History of Wainwright Runs

I have just seen my last post was over three weeks ago and I was going to try and blog every week. Oh well I will try and do better from now on!

Below is a brief history lesson on people who have attempted to run the Wainwrigths as quickly as possible. If anyone knows of any other attempts then it would be great if you could let me know.

Chris Bland - 1981
Chris attempted a Wainwright book a day for seven days. On each day he started and finished at a church – raising money for  a church roof in Borrowdale. Here is a list of how many Wainwrights he made each day compared with the number in the book.

Eastern fells 35/35 completed

Far eastern fells 27/36 completed

Central Fells 27/27 peaks completed

Southern Fells 17/30 completed

Northern Fells 24/24 completed

North Western Fells  29/29 completed

Western Fells 33/33 completed

He obviously failed to complete them all but it was a great attempt.

Alan Heaton - 1985

Alan started and finished in Keswick and did a round of all 214 in the order best suited to a continuous circuit. i.e he ignored which book they came from.

Total time 9 days 16 hours

Including visit to Keswick hospital for some antibiotics for inflamed foot.

Joss Naylor M.B.E - 1987

Joss started and finished in Keswick and like Alan he ignored which book they came from. But his route was slightly different to Alan's.

Total time 7 days 1 hours

Joss had a heatwave for the first 5 days and suffered badly from swollen feet, hands and mouth

I do not know of anyone how has attempted this since Joss did it 27 years ago. So it is about time someone had another go! I am following Alan and Joss' way of doing it by ignoring which book the Wainwrights came from. I am also changing the route, as Joss did, but following tradition by starting at finishing in Keswick.

I have had a busy few weeks.One highlight was helping two famous Americans (Scott Jurek and Rickey Gates) on their Bob Graham round. They showed great style by just turning up and doing it with a small group of supporters after a hard weeks training. They succeeded and we had a great evening on the fourth leg. The picture below shows dusk on Pillar with the moon rising over Great Gable.

Another highlight was helping out at the Berghaus Trail Running team event at Helvellyn Youth Hostel (https://www.facebook.com/trailrunningteam). We had a couple of really good runs and it was great being there and seeing the enthusiasm of everyone and how much they were enjoying running in the Lake District. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am to live here.

I have also set up pages to two MS charities I am raising money for.