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The journey of Frank to the Bob Graham round challenge
Lake District National Park, Lakes, South Lakeland District, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Date
Tickets
About the event
Bob Graham Challenge
The Bob Graham Round is a fell running challenge in the English Lake District. It is named after Bob Graham (1889–1966), a Keswick guest-house owner, who in June 1932 broke the Lakeland Fell record by traversing 42 fells within a 24-hour period.
The Round was first repeated, in a better time, in 1960 by Alan Heaton. Since then over 1900 individuals have completed the Round with the fastest time being 13hr 53m set by Billy Bland in 1982, the ladies record being 15hr 24m set by Jasmin Paris in 2016. The Lakeland 24 Hour record has also been improved with the current holder, Mark Hartell, successfully reaching 77 summits in the allotted time.
Along with the Paddy Buckley Round and Ramsay Round, the Bob Graham Round is one of the classic big three mountain challenges in the UK. Some thirty individuals have completed all three.
The 16th of august i go to the Lake district to walk the round of Graham in 4 days. That means that you walk every day a distance of 16.5 miles. Every night i will camp in the mountains so that i can start the next morning again do to the next part of the round.
If you are interested to join me during this days to explore the round you can contact me.
After this 4 days hike i will take 2 days off to recover from my hike.
Day 7 i will do my challenge to conquer the Bob Graham round in 24 hours. If there is anyone who think he is fit enough to join me during this challenge you can also contact me so that we can do this challenge together.
Location
Lake District National Park, Lakes, South Lakeland District, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Organiser
Frank van Lieshout
Groningen, Netherlands
Frank has always been a person with passion for the outdoor lifestyle. Since he was a little boy his parents took him to the mountains for hiking. He always wanted to become an adventurer, spend time in the mountains and share this passion with other people, which is why he chose to study outdoor & adventures in his home country of the Netherlands. He then spent a few years on professionalizing himself in the outdoor & adventure business and learning survival and hiking skills in the mountains of Pyrenees, Scotland and several other places in Europe.
After finishing this study he decided to become a qualified teacher in sports, because working with kids and young adults is also something that is a passion of him. He would like to create events and natural play sites to motivate children and young adults to spend more time in nature, as he did with his parents.
Since begin of 2016 he started his own outdoor organization Vanlieshoutdoor, where he wants to organize events and projects to share his passion for outdoor & adventure with other people in the near future.
Next to his passion for
outdoor he decided to start his career as athlete. Before 2016, Frank never did
sports as a goal to become the fastest or strongest in a kind of sport – he
simply did sports for fun – but after probably the worst moment of Frank’s
outdoor career, his mindset changed towards sports. After this moment he decided
to search for challenges, the first challenge being obstacle running. He
qualified for the European championships in the Netherlands and later in the
year also for the world championships in Canada. You can read his article how
he made it out in the world championships!
In the summer of 2016, Frank
was in Scotland with the one-legged Etchrock Elite Michael Robbert Brans to
climb the country’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis. Supporting Michael on his way
to the top was Frank’s first project with Vanlieshoutdoor. During this
challenge he met Stuart and Jason (owners of Etchrock), who also came over to
support Michael. They said to Frank: “You came here to support Michael, but
when will be your challenge?”
During this weekend they told him about the Bob Graham round in the Lake District, which is a mountain run of more than 60 miles and 42 peaks within a period of 24 hours. When they told Frank about this, he had the whole thing scheduled and planned out within 30 minutes. They were like: “this guy is from another level”. A few weeks later Frank did his first attempt of the Bob Graham round for which Stuart came over to support him. Unfortunately, he didn’t finish the challenge, but you can read more about this in his article. In 2017 he will come back again to smash the Bob Graham round. Here in the lakes district Stuart asked Frank to become one of Etchrock’s Elite athletes.