Official Sites

The official site of the Bob Graham 24 Hour Club. The site contains a short history, along with various PDF documents that may be downloaded.

This was maintained by Mike Sadula but sadly he passed away in early 2009 and the content of the site is now hosted on the the BG club website.

Information Sites

Other good sources on the web for training and nutrition are best found on marathon and ultra-marathon training sites. In the case of any medical advice, it would be best to confirm the information from either your local GP or at least get them to put you in touch with a doctor who specialises in sports.

A site specifically aimed at long distance challenges in the UK. Routes are often mentioned briefly in the Fellrunner magazine only to then disappear into the mists of time. One of the noble but dubious objectives of this site is to ensure details of such routes are preserved for the benefit of present and future generations! More routes will be added on a periodic basis endeavouring, where possible, to include a selection of long, short, old, recent, formal and informal runs from different areas.

A very detailed training site for sports in general with a section on the BGR. The training schedule presented here is very intensive and may not suit everyone, certainly for myself it does not allow much recovery time (age!). Other than that the advice on nutrition and fluid intake is useful.

A sound look at diet and fluid intake for endurance events. There are just enough facts and figures to avoid going into scientific overload.

Weather sites

Weather forecasting for mountain areas is very fickle (much like the weather) and looking at five different sources will often produce five different forecasts! Try and be as flexible as you can in planning as good weather forecast on Thursday morning may be thunderstorms by the evening.

I have found this to be the most pessimistic of the weather sites. On the other hand, personal experience has tended to bear this out!

A basic forecasting service, more for the towns than the fells.

Provided by the LDNP there is a three day and a seven day forecast available.

Simple text based forecast.

Personal Accounts

These sites are basic accounts of attempts, successful and otherwise on the BGR. Some are quite colourful, others make you wonder how the participants managed to complete their round.

Not an account as such but a single page containing a personal schedule from 1975.
Tony sells secondhand mountaineering and fell-running books so the main part of his site is worth a look for some of the books below.

An account of the first Northern Irish attempt on the BGR.

A multi-sports site that has some basic information on the BGR.

An account of a failed attempt in bad weather.

In fact the above account by Martin Rands is just one of several accounts by members of this club. The schedule of Billy Bland’s record round is recorded here, should you wish to challenge it!

Accounts of three rounds from 2006.

The oldest person to do the round is Brian Leathley who achieved the feat at the age of 66 on his fourth attempt.

An account of Yiannis Trimidis’s attempts and eventual success on a sixty top round at the age of sixty. Not for the faint-hearted!

Simon Halliday’s account of his winter round, which he did in the same year as his summer round.

An account of a 2009 success along with details of a low mileage training plan.

Books

Running is not as rich a vein when it comes to books as a sport like mountaineering. Fell running even less so, books can almost be counted on the fingers. The following are those few that are relevant to the Bob Graham Round.

One set of books worth getting is the Wainwright pictorial series (in seven volumes) to the Lakeland fells. The descriptions therein of the summits and paths are still valid today.

A well written book (by Richard Askwith) that covers fell running in general and both the history and stories of his own attempts on the BGR

One of the earlier books on fell running history (1985) written by Bill Smith. The book was privately published (a print run of 1800 apparently) and is long out of print. The link is a Google search for the title.

This is, in effect, the official history of the Bob Graham Round. A pamphlet rather than a book. The link is to Pete Bland’s web site as I have seen copies of this at his travelling sales van at various running events.
The pamphlet covers the story of early rounds prior to Bob Graham’s own round along with the history of subsequent attempts up to the end of 1982. It also covers the history of the 24hr record - that is attempting on foot as many peaks as possible in a 24hr period.

There is a second edition available. This does not have the list of successful contenders but extends the history to the end of the 2004 season. The ISBN is “”