An excellent book from Richard Askwith. In my view essential reading for any would-be professional sports person; an exploration into fell running and so much more.
Here’s a sample – and something for all athletes (yes, golfers too!) about the power of competitive training…
Kenny’s life was not noticeably different from that of an Olympic 
athlete – except of course, that he still lived with his parents and was fitting his training in around a 40-hour working week.
Somehow he managed to fit a quality 5-mile run into his lunch hour, leaving time to warm down and change, but not to shower. He then summoned the energy for a proper evening session after work.
His training diary meticulously recorded for more than a decade in neat pencil: twice a day for 365 days of the year, rarely more than 90 miles per week: a distance quite low by modern standards, but it was the quality of his training that set him apart:
“I used to do the most incredible interval sessions”, Kenny remembered. “All my competitiveness went into my training as much as my racing. It was in my training that I really used to dig deep. The races were more like a bonus – the reward if you like”.
Kenny Stuart is one of Britain’s greatest unsung athletes. Of his many achievements, perhaps the most astounding is his record for the Ben Nevis Race. Fit walkers take 7 hours for such a journey. In 1984 Kenny Stuart took 1 hour 25 minutes and 34 seconds – which no one has come close to equalling since.
