Three Peaks Race: Steve Chilton book explores history of Yorkshire Dales 'marathon in the mountains'

Decades on, though it has gone through many changes, the 23.5 mile route with an ascent of 5,279 feet remains a challenge which hundreds of serious fell runners compete in each year.

Now retired cartographer Steve Chilton’s latest book - The Three Peaks Race: the History and Characters of the Marathon with Mountains, published by Bradford-based Great Northern Books - takes a comprehensive look at the last 70 years of the event.

It includes characters like Jasmin Paris, who last month became the first woman and one of only 20 people to finish the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee, USA, since it was extended to 100 miles in 1989 – crossing the finish line with 99 seconds to spare before the 60-hour time limit ended. On her way to this feat, she completed the Three Peaks Race, which she has described as an “iconic race in the history of fell running”.

Steve, himself a fell runner and athletics coach, says: “She just felt she had to do Three Peaks Race - it was just something that was nagging at her to do and she went and did it.

“Without even reccying or going to look at the thing, she won it (in 2013) on her first attempt, which is something that not all that many people manage to do.”

Why, you might ask, does anybody put themselves through it?

Steve says that “sometimes the training is as important and as rewarding as the competitive element,” with people commenting how “the end game is the product of what you've chosen to do”.

Steve, who worked at Middlesex University for many years, will be in Horton in Ribblesdale on April 27 for this year’s Three Peaks Race, where he will be selling and signing books.

It has been produced with photographs and other archive material from the Three Peaks Association, whose chairman, David Weatherhead, also provides a foreword.

“I've been able to talk to a lot of people and write the history of such a long-standing and important event in the sport,” says Steve, 73, of Bishop’s Waltham in Hampshire.

Fell runner and former Chumbawamba guitarist Boff Whalley says the book features "thoroughly enjoyable tales of those incredible runners who have done battle over this gruelling route."

Yorkshire’s arts and culture scene is thriving - our newsletter will put you at the heart of it

Though others had run the three peaks – and teachers from Giggleswick School near Settle completed a walking circuit of them over 27 miles as early as 1887 – the first formalised race was organised by Fred Bagley, of the Preston Harriers, and took place in April, 1954. Bagley also won that first event, completing it in three hours and 48 minutes.

The race record was set by Andy Peace, of Bingley Harriers, in 1996 – though the route has changed numerous times over the years, and did so in 2023. His time of two hours, 46 minutes and three seconds was unbeaten despite an international field in 2008 when the race hosted the World Long Distance Mountain Running Challenge.

Another Bingley Harrier, Victoria Wilkinson, knocked five minutes off the women’s record which had been set by Anna Pichrtová (Strakova) of the Czech Republic in the World Long Distance event, cutting it it to three hours, nine minutes and 19 seconds in 2017. She also finished 13th overall, the highest race position by a woman.

The new, 2023 course records are held by Thomas Roach of Lewes Athletic Club (two hours, 53 minutes and 28 seconds) and Catherine Taylor of Black Combe Runners (three hours, 34 minutes and 44 seconds).

Steve says: “I've interviewed nearly all the living winners of the male and female sides so I've talked to a lot of people to write this book. One of the characters, and he happens to be the one who won it six times in a row, is a chap called Jeff Norman.”

The former Olympic marathon runner dominated the race in the 1970s, when it still started and finished at Chapel le Dale. “He's just a nice, modest, quiet guy who's still running now in the 70s and doing well in his age group,” says Steve.

Victoria Wilkinson, meanwhile, he describes as a “shining example of women setting standards that others have to follow”.

There is John Owen, who runs with Steve’s own Barnet and District Athletic Club who in 2016 was the oldest person to have then completed the race, aged 73.

And Rob Jebb has made his name winning both the race four times and the cyclo-cross event – in which participants have to carry their bicycles up the peaks – 13 times.

One particularly fond memory Steve has of researching the book is spending an afternoon in Haworth, West Yorkshire, at the home of four-time women’s winner Sarah Rowell, where he interviewed four runners who between them had won the race 16 times.

Steve says: “It was just absolutely fascinating to hear the different approaches to the different people, and the rivalry really was between these people who were either related or from the same club.”

Cousins Andy Peace and Ian Ferguson, for example. “There's a picture of him doing a handspring as he crosses the finish line, which is just an awesome thing to do,” says Steve, of Ferguson’s second win in 1991, when he set a new record.

For some, adds Steve, “there’s a sense of, ‘I'm a runner, I'm from Yorkshire, I've got to win that race’.

“If it meant beating your club mate, or your friend, that was all part of it.”

The Three Peaks Race is out on April 16, costing £15.99. Visit: www.gnbooks.co.uk