Soft flabby southern journalist, Richard Askwith, investigates the arcane culture of fell running and emerges leaner, meaner, and a heck of a lot fitter.
Richard Askwith's journey takes him into a world of forbidding rocky hills, horizontal rain, fear, exhaustion and stunning natural beauty, as well as one of the sport's purest and toughest challenges: the Bob Graham Round, running 42 Lake District peaks in 24 hours. Along the way, he encounters some of the most prodigious - and unsung - athletes that Britain has produced, such as Joss Naylor, who covered the equivalent of four Everests in a single run.
Gripping, funny and moving, Feet in the Clouds is a story that any aspiring runner, endurance athlete or mountain-lover will understand well: of extremity, heroism and the experience of a lifetime. With a fully revised epilogue and an introduction from bestselling author Robert Macfarlane, this is a complete portrait of one of the few sports to have remained utterly true to its roots - in which the point is not fame or fortune but to run the ancient, wild landscape, and to be a hero, if at all, within one's own valley.
Eight pages of black and white photos.
By Richard Askwith.
Card cover, 20cm x 13cm, 352 pages.
First published 2004. This reissue 2024. Published by Aurum Press.
ISBN: 978-0-71129-192-8.