History of the Wainwrights list and records

Back in the 1950s and 60s, Alfred Wainwright spent more than a decade crafting his famous series of Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. The seven volumes include all the well-known big Lake District fells such as Blencathra, Bowfell and Scafell Pike, along with a host of lesser summits from Lingmoor Fell to Latrigg.

Clustered across every corner of the Lake District, the 214 'Wainwrights' have become a popular tick list for keen walkers. Most walkers will spend years ticking them off in ones and twos, but when runners got interested the idea of climbing them all in a single journey took hold.

Alan Heaton was the first to run the Wainwrights in 1985 in one continuous circuit, taking 9 days, 16 hours. Two years later, Joss Naylor ran the round and despite a heatwave causing him to suffer from swollen feet, hands and mouth, he completed it in 7 days and 1 hour. The record stood until 2014, when Steve Birkinshaw completed the round in 6 days, 12 hours and 58 minutes, as shown in Alastair Lee's subsequent documentary.

In 2019, Paul Tierney took the record with a time of 6 days, 6 hours and 5 minutes. Commenting afterwards, Paul described how the mental battle was as hard as the physical one: 'The hardest part by far then was getting up and out of the van again. Walking down the steps of the van made me feel like I was an 85-years-old with two bad knees. Everything hurt and mentally I wanted to stop. After about 10 minutes these negative thoughts left me and I could focus on keeping going to the next summit.'