Trail and Fell Running in the Lake District
40 runs in the National Park including classic race routes
by Kingsley Jones
2 POLICE SQUARE, MILNTHORPE, CUMBRIA LA7 7PY
About the Author
Kingsley Jones lives in Ambleside in the Lake District, and also spends part of the year in the Alps. His peripatetic lifestyle enables him to guide running groups in the mountains throughout the year, and his qualifications range from UIMLA International Mountain Leader to Personal Trainer.
Over the years Kingsley has participated in many mountain running events, both in the UK and internationally. Highlights include the Tor des Géants (Italy), five Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) series finishes, Zermatt Marathon, Lakes in a Day, Tour of Helvellyn, and countless others.
In the same series as this book, Kingsley also wrote the Cicerone guidebook Trail Running – Chamonix and the Mont Blanc region, which details 40 routes in the Chamonix Valley, Italy and Switzerland. He runs a mountain running and guiding company (www.icicle.co.uk), which has an outdoor and runners shop in Windermere. While researching all the routes in this book, Kingsley was accompanied by Maximus, his ever-faithful four-legged training partner.
Twitter: @KingsleyJones
Website: www.kingsleyjones.com
© Kingsley Jones 2017
First edition 2017
ISBN-13: 978 1 85284 880 4
Printed in China on behalf of Latitude Press Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated.
© Crown copyright 2017 OS PU100012932. NASA relief data courtesy of ESRI
This book is dedicated to my daughter Freya, a real mountain girl, who started fell running aged 3. Run with the wind.
Updates to this guide
While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/880/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time.
We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to [email protected] or by post to Cicerone, 2 Police Square, Milnthorpe LA7 7PY, United Kingdom.
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a lifetime of discovering and running in the Lake District, and countless pairs of worn-out fell running shoes. There are too many people to thank for their input, but I’m deeply indebted to all the running clients and friends who accompanied me on the routes, and none more so than my Bernese mountain dog Maximus, who knows these routes better than anyone else. Thank you all for running with me on the good days, and the others of wind, snow, ice, floods and rain!
A huge thanks to all the team at Cicerone for their support and belief in this project: Jonathan, Joe and Andrea, and also to Georgia for her patience in editing. This book is my second in their new running series, and I’m eternally grateful to Cicerone for listening to this idea.
My biggest debt of gratitude is to my wife Sarah for putting up with me doing endless route research, which anyone less charitable might have described as escaping the house to go on yet another fell run!
Front cover: Fell running near Lang How, with the backdrop of the Langdale Pikes (Route 7)
CONTENTS
Bases for a trail and fell running holiday
Travelling to the Lake District
Travelling around the Lake District
Mountain running in the Lake District
What’s the difference between trail and fell running?
Route 1 Loughrigg Fell circuit
Route 2 Wansfell and Troutbeck
Route 3 Fairfield Horseshoe
Route 4 Stony Cove circuit
Route 5 Kentmere skyline