Feet in the Clouds

‘A masterpiece’ The Sunday Times
‘The pure essence of trail running, infectious and captivating’ Scott Jurek, bestselling author of Eat and Run
‘One of the best books about the extremes of sporting endeavour that you will ever read’ Independent on Sunday 
Twenty years since it was first published, Feet in the Clouds by Richard Askwith remains the definitive story of fell-running and a modern sports classic.
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.

Introduction by Robert Macfarlane
A hard place
Scenes from a fell-running year: January
The basics
Scenes from a fell-running year: February
A long day’s journey into folly
Rocks around the clock
Scenes from a fell-running year: March
The mists of time
What price tradition?
Scenes from a fell-running year: April
Bill gone home yet?
Scenes from a fell-running year: May
The club
The flying gardener
Scenes from a fell-running year: June
The Londoner
King Billy
Fell science
The Legend of Iron Joss
Scenes from a fell-running year: July
Risk and responsibility
Lost and found
Scenes from a fell-running year: August
Hallowed turf
A dying art
Scenes from a fell-running year: September
Highland things
Scenes from a fell-running year: October
A talent to endure
Scenes from a fell-running year: November
Sub-twenty-four
Scenes from a fell-running year: December
Over the hill
The view from here
Epilogue: 2021
Acknowledgments