It has been an annus mirabilis for Finlay Wild. The Lochaber runner has raced across Europe, won numerous events and broken course records, but in this interview he says it is his love of wild places that remains his inspiration. You spent much of the early part of 2019 ski mountaineering. How does this sport…
Category: Ramsay’s Round
The Art of Suffering
The back straight on the third lap of a mile track race. The fourth lap at Parliament Hill. The ninth kilometre of ten. The final miles of your first marathon. The seventh hour of a Bob Graham Round. The fifteenth hour of a Ramsay’s Round. These are the tipping point moments of running when relative…
John Kelly’s Grand Round – a triumph of imagination
In April 2017, John Kelly became the fifteenth person to complete the Barkley Marathons. I remember watching him approach the yellow gate that marks the finish, a torn plastic bag draped around his torso offering meagre protection against the roughness of this unforgiving corner of Tennessee. But that wasn’t the story. In the same race,…
Of mountains and mattering
The Mountains are Calling came into the world a year ago today. Thank you to everyone who has bought the book, said kind things about it, and for not identifying any gross errors. Has it been successful? The book has sold well and been well received. It was long-listed for the William Hill Sports Book…
The Mountains are Calling – paperback published today
First there was the hardback and an ebook, then an audiobook, and today marks the paperback arrival of The Mountains are Calling. Little, in truth, has changed from the words of the original hardback. Graham Nash, somehow, managed to run Ramsay’s Round twice in the relatively short period after my copy deadline, taking his tally…
Lessons from Kendal
There are things I know and things, from time to time, I need to remember I know. Speaking about my book, The Mountains are Calling, at the Kendal Mountain Literature Festival, I was reminded of the latter: those precious things I must remember I know. There are far more important things than running up and…
The preciousness of time in high places
‘A trip, a slide, a tumble – how slender is our attachment to life, but how precious its gift when we are in the mountains.’ I often think of the words of Martin Moran. They refer, starkly, to death, but they also provide an eloquent summary of what it means to go to the mountains….
A question of how: running the Ring of Fire
‘It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,’ sang Ella Fitzgerald in the late 1930s (and, much later, repeated by a collaboration of Fun Boy Three and Bananarama), with the chorus ending resoundingly: ‘And that’s what gets results.’ There is a metaphor for life – and for running around in the…
365 Days of Hill Running Wisdom – May
Day 121: ‘Invincible.’ In a word, Adrian Belton explains how he felt during the 29 days he ran the Paddy Buckley, Ramsay’s Round and the Bob Graham, two of which were records. Day 122: Ewan Paterson on hill running: ‘It gives me meaning, bringing something to my life that nothing else does – very much…
The Mountains are Calling: the launch and the blog tour
The Mountains are Calling was published last week, with a launch at Edinburgh Waterstones. The book is now available in bookshops and via online sellers. Please let me know what you think of The Mountains are Calling here or via the usual social media channels. A blog tour straddled the launch. The highlights are below….
Beautiful Madness
In a life that stretches to more than 13,000 days, I can boil my existence down to five truly momentous days. The day I got I married. The day my first daughter was born. The day my second daughter was born. The day I completed the Bob Graham Round. The day I completed Ramsay’s Round….
365 days of hill running wisdom: April
Day 91: ‘Every time you go for a run, take a stone from the top of Scald Law and put it on Carnethy. We only need 3 metres off one and 3 metres added to the other if that, taking into account glacial rebound and remeasurement by the OS. We can do it!’ New identity…
Heights of Madness 