My Passion with Brian Stallwood: The call of the wild valleys proves irresistible for fell running

Brian Stallwood, associate director of financial planning at the Leeds office of Investec, talks about his passion for fell running.

There is no doubt fell running is not so much a hobby but more of an obsession with me.

I guess fell running requires you to be a keen runner in the first place but then, on top of that, I have some kind of inbuilt, almost primeval, compulsion to be in the hills and mountains. Living as I do in Settle, North Yorkshire, it’s not enough for me to be surrounded by the fabulous wilderness of the Yorkshire Dales; I have to be out there and in them.

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I can’t even drive through a valley without imagining myself running along each ridgeline, the higher the better, and disappearing into the clouds. It’s as though the hills have a strong magnetic pull that I can’t resist.

Of course running in the hills can be hard work, but that said all sorts of running can be tough if you try hard enough. But the hills throw other factors into the equation: there’s the risk of injury (I’ve had countless twisted ankles and one quite badly twisted knee for my troubles) and just the sheer difficulty of the terrain you’re travelling over.

The weather too can make things exceedingly tough and, given that it’s often quite extreme to start with in the hills, just when you think things can’t get any worse, invariably they do just that. But that’s all part and parcel of the fun.

I’ve competed in many of the classic fell races over the years in the Yorkshire Dales, Haworth Moor and Calderdale, the Peak District and The Lakes, and, although fell racing perhaps lacks some of the being at one with nature and challenge that solo running in the hills provides, it ramps up the need for speed and is lung burstingly challenging in other ways.

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It is also fantastically social; turning up for a race makes me appreciate that there are many equally obsessed fell runners out there and that I’m not alone in my madness.

The races come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from two-mile ‘up and down’ sprints to two-day mountain marathons to 100 mile ultras.

I’ve run Yorkshire’s own Three Peaks fell race (23.5 miles and about 5,300ft of climb visiting the tops of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough) at least half a dozen times but there are plenty of others out there far tougher than that. Nowadays I like to think I know around 500 square miles of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales countryside intimately. Every hill, dale, waterfall, trig point and ridgeline in the southern and south western Dales – if I haven’t run there exactly, I’ll have been very close.

I also now have an 18-month-old border collie, Harry, who shares my obsession. Look out for us if you’re ever stuck in the clag and rain on top of Pen-y-Ghent or are being blown off the top of Whernside by strong winds.

Most weekends we’re never far away.