Joss Naylor was a colossus on the planet of fell-running who within the last third of the twentieth century not solely dominated his sport however, by way of sheer charisma, put it on the map.
His best feats of endurance, within the Seventies and 80s, have been achieved removed from the general public gaze within the clouded hills of Cumbria. However the unprecedented extremity of his achievements, and the hardiness that made them attainable, captured the creativeness of mountain lovers in all places.
A Lakeland sheep-farmer who lived for many of his life within the hamlet of Wasdale Head, Naylor, who has died aged 88, ran his first fell occasion in September 1960, within the Lake District Mountain Path – regardless of medical recommendation to keep away from strenuous exercise following harm in his teenagers.
Over the following few years, he started to race recurrently, honing his method and focusing his ambitions. He was not the quickest, and, after taking up the tenancy of his father’s farm in 1962, he had little time for systematic coaching. However he felt comfy transferring at pace over even the roughest terrain – he mentioned that his expertise with dry-stone partitions helped him “learn” the rocks – and his resilience appeared superhuman.
By the late 60s, he had begun a purple patch that will final nearly 20 years: he gained the Mountain Trial 10 instances and the Ennerdale Horseshoe 9 instances in a row (1968-76), together with repeated victories in such gruelling occasions because the Wasdale, the Duddon Valley, the Welsh 1,000m Peaks, the Manx Mountain Marathon and the Karrimor Mountain Marathon (now the Unique Mountain Marathon).
What he actually excelled at, nevertheless, have been particular person ultra-distance challenges. In 1971, he grew to become solely the sixth individual to finish the Bob Graham Spherical, a infamous 66-mile circuit of 42 Lake District peaks, to be accomplished in 24 hours, which had as soon as been thought of as unattainable because the four-minute mile. Then he got down to lengthen that circuit.
In 1972 he accomplished 63 peaks throughout the 24-hour time restrict, within the midst of an atrocious storm. Chris Brasher, who paced him for a part of the route, described this as “a reminiscence equal to any of the best Olympic races that I’ve ever seen”. Three years later, Naylor upped his complete to 72 peaks: the equal of going up and down Everest, Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Kinder Scout in a single day, all in a blistering heatwave.
No problem was too excessive. He ran the 268-mile Pennine Means in simply over three days (1974), the 190 miles of the Coast-to-Coast path from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay in 41 hours (1976), Hadrian’s Wall in just below 11 hours (1980), and a route linking all 26 of the Lake District’s “lakes, meres and waters” in 19 hours quarter-hour (1983). When he took off his sneakers on the finish of the Coast-to-Coast, the pores and skin from the underside of his ft got here off, together with all his toenails.
Naylor was born in Wasdale Head, the youngest baby of Joe, a shepherd who had moved there in 1927, and his spouse, Ella (nee Wilson). It was not a snug upbringing: the valley didn’t even have electrical energy till 1977. However Joss, who helped out with farm work from the age of seven, grew used to lengthy, laborious, out of doors days, and developed a tolerance for bodily discomfort which – mixed along with his love of nature – would gasoline his subsequent achievements.
At 15, he left college (in close by Gosforth) to work on the farm full time. However his teenagers have been marred by the after-effects of two seemingly minor accidents that left him with power again ache. By his early 20s, the medical career had all however given up on him. His proper knee had misplaced all its cartilage; two discs had been taken from his backbone; he wore a particular corset to stop additional injury. He was pronounced unfit for nationwide service and urged to keep away from strenuous exercise.
He listened, however not for lengthy. Different younger males his age have been getting concerned in long-distance fell-running, and Naylor, whose residence was ignored by Scafell Pike, Yewbarrow and Nice Gable, had a ringside seat. When the Mountain Path occasion began in Wasdale in 1960 Naylor couldn’t resist. He threw away his corset, lower off his work trousers on the knee, and ran together with the official opponents in his heavy work boots. He seized up with cramp close to the top, however did properly sufficient to know that he had discovered his calling.
In 1977, after a few years of operating and record-setting, he was warned that if he didn’t cease farm-work he risked having to make use of a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. So he took an indoor job, mentoring apprentices, on the close by Windscale (now Sellafield) nuclear plant. But he held on to his 1,000-strong flock of Herdwick sheep, which thereafter he tended “as a interest”. And his fell-running grew to become, if something, extra excessive.
In June 1986, aged 50, he tried a steady traverse of all 214 peaks in Alfred Wainwright’s seven-volume Pictorial Information to the Lakeland Fells, within the midst of one other heatwave. It took him seven days, one hour and 25 minutes – a report that stood till 2014 – and required him to “dig deeper inside … than I’ve ever needed to attain”. By the top, the flesh on each ankles was rubbed by way of to the nerve, and his throat and tongue have been so swollen that he might barely communicate, not to mention eat or drink.
To admirers, such ugly particulars seize the essence of “Iron Joss”. Naylor’s achievements owed much less to genetic luck than to his indomitable spirit. He suffered a minimum of different runners. His greatness got here from his refusal to give up.
In an age when elite sport is more and more seen as a science or a enterprise, he ran along with his coronary heart, not his head. His favoured fuels have been rock-cakes and apple pie, washed down with Guinness or salted blackcurrant juice or, often, cod liver oil (swigged straight from the bottle, “like whisky”). And he wouldn’t hesitate to interrupt a report try and rescue a lamb in misery.
He was appoiinted MBE in 1976, but remained startlingly modest about his achievements. Lesser fell-runners have been amazed and impressed by the curiosity he took of their endeavours, and he would supply recommendation or encouragement to anybody who shared his love of the fells. The Joss Naylor Lakeland Problem – a 48-mile route for runners over 50 that he arrange in 1990 – displays this beneficiant outlook.
He additionally used his fame to lift cash for charity, which he did enthusiastically for a few years – not least by scaling 60 peaks on the age of 60 (in 36 hours) and 70 somewhat smaller peaks at 70 (in 21 hours).
Naylor was nonetheless lively on the fells in his 80s, till a stroke in 2021 set off his last decline.
He’s survived by his spouse, Mary (nee Downie), whom he married in 1963, and three youngsters, Paul, Susan and Gillian.
