Team VOOM athlete Arthur Hill, has set a new winter Bob Graham Round record with an astonishing time of 14 hours 54 minutes.
Battling brutal Lake District winter conditions, Arthur took three minutes off the previous winter record, held by fellow VOOM ambassador Gavin Dale, who also played a key role in supporting Arthur on the iconic 66-mile, 42-peak circuit.
Even more impressively, this time makes it the 9th fastest Bob Graham Round ever, in any season, and the fastest in history by an under-25.
Fuelled all the way by VOOM, Arthur summed it up perfectly:
“A massive thanks finally to VOOM for their Fusion Fuel and Pocket Rockets keeping me carbed up as I ran to my red line and achieved a dream.”
The Bob Graham Round is notoriously tough even in summer, what specific challenges does the winter version present, both physically and mentally?
On my first BG (going anticlockwise in May of this year) I had gorgeous sunny conditions and the ground was bone dry - even the Langdale bogs had dried up and I didn't get wet feet until crossing the Caldew at the very end! In those kind of conditions you can afford to travel super light and let the pacers carry everything, it was amazing. I just had shorts, a thin top and my watch.
This time I knew it'd be a totally different experience, and I couldn't rely on my support team as much. In winter conditions you're all having to look after yourselves a lot more and there's so many added considerations, especially in the weather we had on the day and over the night sections.
We ended up dropping quite a few people but I had a good few hours worth of fuel on me and emergency layers in my pack so I could have run a fair way on my own and had mentally prepared myself for doing sections of it solo if I needed to. Winter in the lakes is so unpredictable - you've got to go out being prepared for the worst.
One of the biggest things during training for me was mentally preparing myself for being out and moving fast in really bad conditions, and just trying to stay positive and keep enjoying it if the weather turns. It's so important to be having fun, I think, and knowing your limits is crucial.
I was super happy heading out in bad weather and confident I could keep pace in most conditions, but also very ready to pull the attempt if at any point I felt it wasn't safe.
Can you walk us through the conditions on the day of your record; weather, terrain, visibility, and how they affected your pacing and decision-making?
We had pretty bad weather all week and on Friday night there were strong winds and heavy rain. It had given to blow over by the early hours but I was really apprehensive going to bed and hearing it lashing on the windows. Thankfully it had mostly cleared by the time we set off and we even had a bit of moonlight starting up Skiddaw and again over Clough Head.
Pretty much all the tops were clagged, and we had a lot of rain and wind in our faces coming down the Helvellyn ridge, but the ground was just super saturated and all the bogs were full so it was definitely a challenge keeping pace over leg 1 and across the Langdales.
I got really wet and cold over leg 2 and changed my base layers and waterproof at Dunmail which helped to give me a boost moving onto leg 3. Really we were only dropping out the cloud at road crossings and the occasional col, and visibility was definitely a challenge over the first two legs in the dark but I was super happy with the nav and there were no real errors all day.
There wasn't a lot of snow left on the tops, although the paths over Raise and Helvellyn were filled with slush which made keeping pace hard and there was a fair bit of cover on Bowfell.
The biggest challenge on leg 3 was the amount of greasy rock and it felt like pretty slow going from Great End to Scafell over the boulder fields, but we managed to keep to schedule and I could just stick behind Kim here and try and switch the brain off a bit.
Mentally it was a bit tough running into another night and we started to lose the light going up Dale Head, but most of leg 5 is super easy nav and fairly runnable. I like to take the steep heathery lines to the left of the crags coming off Robinson and I'd sent my dad up to the col with a torch which made the nav super easy.
I remember reading that Mark Hartell had done the same in a report of his Lakeland 24hr attempts and it stuck with me. It was really fun leading down here and I was so pleased with the lines, I remember getting to the last descent to the tarn and feeling such a sense of relief that we'd had no issues or bad lines despite the weather.
Winter rounds require meticulous fuelling. What was your overall nutrition and hydration strategy, and how did you adapt it for the cold?
I've really focused on fuelling since my first BG and definitely increased the amount of carbs I can take in per hour. For this attempt I was working on approximately 90-100g carbs/hr, mostly in the form of VOOM'S Fusion Fuel, but I also used Pocket Rocket bars when I wanted something more solid.
I found that liquid carbs made for super easy fuelling and I could just keep sipping away, mostly getting it in on the climbs. On the day it was just great, I had no stomach issues and no real energy lows due to lack of fuelling.
At road crossings I was aiming for mostly rolling stops, so I'd get one of the crew to walk up the next climb with me with black tea and rice pudding, my go-to for solid food on a longer route.
At Threlkeld you get a really great run through all the way down the road and up the lane so I didn't want to break the flow with fuelling at the usual crossing point, instead getting my dad to walk up to the coach road and it meant I could get the rice pudding and tea down on the steep climb up Clough.
It's one of the great things about putting a BG attempt together, you can really make it work for you and adapt it to your preferences and strengths.
The Bob Graham Round is a legendary challenge in fell running. What makes it so special to you, and what motivates you to push for records on such difficult terrain?
I just fell in love with the Bob Graham when I started training for my first attempt over a year ago. Growing up in the Lakes and getting out in the fells regularly as kids, the terrain just feels so familiar and I love being able to push myself to my limits in such a special and beautiful place.
You can spend so much time on the route and still never feel like you quite know it well enough, its a relationship that grows and adapts with every recce, attempt and support you do. You can really shape the round to suit your preferences and strengths as a runner and getting to know every little trod, line and stream crossing is so important I think.
The more time you spend in the hills the more intimate your knowledge of the ground under you becomes - moving fast over rough ground can feel like a form of meditation, you just switch your brain off and run on instinct. It's mesmeric, and such a good antidote to everyday stresses.
I love pushing for fast times and seeing what's possible, but I love running first and foremost as a form of escape and of resetting. I guess I'm always just curious to see what my limits are, and if I haven't quite pushed the ceiling of what I think I can achieve I feel kind of underwhelmed.
Running right on your red line is such an amazing feeling, and if you've done your job right, fuelled and trained well, looked after your body and settled into a good headspace it's incredible what you can accomplish.
Looking back now, were there any unexpected difficulties or standout moments, positive or negative, that defined the attempt and your ability to keep pushing?
The weather was definitely a huge factor on the day, and although I kept to pace despite the conditions I found it a mental challenge to keep pushing and run at my limit. It was hard to feel excited about climbing back up into the clag and the rain from each road crossing, whereas normally I'd have such a buzz to be out in the fells and with such amazing company.
But there was some real highs too, and being out with such an incredible team was a huge privilege, I couldn't have done it without them. I basically told myself that if I was going to bail I was only allowed to do it at Dunmail, which meant forcing myself to run through Threlkeld no matter what, even if I thought it wasn't the day for a record, as I thought it was too early to make an informed decision on how I was feeling.
I didn't want anyone to have a wasted journey to Wasdale so I'd decided in advance that if I got past Dunmail I was getting round, no matter the time and even if I had to run it solo.
So it made that part of it really easy - although it was tough keeping to pace, there wasn't a moment from leg 3 onwards when I considered giving up the attempt. I was so pleased we kept to pace and owe so much of that to my amazing support team who were out there braving the conditions with me.
It's what the BG is all about, that sense of a shared passion and helping others achieve a dream.
