I speak to Andy Berry about the Lake District 24-hour Fell Record, which he broke in 2023 with a new time of 23 hours and 23 minutes for 78 peaks.

The Fell Record has existed in some form since Victorian times, and has evolved and grown in parallel with the honing of criteria for eligible peaks. This has led to some route quirks, and also the fact that the women's record follows a different route than the men's due to certain peaks being 'baked in' or omitted due to choices and requirements to meet the criteria of the time (the women's record evolving later than the men's and so set with newer criteria in play). Fiona Pascall holds the female record of 68 peaks set in 2022.

Peter McDonald has written a book called 'England's Everest: The 200-year story of the Lake District 24-hour Fell Record' which chronicles the evolution of the round from it's very early days when 'pedestrianism' (endurance walking) was very popular.

In 1904 Dr Wakefield first formalised criteria that a peak had to be over 2000ft in height. Later criteria were added - the current rules being that you must complete all the peaks of the existing round, and that any additional peaks must involve at least 250ft of re-ascent and be at least 0.25mi from existing peaks. Bob Graham's 24-hour Fell Record of 42 peaks in 1932 clearly became its own entity, but the Fell Record went on, increasing by a significany margin with Joss Naylor in the 1970s to 72 peaks. It wasn't until 1988 that Mark McDermott managed to improve this to 76 peaks, then Mark Hartell with 77 peaks in 1997 and Kim Collison with 78 peaks in 2020. This stood until 2023 and Andy's record time which was 22 mins quicker than Kim's for the 78 peaks.

Andy is a running coach who spends his time between Durham and Fort William. He holds the Steve Parr Round record (116 miles, 33hrs 46mins), has the 4th fastest Bob Graham Round time (13h 35m, 2025), won the Lakeland 100 in 2023 and the UTMR Mattertal 50km in 2024.

Andy can be found at: www.andyberrycoaching.org/

England's Everest by Peter McDonald can be found at: www.bookscumbria.com/product/uk-books/sport-uk-books/englands-everest/

See this podcast by The Rest Is History for more about Pedestrianism: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-history/id1537788786?i=1000721953819

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