, I’ve got to say it’s a lot harder to do. I hadn’t realised how much harder it was going to get.

At the same time, I remember the last time I was doing a race and struggling. And it was a night race, it was in the dark, and it was wet and foggy. And it just seemed to go on and on and on.

And I was feeling sorry for myself. And I thought: ‘Don’t be stupid. Here I am. I’m 64, and messing about in puddles and rocks, like a child.’ And this was fantastic, I should be so grateful to be able to do this.

And as we get older, we get much more grateful for being able to get out and enjoy the wonderful mountains.

20 years on, can you sum up the book’s legacy?

At the time, I thought it would introduce people to the world of fell-running.

I think now it’s slightly more like reminding people of what the world of fell-running used to be like. But I hope it will also give a sense of what the world of fell-running ought to be like.

‘Feet in the Clouds’ is a book populated by dozens of wonderful people. And if the book can still give readers a sense of that, I think that gives them something to aspire to, and I hope it will continue to be the sort of wonderful, friendly, inclusive, constructive, life-enhancing sport that it used to be.

Would it be fair to say both the experience and writing the book had a life-changing effect?

I think so. Certainly trying to do the Bob Graham and things like that gave me a much greater belief that I could take on daunting tasks, and big challenges. When I felt I might not finish something, if I believed in myself, maybe I could.

That led to writing a book — a similarly big, daunting challenge. ‘Maybe I’m not capable of doing this, but I’m going to have a try anyway.’ And I hope I’ve taken that attitude with me in life, and I’ll carry on doing so when I’m thinking: ‘Do I want to do this?’ I’ll think: ‘Well, I’ll give it a go and see what happens.’

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

‘Feet in the Clouds: A Tale of Fell-Running and Obsession’ is published by Aurum Press. More info here.