Feet in the clouds

Just finnished reading this fantastic book about fell running by Richard askwith. Fell running is an area I haven't really got into much in the past, although I have done a fair amount of fell walking. My fell running career so far has consisted of running the stanhope fell race for the last 2 years (around 6 miles), but it's something I have enjoyed and want to do more of and I have entered the Chevy chase this year as a first step.
The book is partly a history of fell running including biographies of giants such as joss naylor, billy bland and Kenny Stuart and partly a story of the authors battle and final success on his 4th attempt to achieve arguably one of the toughest endurance events in the world - the bob graham round.
This isn't an organized event, but rather an invidually arranged traverse of 42 of the highest peaks in the lake district over a distance of 72 miles which has to be achieved in 24 hours.
One thing I have learnt from the book and from my own experiences in fell running is that is is a very different beast to any other type of running. Although the uphill sections are undoubtably tough I think that the key to succesfull fell running is the ability to run quickly downhill, frequently over unstable terrain such as peat bog, ankle snapping grassy tufts and rocky ground.
Basically there are 2 options:
1. Cautious style - hold back on the descent to reduce the risk of falling arse over tit or snapping your ankles in half.
2. Kamikaze style - a headlong descent into the abyss with no regard to personal safety as fast as is physically possible (which according to some stories in the book led to some almost 3 minute miles being achieved)

The most successful fell runners undoubtably adopt the 2nd approach despite the risk of serious injury and this is also one of the appealing aspects of the sport.
The bob graham round is something that has been in the back of my mind for around a year now and is definitely one of my longer term goals. Definitely not this year, prob not next but hopefully before I'm 40.
I was massively inspired by Some of the stories in the book such as the fastest traverse (billy bland 13 hours 53 mins), most number of peaks in 24 hours (77 mark hartnell) and for me the most impressive joss naylor 70 peaks in 21 hours covering over 50 miles and 25,000 feet of ascent. At the age of 70.

I love running and will always continue do so as long as I am physically capable, and stories such as those described in this book give me so much encouragement of what the human body is capable of achieving, and also for how long it can continue to do so.
A cracking read and highly recommended.