It's a Hill, Get Over It by Steve Chilton

Author:Steve Chilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2019-07-29T07:51:01+00:00

Chapter 12

Two more greats – Billy Bland and Kenny Stuart

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.

Bill Bowerman

There are two other greats I wish to nominate. They are Billy Bland for his phenomenally consistent results in races, and in particular his records – including the outstanding Bob Graham Round time; and Kenny Stuart, for his relatively short career in which he absolutely tore up the record books.

So, the second of my ‘greatest’ is Billy Bland, who still holds the course records for two of the Lakeland classics – Borrowdale and Wasdale. These were both set at his peak in 1982, and have resisted all attempts since then. In the same year he also set the fastest time for the Bob Graham Round, of 13 hrs 53 mins. Memorably, this was the Bob Graham Round’s golden jubilee year, and Billy Bland took nearly four hours off the record on his amazing run. Surprisingly, perhaps, he only won the British Fell Running Championships once, in 1980. He had been runner-up to Andy Styan in 1979. He also set records that have since been beaten at Ennerdale, Duddon47, Northern Counties, Half Nevis and Sedbergh Hills, and holds the fastest time for the Lakes Four 3,000 Peaks. He was the first person to win Ennerdale, Wasdale, Borrowdale and Langdale in the same season, something which even Joss Naylor didn’t achieve.

Billy Bland was born in Rosthwaite, with a father who was a guides racer, and has lived in Borrowdale all his life. Billy first raced in a professional race at Keswick Sports aged 17, coming virtually last. Interviewed in Fellrunner at the time of his British Championship win he commented:

I used to go out training, but I never competed regularly. I used to get very nervous before races. I used to do the training and go to meetings, but sometimes got so nervous I didn’t run, so I’d end up running about three races a year.

He obviously conquered the nerves to a great extent as he became a quite prolific, and very successful, racer over the years. He also said at one point that Colin Donnelly was a ‘bag of nerves’ who could have achieved more.

He reckons some of his physical attributes came from his father, Joe. In a profile published in Cumbria magazine in 2003 he commented on their respective pulse rates:

He had a hellish slow pulse rate, which I inherited. I’ve had it down to 32, now it’s maybe in the 40s. But my father’s was always in the 30s. Good, that.

In the early days he was also a good standard footballer, representing his county (Westmorland). For ten years he worked as a quarryman at Honister Slate Mine. He ran originally as a professional guides racer, and wanted to run in his local Borrowdale race when it was started by his cousin Chris Bland in 1974, so ran ‘unofficially’. He applied for, and was granted, reinstatement as an amateur and ran many, many other races as an amateur. By 1976 he had improved enough to come eighth in the British Championships.

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