I love to run up hills. I know, it’s a weird thing to say. If the weather is cold, and the hill is steep, I love it even more. There’s something about landscapes like these that draw you in, and the people who live there invariably make games of traversing the hills and valleys that surround them.
You may not have heard of fell running, a niche variety of trail running, mainly practiced in the United Kingdom. A fell is a high, barren landscape, like the rough, green hills of the Lake District or the Pennine Dales or even the smaller peaks of North Wales.
Every sport has its legends, and Joss Naylor, a taciturn sheep farmer from the Lake District, was the King of the Fells.
The Dales and Lake District, where Naylor lived, are a maze of “rounds,” established loops of wildly varying distances with which to test endurance and mettle, the most famous of which is the Bob Graham Round, which asks runners to cross 42 fells in a 24-hour period. It’s a 66-mile course with 26,900 feet of ascent. Fell running, on the scale that legends like Naylor practiced it, are equal parts ultra-marathoning, orienteering and spiritual quest.
Joss Naylor was simply faster than everyone else. Many of his most epic runs were done in extreme weather, heavy storms, heat waves. He was famously, almost obstinately, modest as well, rejecting most efforts to get him to talk about his exploits. In another time, he would have been a global star. Instead, he became a beacon for the small community of fell runners, who have made very little effort to commercialize their running, preferring the community and comradery of what many view as a lunatic’s pursuit.
Naylor’s Fell-running Achievements
His fell running achievements included successive peak bagging records within the scope of the Bob Graham Round:[6]
- 1971: 61 peaks in 23h37m
- 1972: 63 peaks in 23h35m
- 1975: 72 peaks, claimed to involve over 100 miles and about 38,000 feet of ascent in 23h20m (record stood until 1988)
His other fell running achievements included:
- 1971: The National Three Peaks Challenge (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon): 11 hours 54 minutes including driving time
- 1973: The Welsh 3000s – the 14 peaks of Snowdonia in 4 hours 46 minutes (record stood until 1988)
- 1974: The Pennine Way: 3 days, 4 hours, 36 minutes (record stood until 1975)[7]
- 1976: Robin Hood Bay to St Bees: 41 hours
- 1979: The Lyke Wake Walk: 4 hours 53 minutes (set during the annual race)[8] (record stood until 1981)
- 1983: The Lakes, Meres and Waters circuit of 105 miles: 19 hours 20 minutes
- 1986: (age 50) completed the Wainwrights in 7 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes[9] (record stood until 2014)
- 1997: (age 60) ran 60 Lakeland fell tops in 36 hours
- 2006: (age 70) ran 70 Lakeland fell tops, covering more than 50 miles and ascending more than 25,000 feet, in under 21 hours.
Joss Naylor was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1976. He died last year, at 88.