Fell Running ... Two fine videos from Steep Edge

After a successful knee surgery, coupled with a layoff from running for 15 years, seasoned with multiple readings of BORN TO RUN, as well as a son and daughter who wanted to exercise this Spring ... I finally got back into running. After running around the local track barefoot for a month - making sure I could run 5k without keeling over and dying - I headed out on the Adirondack trails.

Back in the day I was a pretty fair distance runner, and managed to run between 70-90 miles a week. In the mid-1970s I spent five weeks rock climbing in the Lake District and Wales where I spectated several fell races, and did a few mountain training runs with locals before I headed over to the Alps. (I kept up pretty easily on the ascents but they left me in the dust going down the scree runs.) Always the name of Joss Naylor was on the tip of every tongue. He was my hero. Sure I was caught up in the Frank Shorter - Bill Rodgers road running boom, but it was running big sections of the AT, the Escarpment Run, exploring the canyonlands on the run that I lived for.

Fast forward to this summer, as I religiously watched every distance race in the Olympics and found myself starting to peruse various trail running websites while sipping my morning tea. Clearly the sport had changed. Fell running, ultra marathoning, sky running, mud runs, hill climbs, mountain games, or as Joss described it "rough terrain running " is having something of a renaissance. Sponsored runners and races abound. Six weeks ago it was the Western States 100 grabbing media attention, last weekend you had the Leadville 100, the Pikes Peak Marathon, the Trans-Rockies Stage Race, and god knows what-else, all in the same three day span.

But if you want to see the real deal, Watch NAYLOR'S RUN and JOSS NAYLOR'S: IRONMAN, and it will blow your mind. In the first video you have Joss at 60 years of age (I just turned 60), setting out to run the 60 highest peaks in the Lake district, 110 miles, and 40,000' in under 36 hours. The next video shows him at 73 years of age, covering 20 summits, 35 miles and 18,000' in 12 hours. Amazing. One can only wonder what feats he pulled off twenty, thirty, or forty years ago in his prime! Of course, the other big kudo for these films is the stunning mountain footage of the Lake District ... how I wish I could find the time to spend another five weeks there before I hang up my rock gear and running shoes. CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRAILER.