The runners who are a breed apart

The Ovenden runners will be tackling a relatively modest course: eight miles, with a total climb of 1,200ft. It is practically a fun run compared to some of the sport?s most mind-boggling challenges: the Ben Nevis race, for example, up and down Britain?s highest mountain (4,406ft), for which the record is a scarcely believable 1 hour 25 minutes.

But the daddy of them all, the holy grail of the fell runner, is the Bob Graham Round, named after the Keswick guesthouse owner who, in the Thirties, was the first athlete to achieve it: ascents and descents of 42 Lakeland peaks in 24 hours. That?s a distance of 70 miles with total climbs of 27,000ft.

Askwith, a journalist and journeyman amateur runner, managed it, eventually, at the cost of great physical pain and mental anguish. ?It can be very painful,? he stoically admits. ?But there would be no sense of satisfaction without the pain.?

Askwith has never won a fell race, and admits that he is never likely to. But that is, for him, beside the point. ?You are not really racing your opponents,? he says. ?Really you are competing against the mountain.?

Just as well, then, that there is little or no prize money to be had in fell running. The legends of the sport all have day jobs but are happiest mingling with their fans and fellow enthusiasts in a mist-shrouded valley, waiting for the starter?s gun. The thought that their sport might be discovered by the masses fills many fell runners with horror. Askwith?s book has never been out of print since it was first published eight years ago, but the sale of the film rights some years ago created ripples of unease among the devotees of the sport online.

?They didn?t like the idea that the fells might suddenly be flooded by moviegoers,? Askwith says. ?I sympathise. People who don?t know what they?re doing can be a danger to themselves and to others. But I think that outcome is pretty remote. I don?t think telling people about fell running is going to create a nation of fell runners, any more than the Olympics is going to create a nation of non-couch-potatoes.?

• Feet in the Clouds (Aurum) is available from Telegraph Books for �8.99 plus 99p p&p. Telephone 0844 971 1515 for details or go to books.telegraph.co.uk

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/569020/s/1b985a54/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Chealth0Cdietandfitness0C8998810A0CThe0Erunners0Ewho0Eare0Ea0Ebreed0Eapart0Bhtml/story01.htm

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