His best day occurred on one of the several occasions when he did the Bob Graham Round, 42 Lakeland fells (including Helvellyn, Scafell and Skiddaw) over 66 miles, with nearly 30,000 feet of ascent and descent, in less than 24 hours. It began in the pouring June rain and pre-dawn dark on a ridge of Helvellyn; improved when he made it down to Threlkeld for jam butties, hot tea and fresh socks; and improved yet more with the crimson glow of sunrise beyond Bowscale Fell, before he climbed the last two peaks. On the flank of Skiddaw, looking up at the great grey mountain, he suddenly lost heart. But “Come on, lad,” one of his pacers urged him. “You’ve nearly cracked it.”
– Excerpted from the obituary of Bill Smith
With any physical training ask your doctor first before embarking on any program.
Running has been a staple of my training for as long as I have been training, and although I haven’t had a run like Bill Smith’s yet I have been fortunate in that I have been able to enjoy running for years with only minimal injuries, and also that I have been able to run in so many diverse and interesting locations. But running isn’t the be all and end all. It’s merely one tool in the fitness toolbox. And like any tool it can be the wrong tool for the job, and if not handled correctly can be at best useless or at worst dangerous. For me the absolute best thing about running however; is how minimalist it is. It requires next to nothing. In its most primitive and base form it actually does require nothing. You can run naked in bare feet. But let’s just say that you have a scrap of decency, and some common sense. All you need then are some shoes and clothing suitable for the weather and you can run almost anywhere and at anytime. You can just step out of the door and go. Once you get into running and begin to understand the science you can if you wish take advantage of training pulse rates, anaerobic thresholds, interval training, hill repeats, and all those kinds of things. And if you evolve far enough as a runner you may begin to forget all of that science stuff and just run. I place different emphasis on running based on what I am training for and the time of year. Typically I find that will actually run more in the winter months. On average I only run two to three times per week in the summer, and maybe up to four or five times per week in the winter. This is mostly due to practical reasons related to the amount of cycling I do, which unfortunately is currently diminished in the snowy months. I run less for fitness than I used to, having found other tools more effective; but it still has its place in my training; and I still do it just because…
One thing I especially do like though is running in extreme conditions. Think about running in forty degrees Celsius in Las Vegas, minus forty degrees Celsius in Northern Alberta, monsoon rains in Tucson, dodging Columbian drug dealers in Corona, or doing laps of the parking garage at DFW airport. If a person can make a good accounting of themselves in these conditions, imagine then how it is for them running down a deserted forest trail on a cool fall morning, over a carpet of orange and gold leaves with the sun just rising out of the mist and into a cloudless sky.
It’s 1980 in the summertime. I am stationed on an army base, working in the base headquarters. Typically I spend a good part of my lunch break running as do many others on base. For some reason the Army and running seem to go together like gin and tonic. Every day I run pretty much the same route and I see many of the same people. As is common, especially on the more remote parts of the run, runners will often nod, wave, or make some kind of acknowledgement or recognition of one another. Some sort of camaraderie or brotherhood kind of thing I guess. There is this one old guy however; and I see him every day. He never makes eye contact, or any other sign that he sees you. He runs at a good clip, fast leg turnover, looking straight ahead. Totally focused on the matter at hand it seems, or maybe he is just anti-social. In any event he totally ignores me and presumably everyone else he sees. As the summer wears on a heat wave develops. It gets brutal. As the temps climb the number of runners starts to decrease in proportion. Its gets well into triple digits and the runners have all but disappeared. It’s real frying an egg on the sidewalk weather. One day I am way out there at the farthest point on my run…the heat is shimmering off the pavement in waves, only grasshoppers and scarecrows for company as I complete this death shuffle down the deserted country roads past the farm fields. When what do I see materializing out of the asphalt mirage, but the old guy, running towards me on the opposite side of the road. When we are abreast, and much to my surprise, he looks over and calls out in a clear voice with a thick Teutonic accent…” I see only zee fittest run today”