Pete And The BG – An Ultra Running Adventure

This past weekend I was mostly following a dot on a map. The map is of Keswick and the surrounding area, and the lines of the route that the dot had been moving along, create a very jagged triangle. It starts and finishes at the Keswick Moot Hall and goes over forty-two of the Lake District’s finest peaks (26,900 feet of ascent) for around sixty-six miles. This route is quite famous in some circles and is known as the Bob Graham Round. 

One of our club members, Pete, was attempting to get into a hallowed club and complete the Bob Graham within twenty-four hours, beginning at six in the evening on Friday night. He had tried once before and didn’t manage it because his energy was sapped by the heat of the day. This time, the forecast was cooler with the possibility of rain, which was much more to his liking.

The Bob Graham Round has been a route since 1932, when a Mr Robert Graham, who lived in Keswick, ran it. I didn’t realise that it might almost have been called the Freddie Spencer Chapman round instead, because Mr Chapman had tried to do the same route, albeit in reverse, just a month before. In fact, our Bob went up to the hills to help crew for him, taking some hot chocolate for Freddie to sip on. I also didn’t realise that there was a trend for twenty-four-hour feats at the time, with various runners trying to push the number of peaks they could manage within the space of a day. As Freddie did not get all forty-two in the time frame, our Bob had a go at his route the following month. He’d done some of his training in bare feet, especially on the tops, just to save the wear on his plimsolls, and that had evidently toughened him up because he hit his mark in twenty-three hours and thirty-nine minutes on Sunday 12^th June, and just a sliver of Monday, having begun his attempt at one in the morning.

It was a record that stood until 1960, by which time the route had become famous as a challenge amongst people who like that sort of thing. I like that sort of thing, vicariously, which is why I was willing this dot to keep moving forward from the comfort of my armchair. I did actually wish that I was fit enough to help crew just one leg (there are five) of the journey but luckily there were several Pensbies in the mix of people helping Pete, which was so lovely to see. 

It was nail-biting, with my cup of tea and biscuits wondering if the dot was going to make it all the way around the loop. Occasionally there were a few photos that crew members posted on Strava and social media. Pete looked smiley in some of them, and, shall we say, “determined” in others. The forecast rain did fall on the Saturday and the waterproofs came out, but still the dot kept inching forward. He passed Great Gable peak, in the penultimate section at 13:42. This was momentous because it was this peak that had got the better of him in his first attempt. He then got to Honister, where the final leg started, at a quarter to three in the afternoon. This gave him just three hours to get the final three peaks in and then do a very long ten miles back to Keswick Moot Hall.

According to Jeff, who is also BG 24-hour club member:  “It took me 42min to get from Robinson summit [the final peak] down to the road, then an hour along the lanes to Keswick. So, he needs to summit Robinson by 4.15 at the very latest, preferably around 4.”

Reader, he got to the top of Robinson at 16:03, and then an hour and a half later he climbed the few, but probably excruciating, steps up the side of the hall and slapped the door. He ended up with a time very similar to Mr Bob Graham himself, with just under half an hour left. It was emotional watching the video of his final run into the town, as he dodged the market traders taking down their stalls for the end of the day. 

They all cheered him though, as I suspect everyone from Keswick knows what the Bob Graham is, and how much a person taking those final steps has done to get there. I can’t even begin to fathom how someone keeps that endurance up for a full twenty-four hours. It was phenomenal to witness, even if it was only via the dot. 

Pete’s highlights of the adventure were: running off Skiddaw on lovely soft grass, the sunset over Mungrisdale on leg 1, the stars in a clear sky over Helvellyn, the sun coming up over Langdale valley, the scramble up Lords Rake, getting up Great Gable & down again with decent energy levels (I knew I could do it then)  and … the whole of leg 5.

His icing on the cake was meeting the great ultra runner, Jasmin Paris at the Keswick Mountain Festival, the following day. I think they might have had quite a lot to talk about, as Jasmin is a former women’s record holder of the route. He also raised some money for the terrific but sadly much needed charity, Doctors Without Borders, and his fundraising page is below.