UKC

Gavin Dale has broken the winter record for the Bob Graham Round, beating Finlay Wild's previous time by nearly 40 minutes to run a new fastest time of 14hrs 57mins.

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Superb achievement, Gavin. So many layers of incredulity for me: to finish a Bob at all, to do it sub-15, to do it in winter, to have sufficient ooomph to move your start time so it no longer optimised daylight. Huge kudos.

I find this interesting coming from a non running background as although clearly a great feat, it just seems a little strange that Gavin had his food/ nutrition (and I presume fluid) carried for him. I guess because I'm coming from a climbing/biking background and thinking about it, on the FKT's on bike stuff (like the HT550 / Divide) then obviously you have to carry your own stuff. It's funny that running has diversified into a sport were on stuff like this you have people pacing for you and carrying your stuff for you to set a record. I know pacers are pretty standard on stuff like this now, but do some try and be self contained related to equipment, or not bother now? 

It's not in any way a modern development. Bob Graham himself had pacers all the way round as did all the 70s/80s record holders, and the ethos of helping on other people's rounds and sharing the knowledge & experience goes right to the heart of the fell running community.

With that said unsupported long distance rounds are also absolutely a thing! Martin Stone in the 80s was instrumental in setting an example and nowadays we have eg. Shane Ohly, and Finlay of course. It's only recently though with GPS tracking and Strava etc that these sorts of achievement have become more widely visible.

My comment to Gavin about a sub 15hr time was partly in jest, though he might not have realised it , still it did its job.

His time won't appear on the club website until the new year when this year's successes get added but I've added his splits here http://bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=record_times&record=mens_win... (these haven't been confirmed by Gavin so might change slightly). Interestingly (or not) the fastest three winter times: Gavin, Finlay Wild and Kim Collison also have very fast summer times with all six rounds among the thirty fastest.

For more info you can view record lists at http://bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=records and search the membership list at http://bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=members , again complete to the end of 2023.

@facet - it's not that fell running diversified/diverged from FKT/biking rules, it was up and running (sic) long before those came into being. The self-supported rules for the Tour Divide, HT550, etc came about because of the difficulty in "policing" entrants over such a large area and there needed to be something of a level playing field: being able to use your own or a friend's house for shelter when no-one else can isn't fair for example. Still an honour based system though.