For whom the Fells toll

Well one swallow doesn't make a summer so I'm not going to get over excited, but the master has again put one foot in front of another at more than a walking pace recently. We've been out twice for the requisite jog around the block. Apparently his calves hurt again. So what's new.
He's just finished a book that I would rather like to have read if I could read of course. I know all about it because he has been boring all his friends rigid eulogising its charms. I overhear these things you see. Anyway it was recommended to him recently by another mate who clearly has the same disease of incessant wittering and obsession. But, it did sound interesting nonetheless. It even contained a couple of photos of some border collies like me, so it can't be bad. It tells the story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with fell running in the lake district and who gets such a bad dose of it that he gives up weekend after weekend to drive from the home counties all the way to the Lakes in order to compete in the trials. Though it is a book about one man's obsession, it is also a great rendering of the life and times of the hardy stock of the North who put themselves masochistically through hell and high water to run up and down fells with the energy and grace of antelope. We get to see (or I got to hear actually) of the quintessential hard men of the dales and the fells, who think nothing of setting out for 24 hour runs with little more than a ham sandwich and a pair of old trainers. These are characters, mostly eccentric and some bordering on clinical madness. One doesn't need to be a fell runner, like fells or even running, to appreciate this classic of sports writing. Indeed it is as much a social commentary of the running folk of the Lakes as it is about the art of conquering fells very quickly by foot. My master thoroughly recommends it. Here's the link to it on Amazon. Feet in the Clouds by Richard Askwith