Episode 34 - Stave Chilton

In this episode of Adventure Habits, David Overton from Splash Maps sits down with renowned fell running author, coach, and historian Steve Chilton for a deep and inspiring conversation about endurance, resilience, adventure, and the spirit of the hills. From the origins of fell running in Northern England to legendary challenges such as the Bob Graham Round, the Three Peaks Race, and the Cuillin Ridge, Steve shares decades of experience exploring some of the toughest and most iconic landscapes in the UK. Together, they discuss: 

• What makes fell running unique 
• The culture and history behind the sport 
• The importance of navigation, self-reliance, and community 
• Stories from legendary runners and mountain athletes 
• The evolution of women’s participation in endurance sports 
• Adventure habits that apply far beyond running

Steve also reflects on his journey as an author, researcher, and coach revealing the lessons learned through success, failure, ambition, and stepping outside of comfort zones. Whether you’re a runner, outdoor enthusiast, adventurer, or simply someone looking for motivation to pursue your own challenges, this conversation offers valuable insights and unforgettable stories from a lifetime spent exploring the hills.

Resources & Links

• Article in Cumbria magazine
• Lake District Map- Bob Graham Round
• 3 Peaks Yorkshire Dales OS Map

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello and welcome to another Adventure Habit. It's with me, David Overton of Splash Maps, and I'm really pleased to introduce someone today who uh I managed to case by taking to a a local uh a local cafe uh with a good friend of the the pods, Steve Till. Uh Steve Till's uh long distance runner. And I thought it would be great to get these two guys together and see what the interaction was like. And after much mutual appreciation and book signing, etc., it was great to introduce Steve Till and now you um to Steve Chilton. Steve, say hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hi there, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah, uh we're all doing well. Um uh Steve, uh you know, you are a prolific author uh and authority now, I would say, on the uh the weird art of fail running. And fell running is it's kind of a a branch I always think of of ultra, but but Steve, tell us a little bit what why are you so interested in in fell running? You know, that I've got big questions, right? What is fell running? Uh why is it different from all the other other types of long distance and arduous runs that we might choose to do if we're so inclined? Um and uh is is it peculiarly British? And then actually, is it peculiarly northern British as well? So um I'll leave you with those few questions and see what you come up with.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Okay, well, it it is uh very much a unique aspect of the running sort of spectrum because it's off-road, because it's uh open to anyone, uh, and because it's tough. Um it I don't think of it really as a branch of Ultra, really, because um because it can involve a lot of navigation and not following uh known routes and things like that. So um it demands of you the ability to to run up and down hills, obviously, um, but also to navigate and uh and and be fit for that. But the the nice thing about it is it's run by the people um who do the sport, so it's not really tend doesn't tend to be commercialized very much, whereas uh trail running an ultra does, um, and that's one of the beauties of it. You just rock up sometimes and pay on the day, um, and you can stand on the line with everybody and be part of it. So to me, it's it's it's a unique thing uh in that aspect, and it kind of starts.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

You've got arrows nailed to trees. This is like uh well, a map is important, for example.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Um certainly a couple of things. It's your origins are in the north of England. Um, but um I live now in Hampshire, and and there's a race on Butsa Hill uh just up the road from me, and there's a race on the Isle of Wight, there are races in Dartmoor. So it's now um pretty much any of the highlands in England, Scotland, Wales, uh, and Ireland have races on them. And that's fantastic because there's so much of it out there now.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

And this this has really come um, I mean, this interview is happening just uh well following the weekend of a very successful prison break down in Dartmoor, which I I would kind of think of as a weird ultra in that you know there's no arrows on trees or whatever, it is a navigation challenge, and you just have to run as far as you possibly can from Dartmoor prison. Um, and we had Lee Plank who's held the record for that, and I've yet to find out whether that record has been broken. But that one would qualify as as an ultra um because I guess it doesn't involve what we might define as fells. Now, fell is is is fell is fell like Bec or something like that. It's like a a geographical term, but you only see it on uh its origin is Scandinavian.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Um Scandinavian, yeah. So um it should it kind of shows the cultural um influence in the north of England of the invasion and and the naming of places and features. Um so yeah, um that's the origin of the of the word fell.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

There we go. Well that and and so it and uh by by extension, then fell running is not just a British thing. You can you can take your fell running shoes and you can head out to some of these Scandinavian countries and do whatever their equivalent of fell running is.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

It tends to have different names. Um so even in Scotland um you can they call it hill running. Um in Europe it's public or mountain running. Um so um it's still pretty much a niche um UK um sport as such, and the other other types of running like trail ultra uh mountain running are just uh extensions of it, really.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, run running, uh I mean my my running extends as far as the the 5k that I do every day, and I was really pleased to shave a minute off it today after reading a section of um Steve Till's book. So I was I was I was actually quite pleased that that that result worked, you know, because I bumble along and I always run the same route and it's roughly the same time. And I I've begun to not care. I'm just kind of thinking, well, I'm keeping myself a level of fitness. But like uh like Steve Till, you Steve Chiltern are a coach as well, and someone who's used their knowledge and an awful lot of uh interviewing. I I think for this book, which is the one I've got from you, uh It's a Hill, get over it, fantastic title, and it just follows through in the book as well. This is full of the heroes of this strange sporting tradition of fell running. Um, and uh Steve, I I think it's fair to say that the people that you haven't interviewed for this book but feature in the book are dead, and everybody else and their relatives have been interviewed. So it it it's a really um incredibly in-depth uh understanding, and yet it's a really entertaining read on on people like uh the Bland uh brothers uh and you know uh a user of our our maps as as well. The the fastest lady. Is it still is the fastest lady runner of the of the Bob Graham round? Is is that what was her name? I was gonna come back to me in a minute. Nikki Spinks. Nikki Spinks.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

No, not not now for the Bob Graham. She's got the fastest uh female double Bob Graham, which is an even more major achievement. Um yeah, she's she's certainly a fantastic athlete who's who's really made uh people aware of what is possible by what some of the things she's done. Um yeah. But what what I found the most interesting thing about the writing aspect of my life has been meeting the heroes, which you're not supposed to do, and then trying to be professional enough to get a decent interview to get the story that I want to tell of them in later writing the book. So the research phase was by far the most enjoyable part, and writing was not quite as much fun. But yeah, over the years I have met and talked to and understood, I think, the way that some people approach their um adventure as a as a fell runner, and I've enjoyed that so much.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

And that this has involved a lot of visits to the uh the pubs in the lake district, no doubt, and um and and and a lot of times where you you just had to head up north on a whim. Uh uh well, as as far as the rest of your family would know, and uh come and meet people. I was really pleased one time you actually took time out for me when we happened to be up in the lakes as well, and we had a very nice, very nice pint and a chat together. And I think that led to our Bob Graham round map, which is still available for us.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

We had as to whether there was uh uh a mileage uh uh for for doing that particular project, and uh I was really pleased to work with you on that and uh enjoyed enjoyed that with you. So, yeah, that was a a nice moment in our joint history, so we say.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

That was yeah, and it's it's not the only shared part of our history we got as well. You were kind enough uh to invite us along to the um to Cartosoc back in 2014, I think it was. Um that was just before it merged uh together uh with another society to create what we now know as the British Cartographic Society. Um and you awarded us the the Wallace Award for uh cartography, which was uh not for cartography, but for for prop really product design and cartography, because it was the uh the utility of it being on fabric uh had rarely been seen before in this profession. And we'd made a particular map uh for well, something that's coming to visit us again now. It's been that long, Steve. Um, but it it was for the uh the Tour de France uh when it came to to visit Britain. So um, yeah, long time ago. And and thanks very much for for awarding us that. It really uh did compel us to realise that we were onto something quite unique here. Um so yeah, a lot of a great deal of appreciation right back to you and all the other members of the British Cartographic Society that uh that support us. So um I mean Steve, on when it comes to fell running, obviously you don't just write books like this, and I know you've got another two books in your hands. You've got one that's about the the women's achievements in uh in fell running, and you've got uh another book about the three peaks. I mean, why why fell running? What what has triggered it for you? And then maybe give us a little a little overview of what both those books cover.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, the the the reason to write about fell running was because um I'd worked in academia all my life and and written academic material papers, uh, edited books on cartography and all sorts of things. Um, but I did feel that my sport, which I felt fell running was at that time, uh in 2012, there wasn't enough written about it. Um I there's a fantastic oeuvre of books about cycling and about marathon running and about other endurance sports, but not fell running. So I thought, right, I'm gonna just out of the blue, I decided I was gonna do this, and I was gonna be one who started a uh a collection of books, and and I wanted to write about Josh Naylor, um uh uh who I felt was the icon of the sport. But uh one day walking down the street in the bookshop window, I saw someone else had actually already done it. Um so that was the end of that idea. I decided to write a history of the sport instead, which is how It's a Hill, get over it came about, and then it just escalated from there because somebody felt there was enough merit in it to publish it, which was important to me, um, to get that kudos uh of a of a of a publisher saying that, and then um moved on to write about Billy Bland and and Kenny Stewart and other people and about the Bob Graham round, and then the the the the the thing about the um voices from the hills is I realized that there was a real point where women were really disadvantaged in this in the sport and the the the the community would not let them in. Um, and I decided that um this this had to be notified and um decided to write about that. And even in the 70s, um the all races were not open to to males and females on the fells. Uh and and this basically is a collection of people's stories that tell of those issues and how people fought against it, how things changed, and how eventually people like Jasmine Paris, Nikki Spinks came along and were able to show that women absolutely were capable of doing these things. And in the original um argument, it was felt that they weren't physically capable and it was going to do damage to them and it was going to stop them producing uh offspring, and all sorts of things were uh held against them. And uh so I decided to write that that story through the voices of the people I interviewed. And I feel of the books I've written that in some ways is the most important uh contribution that I might have made.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Um it's fantastic. I mean, and and um uh I've always noticed it when I go mountain biking that my wife always gets a lot more praise than I do when we get up a hill, but then I am normally huffing and puffing and way behind her. So it's uh yeah, hills and hills and women are yeah, definitely uh I mean I I I had no idea that there was there was a discrimination, but I guess it's not un not surprising, you know. It's in the 70s.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

There was no marathon for women until 1984 in the in the Olympics. Um, you know, it was just like you can't do it, guys, girls. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, it was a long struggle.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Well, so I mean it's an important book to write, and but I mean you're you're a coach for running as well. It's it's not like this has come out of uh your your cartographic background or or anything like that, really. It it's your it's your love of running, your passion has been running, and uh you've been coaching. It's it's quite funny that I I bet that we met in an earlier life because I used to live in Enfield as well. And pretty close when I've looked on the map, very close to where you live. I was in a place called um Gentleman's Row, it runs along a little uh river that runs runs into. Yeah. Um so I used to I used to strike out there from there and run. I mean it was it was just my standard 5k, but I'd I'd run around that area. Um and uh yeah, we both would have been very different back then because that was about uh 30 years ago. But we've tempted you down from London to become a Hampshire type now. Are you enjoying the transition?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, um last night Mora and I went for a meal in the uh the Robin Hood pub in the next village, Dirley, to celebrate three years exactly of moving out of London. And it's just been a really interesting change of lifestyle after working in London all my life, and the and the slowing down that happens with age is is is kind of works in a in a rural environment. And uh we're enjoying it immensely. Walking in the South Downs, we can walk from a house within half a mile, we're on the edge of the South Downs, and the footpaths galore. I'm filling in my um audience survey map centered on the house with a yellow marker pen every time I do one of the walks. I just uh I'm enjoying exploring the countryside, and it we both go out and walk as much as we can uh and explore the area, and it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Well, beautiful, beautiful. Well, you know, we we can put you right in the centre of that map and give you a nice upgrade uh whenever you need it, Steve. But what we need to move on to now is uh your adventure habit. So I think our listeners and viewers can can know from it that you've been writing all these books about fail running, etc. I can't think of a better authority. I mean, we've we've had Steve Till on this program as well, I'm loving his book as well. Um, and uh I I was so pleased to introduce the two of you because it seems so obvious that you needed to know each other. Um, but he had a bunch of adventure habits. Let's see what your adventure habits are. Steve, what would be your first adventure habits that you will share with our listeners and viewers?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Right. Well, what I'm gonna do is give you five sort of things that I might have done and lessons or habits that that come from those things. Um so I'm gonna start with the marathon. Um I I was uh a footballer for for most of my youth life, and uh when my eyesight started going, I stopped doing that. I then became fat and uh inactive and took up running in the era of the Sunday Times fun run, if you remember that. Um I think it was the end of the 70s, and uh um did a bit of training, enjoyed myself, and then I entered the first London Marathon in 1981 and uh skeued up at the post office at 12 o'clock midnight to put my entry in, got in, did it, and it just seemed rather easy. And it's it's not being boastful, it's just around 3.05, and I thought, well, that was that went alright. And I thought, well, I could have a go at this. I've obviously got some kind of um ability, trained harder and harder. Five years later, I did the first five London marathons, I did two thirty four. And uh what what it meant was that I I I took my time, did the training, and the lesson I learned is that all of us have a potential that we can work towards. Whatever level that you're at, there's a there's a level that you can reach that is your potential, and that's what I would like to think that people could um to aim to do. Um, and when I reached that potential the next year, I only did 246 after the 234. I thought, oh, that's a failure. But it's not, it's just that I'd reached my peak, and then I moved on to doing off-road running and fell running, and uh I carried that philosophy on to my coaching as well. So whoever I'm working with, we discuss what they're doing currently and what they might be able to do. And so the first thing I try to do is say you can reach some other level and try and work with them to reach their potential, and I think that's an important uh way of looking at um your activities if if you're doing that sort of thing. So that's that's the number one. Look at and reach for your potential in whatever you're doing. Do you want me to go to the other?

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Well, that's a that's a well, I I mean I just wanted to expand on on that bit. They um I mean it made me think about fell running itself and and you know, my uh well or running rather. So running has been it's almost like big big time running has been running alongside me, but I haven't really got involved with it. When I my first job was in the uh first proper job was was in Africa, and if there was a huge uh number of people from the mine site that I worked in that entered into the Comrades Marathon, and I thought that was the maddest, hottest, stupidest thing I'd ever heard of in my life. It was it it just running from Peter Maritzburg down to Durban. I I had a a handle on that distance, uh having driven it many times, and uh I I could just tell that was mad. When we came when I came to Britain, um and uh it was you know for for for quite some time I was doing my own running. I then joined Ordnance Survey, where of course it was there were a lot of fail runners there, and it was the first time I heard about the Bob Graham round, the Grizzly, the all of the you know, the these kind of unique runs that were that were appealing to people who make maps. And uh and and the thing is it it's not it's not just about the times, is it? It's a lot of the fail runnings is about achieving a circuit in a certain amount of time. And the Bob Graham round is is 42 peaks and do it in 24 hours if you can. And and it it kind of opens it up, you know. There's and and and actually, if you didn't make it in 24 hours, there's absolutely no shame in that because it's an amazing feat that you just amazed that other human beings can do. So it's yeah, there's kind of kudos.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

However, the um somebody who once said that anyone could do the bob go round if they were fit enough, and um Billy Bland chose to walk the whole way without once breaking into a run, and he he achieved it in under 24 hours without even running, fast walking, and uh it just goes to show what what is possible.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

There you go, folks at home. And the thing is, when you say that statistic to people, oh, I went around 42 peaks in 24 hours. Who is not going to be impressed by that, right? So uh so uh so that's the first one. Aim to reach for your potential, whatever that might be. Okay, next one.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

All right, moving moving on. Many fit marathoners um think that okay, I need to do the next level, which is possibly the Three Peaks race, which is an off-road race of the marathon distance, and it's called the Marathon with Hills. Um, so three clubmates of mine decided from the running club that we were going to do that, and uh we we couldn't actually do the race particular day that it was on, so we decided just run it on our own. And we went up to my friend who lived in in Yorkshire at the time, and on the night before um doing the three picks, we went to his local club and did his training session with him at the local club and made the mistake of feeling that we had to show these guys how to run. And uh, unfortunately, they showed us how to run and ran us into the ground. And at one point, I remember. One of the guys from the local club saying, Are them soft southerners still with us? And um and proceeded to drop us. So we we made the mistake of trying hard the night beforehand, and affected the enjoyment and the level of achievement we could have on the three peaks the next day. So the lesson and the and the and the thing that I learned from that is not to get sidetracked, right? Our ambition was to do the thing, and we let something get in the way. Um and that that's something that you you just need to if you're gonna have some ambition to do something of a challenge, don't get sidetracked on the way. Um and that kind of proved itself later on because there's another three peaks that you can do, which is the international three peaks: the Ben Nevis, uh Snowden, and Scarfell with a uh drive in between. Two of the same group of us decided to do that, and we got a third guy to drive the car. Um, so we could relax as if you can relax in a sports car in between places as we zoom around to get to the next one, um, and let him do that and let us not worry about it. We did the running and we did the thing in 17 hours and had a fantastic day out. And that was just a question of concentrating on what we were trying to do and not get sidetracked. Um, and it's it's all about focus. If you're going to try and achieve some kind of thing, focus on it and don't get sidetracked by other things that get in the way. And they will happen, you know, life, domestics, all those sort of things will happen, but you still have to retain the focus in order to get whatever challenge that you're in um done. So that that's my my next question.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

So I mean that that that's great. I mean, those those first two habits, um uh, you know, I can imagine that being part of your co coaching program. It's it's uh, you know, the first first one is is is really about uh you know having knowing your potential, I guess having a a goal or a uh something in mind, and the and the second one is more or less put other things aside so you can just go for that. And uh yeah, that's uh yeah, as as someone who's very easily distracted, uh it's it's a good lesson that um that we all need to have. And I I find that it it is a bit a bit like shaving a minute off my 5k um just recently. Um it is interesting that as soon as you bring a focus in, um and for me it was run the force first 4k like you always run it, and then run the last K faster, um, and just just see what that does for you. And I was quite delighted. I just positively I did I didn't look at the clock or anything like that. I just thought, right, I know I'm in the last kilometre, I'll run faster. Let's see what the impact is. Now I might have been a bit more careful with um how I stopped the clock as I crossed roads and waited for cars and stuff, which I think probably accounted for a bit, but it was still you know, having that that focus that I wanted to take the time, I wanted to go fast in that last section helped me to improve my passage towards a better potential.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Great, okay. So, I mean I think that brings us on to the last point. That brings me back to this because it gone went full circle. I never ended up doing the race of the three pigs, but I was up there watching the other day and um of a year and decided that it needed a book about it. And so I sat down and interviewed everyone whose significance in the history of this, going back to 1954 when it started with six people, and uh and just interviewed loads of people and got fabulous pictures from from the history of it. And it's now reckoned by the organizers to be the definitive um history of that race, which is an iconic one in the in the field. So that I enjoy doing tremendously.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Cool. Well, fantastic. We'll we'll put a link to um to your your book collection. There's probably like one link that covers them all.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

But you can link to my uh blog page, everything's there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Okay, great, great. Well, well let's let's put that there. And um, yeah, uh, I mean, and and another thing is we've of course got the um the three peaks. This is the Yorkshire Dales three peaks. Um, and uh yeah, we had a nice video of of me and my team going around in a much more sedate fashion uh than you would have done, but still completing it just within the 12 hours and um with the last that the back the back walker uh being very, very white at the end of it. So uh it was and if ever you go anywhere where there's four seasons in one day, it's that place.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Okay, right, okay, Steve. So we're on to habit three.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Number three. Number three, it's kind of based around uh climbing. Uh the Cooling Ridge, uh, which you may know of in Skye. Uh I've done a fair amount of climbing when I was uh more active with my friend uh Mike, who could take me up things I wasn't capable of leading. And uh we used to think nothing of driving up from London to Sky for a long weekend to do climbing on the Koolins because it's such a fabulous rock to climb on. Um and we always had the ambition to do the Coolin Ridge, which is I don't remember what it is, 12k uh long, 11 Munroes, 22 tops, um, with climbing and upsailing involved. Um but we had two failed attempts to do this, uh including once we decided to bivouac rather than camp. Um so we we bivouacked in a in a uh biv sack on the top of Skirt Alistair in June and it snowed, and we virtually snuffed it through hypothermia and had to abandon the thing in the in the middle of the night and shoot down the great stone chute to get back to some kind of warmth down in the valley. And uh that was a lesson about uh you know things don't always work out, but we we did go back and uh and we we did it at a later date, and uh I just just want to prompt myself for why I'm saying all this. Um so it's it's about getting over your failures, um, and sometimes getting over a failure can be one of the most rewarding achievements that you can get. And uh so the previous efforts were failures and we had to abandon twice, but it gave us two of the best days of our uh sort of climbing and careers with the the the teamwork that was involved because it involved climbing up um the King's Chimney and the T D gap and things like that, and then sleeping on our ropes um just to to to have a night on it as well. Um, and so I think that's another thing to to take him on board is that sometimes failures can be good because it makes you more determined, and the feeling you get when you get over those failures is is is is somehow even greater because of it. And so that's that's my next point is to um work on going back and achieving when there is a failure on the way and don't let it stop you.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I mean um whatever, you know, and and uh if it was a failure, I I mean it was still an adventure, right? I mean uh to be on a re on you know out in those hills like that, biverwacking, snow, climbing, sleeping on your ropes, all of that stuff, Steve, is is a massive adventure that so many of us, myself included, will probably never experience. Uh and and so it's yeah, it's so valuable to get your your lessons and learnings from that. And uh can I just tell you about it? That's an acceptable thing. Yeah, sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yeah, and actually, do you know the uh the the mountain called Trifan in in North Wales? Um uh in the Ogwin Valley. Um there's a thing called Adam and Eve on the top of it, which bold people jump across and uh defy death um by bouncing on the second rock. But part of our training for the um uh coolins was to bivy on the top of um Triffan, and we bivied inside sleeping bags and bivy bags on the top of Triffan in the springtime. Melted away because it was so freaking hot in the in the night inside a sleeping bag and a bivy. We decided to abandon the sleeping bags the time we went to the coolings, and of course that's why we were underprepared uh for the snow in June, because we decided we're gonna just bivy rather than camp properly. So, yeah, lesson learned there.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Yeah, well, but well, yeah, yeah. You would you would have thought there'd be some similarity between those two circumstances, but the uh the weather's a changeable beast, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Absolutely, yeah. Fantastic. Okay, Steve. So what what it's it's it's it's about um extending yourself, okay. Um there's there's uh thing called the Ridgeway uh in uh uh Barkshire on the Barkshire Downs. There's a long distance walk on it. There's another long distance walk called the Light Wake. Um, this group of friends, we did both of those, but one time I decided I'm I'm I'm a marathon runner, I I'm not walking this, I'm gonna run. So in effect, it was doing an ultra 40 mile on the on the Barkshire Downs. Um and uh I I did that, and the the the concept I was very much out of my comfort zone. One of the things that I define adventure in the looser sense by is you've got to get out of your comfort zone to really challenge yourself. Okay, so decided to run 40 miles when I'd never done any light it was out of my comfort zone. But I did it and uh it was a nice achievement. Six hours plus to do the 40 miles, and uh a fantastic achievement. And then at another time, um, this will ring bells with you, um, with some different friends. We decided to cycle the South Downs Way before I moved down here. So we lived in London, we got on the train, we cycled across London on the first day, got the train to Winchester, did half of it, and cycled down into Lewis or somewhere to to stay in a bed and breakfast, come back up and do the rest of it, get on the train, back to London, and cycle back home again. So it was quite a big achievement. And I did that on a non-um, what do you call it, suspension, no suspension uh mountain bike that I had. And it was, you know, it was it was tough. But the point was that it was an extension of what I'd previously done, and and similarly, um the mountain trial in the lake district, a 20-mile orienteering event, okay, an extension of the fell running that I was already doing, and that's what I feel is is something that people should try and do is to challenge themselves, make sure they've got enough navigational skills if it involves that, but extend yourself in what you're doing, and that gives you such an a uh sense of achievement because you've gone way beyond where you've been before and achieved it, and that's that's kind of the the thing is to to push yourself to another level, and you'd be surprised, but everyone can do more.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah, I mean uh I mean uh those are tough challenges, and um, yeah, extending yourself. So if you're if you're a 5k runner, occasionally do a 10k or or move up to 10k, see how that feels and and see how it goes. But whatever your adventure is, whether you're a sea kayaker or uh uh or a cyclist as you were with the um South Downs way. I've got to say that the bit of cycling across London plus doing the um South Downs uh way and then cycling off the South Downs way to stay overnight and cycling back onto it is it is something that I know from my last weekend's experience. It's it would be very hard work for me to do now. Um but that that but that's all great. So we should all be extending ourselves. And Steve, your fifth and final adventure habit, please.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

We've kind of been there a little bit, but as I said just now, my my criteria for looking at these things was out of the comfort zone. And when I started the writing of the fell running book, It's a Hill Get Over It, that was way out of my comfort zone. Um, and I didn't know where it was going to go and how it was gonna go. Um, but I wanted to try and get it published by someone, so I didn't want to just um you know self-publish it and and see how that went. So um I sent off the proposal to the publisher, and they they just said, Well, we like the idea of what you're doing, but we can't promise you anything. Now go and write it, submit it, and we will consider it if it's good enough to publish, we'll publish it. So I went through that whole process of doing that, and um that that that was quite a sort of interesting one because I thought I had no guarantee at the end of it that anything was going to happen. Um and it um it it went forward and then they did like it, and that was a fantastic moment, and as it came out, it actually got nominated for an award in the Cumbrie Book of the Year and managed to win one of the categories. So it was a really rewarding um thing. But what what it did was give me these magical experiences of doing, as I said before, with talking to the people that came out um and and talked to me about their stories and and finding out about people who've done double Bob Graham's and and all the things that they've done. Um and what it shows, I don't know if you know this um this expression, that somebody, I think it was Chris Hitchens, had a quote that, and I think I might have mentioned this to you before when we met the other day, that everyone has a book in them, which is a nice quote, except people forget the second part of the quote, which is, and in most cases it should stay there, because basically not everyone's capable of writing a book. Um, but my my my my thought and my sort of lesson from this is if you want to write something, if you want to do something, just do it. And that is, you know, just don't think about what other people think, don't think about you being you'll be put down. I got I've been put down, I've had some marvelously bad reviews for my books. My favorite one being for It's a Hill. Someone just said, um, if anyone wants a copy of Steve's book, It's a Hill, get over it. Mine's in the rubbish bin at Geneva Airport, you know, and you get these horrible put downs from people. Um, but the fact of the matter is, somebody said to me, This has been worth publishing, I'll publish it, and then got went on to ask me to do more. So that's my my final thought is if you want to do something, whether it be writing or adventuring or challenging yourself, do it. And and and and that that's really my my thought, really, on all these aspects. Just have a go.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

That's really sound, and it's a lovely story to end on because um, I mean, I I remember quite clearly that that dinner with with Cato Sok, and you just awarded us uh Carto Sokka just awarded us the Wallace Award for cartography. And um, and and and and you actually picked out splash maps and said, well, here's someone going outside their comfort zone. And I was, you know, until then I was like geographic information consultant. I'd spent a few years as the innovation manager at Ordnance Survey, but actually owning and running my own mapping business and you know uh getting getting people together to make all that happen, um, that was well outside my comfort zone, and it came at pretty much exactly the same time you were going through your um through your authorship. And uh yeah, so I'm I'm so pleased it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Can I mention the den? Can we talk about the den?

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Uh go, go, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Because in a sense, you might have felt that there was some kind of failure going on with the result of your uh appearance on Dragon's Den, but you overcame it and moved on and achieved. So you went and did it.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

So well done you.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Well, thank you very much. I hadn't thought about it that way, but uh yeah, that was a hard knock, but it uh yeah, we we we decided to doggedly carry on, and uh yeah, and and uh yeah, and that's why we're here having a great conversation with people like you, Steve. Um so what wonderful, wonderful things. So I'll just run through quickly your um your adventure habits again. So the first one is to aim to reach for your potential in whatever it is that you're doing. Uh don't get sidetracked by stuff. Uh, you know, don't be uh don't be distracted. I think there was a little bit of ego that got in in the way there as well, wasn't there, in that story. Um get over your failures. Um and and you know, those those can be just as rewarding as as your successes. Um extend your way, yeah, extend yourself, and that was your good example on uh that brings us back down south a bit with uh the Bedfordshire Ridge Ridgeway and the South Downs Way, and then uh get out of your comfort zone. I mean, if if you just that was the adventure one, really. Um if you want to do something, just go ahead and do it. And uh, and quite often you have to ignore the naysayers for that. It it's it's your dream, you know, make it a reality. And and Steve, you've helped a lot of people uh, you know, with their running aspirations. Um and uh and it's been great having you here on Adventure Habits. Um uh great to meet you again. I've lost your picture, but I think I'll just say goodbye.