Following the double co-incidence of bumping into Julie for the first time last week (read my latest blog if you want to know more) we are delighted to announce that we have 15 Signed copies of her excellent book about her motivations & insights into her Fell Running & the challenges she has faced. There is an excellent review of the book in the latest copy of ‘Fellrunner’ magazine but for those of you unlucky enough to not have it on subscription here goes a brief review by me for whatever that’s worth.
I bought & read Julie’s book despite never having heard of her (my ignorance) shortly before my running in the Yorkshire 3 Peaks race for the first time a few weeks ago in the hope that I could use it as motivation on the lead in & race day itself, I wasn’t disappointed. Julie’s story is both fascinating & inspirational & shows just what can be achieved with a bit of good old fashioned bloody mindedness in it’s best possible sense.
Particularly riveting was her reaction to an insensitive & almost throw away comment by a climbing partner whilst in the Alps was anything but thrown away by Julie. A short time later saw her complete what was supposedly beyond her, a very respectable Bob Graham Round in 22 Hours & 50 Minutes despite the weather gods being against her.
Then their are her back of a fag packet type hand drawn maps together with snippets of her own poetry both adding a charm to her stories.
Julie covers many thought provoking topics on how she has narrowed the gap between her & that Red Line, these includes deep friendships, shared experiences, the beauty of her local fells to name but a few. If you know that you enjoy running in the Mountains but want to understand more fully why that might be this book will provide many thought provoking answers.
Julie herself won the English O.50’s Fell running champs in 2014 & went on to win the British Champs the following year, she is Doctor & Psychologist but most of all she knows herself & what she is talking about. I read the book in 2 days, & recounted her grit to myself more than once on my Y3p’s!
I am proud that she has accepted my request to stock her book, it is now available at our counter for £9.99, you do not necessarily need to be a fell runner to get an awful lot from it but being a fell runner helped allow me to see at least a bit of myself in Julie.