Challenge Stu

This is a blog about my Double Bob Graham Round. Many people will have heard of Nicky Spinks’ amazing double round in 2016, and perhaps of Roger Baumeister’s previous round. Roger (l) and Nicky (r) with Jasmin Paris (Photo: WeRunFar) There are a few other lesser-known completions too, by Boyd Millen in 1977, and more recently Tom Hollins. There are some amazing stories in these - I am writing an article for the Fellrunner magazine looking at the people, their approach to the double, and how each one was different, but for now this is blog is about my experience. As we know, the BG is a round of 42 Lakeland peaks, to be completed in 24 hours. A double is therefore a round of 84 peaks, to be completed in 48 hours. That’s what I’d hoped for, but spoiler alert - I finished the peaks but missed out on the time. I am told that the BG club does not specify a time limit for a double round, so mine apparently still “counts”, but either way Nicky and Roger remain the only people to...

If you just want to see the hills and schedule, scroll down to the bottom! For my ramblings, get a cup of brown water and a Vimto bar and read on.... The Peak District Round Over the years lots of us have wondered whether there should be a 24 hour round in the Peak District, or at least why there isn't one. I've had a couple of goes at finding one: The first became a 28-hour death march and ended with imaginary green bunnies ( here  for more details). The second was an attempt to combine the classic Dark Peak 15 trigs with the lesser-known 11 trigs in the White Peak. Pete Simpson combined the two in 1991, but made a mistake and added Flask Edge too (hopefully winning him the Pertex Trophy?!). I hoped to retain Pete's folly and add another trig, but on the day only managed to add Ox Stones (words about this one here ). This took 23:42 and was slightly over 100 miles, giving us a viable 27 trig "Peak BG", but the White Peak 11 don't make for a nice route - th...

Right, here we go then. Apologies if this all gets a bit deep and meaningful. What do you write about winning a race you've dreamed of winning since you started running? The first time I finished the Fellsman was in 2008. It took over 18 hours. I'd retired the year before - my only memory of that is four of us sitting around a Camping Gaz lantern in a stinking wet tent and whining pathetically as we tried to get warm, then eventually being taken to the finish in a Land Rover. My first completion was with Wil Spain in completely different weather and was more successful, but still felt pretty tough. It broke me for weeks and was the hardest thing I'd done. Wil chasing a sheep. Screenshot from a video (that I'm not giving you a link to). After finishing in the middle of the night we slept in a little tent in the car park till about lunchtime, then nearly pulled it down when we tried to stand up and get out. 2008 was actually a notable year in Fellsman history, b...

After last year's attempt , it seemed inevitable that I would have another go at a winter BG. I'd rectify all the mistakes I made last year: I'd take a spare torch rather than just more batteries, I'd do some recceing to make sure I knew the way, and I'd wait for the weather to be good. Yeah? Well at least I did the spare torch one. The weather looked a bit grim, and I definitely hadn't recced other than supporting the Dark Peak attempt in the summer, but this time I wouldn't be alone... I'd recruited the ridiculously young and ridiculously speedy Tom Saville to join me. After lots of thinking, planning, shopping, and having taken a couple of days off work, we debated calling it off any doing something else, but on Thursday morning we finally decided to go and have a look. We'd call it a recce and see how far we got... Besides, we had far too much food not to go. Far too much food to postpone it! We were to be generously accomodated...