Bob Graham Round

The Bob Graham Round is a fell running challenge in the English Lake District. It is named after Bob Graham (1889–1966), a Keswick guest-house owner, who in June 1932 broke the Lakeland Fell record by traversing 42 fells within a 24-hour period.

The Round was first repeated, in a better time, in 1960 by Alan Heaton. Since then over 2000 individuals have completed the Round with the fastest time being 13hr 53m set by Billy Bland in 1982, the ladies record being 15hr 24m set by Jasmin Paris in 2016. The Lakeland 24 Hour record has also been improved with the current holder, Mark Hartell, successfully reaching 77 summits in the allotted time.

Along with the Paddy Buckley Round and Ramsay Round, the Bob Graham Round is one of the classic big three mountain challenges in the UK. Some thirty individuals have completed all three.

The development of progressively lengthier and more competitive rounds of the Lakeland fells is chronicled in the Bob Graham Club's Story of the Bob Graham Round, and in the fell-walking section of M. J. B. Baddeley's Lakeland guidebook:, and most recently in Chapter 15 of Steve Chilton's It's a hill, get over it: fell running's history and characters

Some of the more notable rounds:

It was Dr Wakefield who codified the essentials of the challenge: "To traverse on foot as many tops over 2000ft and return to the starting point within 24 hours". Wakefield was Keswick based so specified the start/finish point as that town's Moot Hall.

On 12–13 June 1932 Bob Graham extended the 24-hour Lakeland peak bagging record to a total of 42 peaks in a time of 23 hours 39 minutes. Even though this was recognised as the new record several of the tops claimed did not reach 2,000-foot (610 m) in altitude. The approximate distance of the new record (determined using current technology) was 66-mile (106 km) with 26,900 feet (8,200 m) of ascent. At the time the distance was claimed, not by Graham, to be in excess of 130 miles (210 km) though the given amount of ascent was reasonably close to the currently accepted figure. Several 20th Century sources (including the 42 Peaks booklet) erroneously state the distance to be 72 miles (116 km).

...
Wikipedia