Joss Naylor, one of the pioneers of British fell running, died on June 28, 2024, at age 88. We offer this short tribute to a remarkable runner who inspired many with his accomplishments in the fells, as well as his involvement with the fell running community.
Joss Naylor — fell running legend — February 10, 1936 to June 28, 2024 Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Growing Up on the Farm
Joss (Joseph) Naylor was born on February 10, 1936, and lived most of his life in the tiny hamlet of Wasdale Head, a small settlement of a few houses nestled at the head of a remote valley deep in the English Lake District surrounded by some of the country’s highest mountains. It is a wild, natural environment.
His father was a shepherd, and Joss grew up helping on the farm. Working long hours was part of the way of life, and the time on his feet and work ethic of the farm moulded Joss’s character for later challenges in life. The valley was only connected to the main electrical grid in 1977.
Joss left school at age 15 to work full-time on the farm, and two separate accidents in the succeeding years left Joss with no cartilage in his right knee and two discs removed from his back. He was not deemed fit enough for National Service and was advised to avoid any activity that was too arduous.
Running in the Fells
The Lakeland fells are steeped in the British fell running tradition. Many of Joss’s peers also worked on the land and developed the natural ability to cover local terrain at speed. Joss ran his first race in 1960, the Lake District Mountain Trial, wearing a pair of boots, as he didn’t possess running shoes.
Not naturally fast at shorter events, Joss realised he had the ability to stay on his feet for several hours and still move at a good pace. In the 1960s and ’70s, as well as recording 10 victories in the classic Lake District Mountain Trial, he was a multiple-time winner of many of the classic British long fell races like Ennerdale Horseshoe, the Welsh 1,000 Metres Peaks Race, as well as two-day mountain marathons.
Joss Naylor during Ennerdale Horseshoe Race in 1972. Photo: Tommy Ore
This realisation led him to start undertaking long individual challenges, which we love to call fastest known times (FKTs) these days. Joss’s whole mindset seems to have been driven by pushing his own boundaries of what was possible ever further.
The Bob Graham Round and Other Records
In 1971, Joss became only the sixth person to complete the classic Bob Graham Round, a 66-mile circuit including 42 peaks.
Since then, both Kilian Jornet and Jack Kuenzle have pushed the Bob Graham record down to much faster times in well-publicised attempts that have attracted much interest. Both acknowledged that the long history of these challenges attracted them to the Lakes District in the first place.
Joss and many who attempt “The Bob” each year do it under the radar of running media and others, far from the gaze of publicity, attracted by the simplicity of challenging oneself against the fells.
Also in 1971, Joss set a record for the British Three Peaks Challenge, which involved running up and down the three highest mountains in Scotland, England, and Wales. Transport between the three peaks involved well over 400 miles of driving. In this little adventure, Joss was driven by Frank Davies in a rally-specification Ford Capri Vita 6. Needless to say, it is hard to think regular speed limits were observed as the entire trip took 11 hours and 56 minutes.
Joss Naylor taking a drink during his Three Peaks Challenge in 1971. Photo: Tommy Ore
Next, Joss twice bettered the Lake District 24-Hour Record, where the simple aim is to cover as many Lakeland peaks over 2,000 feet in 24 hours. Joss covered 63 peaks in 24 hours in 1972, and three years later, after meticulous planning, ran a route extending this to 72 peaks!
In recent times, Kim Collison and Andy Berry have pushed this record out to 78 peaks in 24 hours, with Berry having the faster time of 23 hours and 23 minutes.
Other Classic Routes
Other classic routes Joss set records on were the 268-mile Pennine Way, a trail which is now better known as the route of the Spine race. He ran the route in 1974 in 3 days, 4 hours, and 36 minutes. For Joss and his contemporaries, it was simply a personal challenge and a great few days on the hills and trails. The days of people paying money to pin a number on for the privilege of racing the route were still far in the future.
In 1986, aged 50, he ran a route covering the Wainwrights that included all 214 Lakeland summits meticulously chronicled in Alfred Wainwrights’s seven-volume guide to the area. It took Joss 7 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, and he is on record as saying it was probably the hardest challenge he undertook. The record stood until 2014.
In 1997, at age 60, he undertook a continuous challenge of covering 60 Lakeland peaks. At 70, he completed a 70-peak challenge. On both occasions, he raised money for local charities.
The Fell Running Community
The mere mention of the name Joss Naylor, for many mountain enthusiasts, evokes memories of adventure.
As well as his own passion for pushing himself, he very much followed in the local Lakeland traditions of turning out, in all weathers, to accompany or help crew other runners of all abilities in their own challenges or Bob Graham Round attempts. He was always willing to offer advice to fellow runners, no matter their age or ability. He was a pacer for another Lakeland shepherd and running legend, Billy Bland, whose Bob Graham record stood for many years and survived many attempts before Jornet finally went faster in 2018.
Joss was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1976 for services to fell running.
International Running
Although very much at home in his beloved Lakeland hills, Joss occasionally traveled to races.
In 1974, he competed in Europe’s classic Sierre-Zinal and finished a creditable sixth place. The following year, he placed sixth in the Pikes Peak Marathon in the U.S. Records show he ran 4:07:22 on what is a slightly different course to today’s race, with an ascent of 2:41:05 and descent of 1:26:17.
Joss Naylor getting a leg massage on his Pennine Way record in 1974. Photo: Tommy Ore
Foray into 24-Hour Racing
In 1977, Joss tried another type of racing that was far out of his comfort zone.
Ron Bentley, from the famous Tipton Harriers Club, had set a new 24-hour world record in 1973 by running 259.603 kilometers (161.310 miles) in a Road Runners Club-organized track race in London.
It created a lot of interest in the endurance community and Joss, whose ability to stay on his feet on the fells for 24 hours was without question, was encouraged to see how he fared in a slightly different endurance challenge. He and Boyd Millen, another Lakeland runner, were invited to take part in a similar race in October 1977.
Martin Stone, who was to carve out his own creditable running achievements in due course, was a young student in London at the time, but by a quirk of fate, got involved in the 24-hour event. He recalls,
“I think Joss and Boyd were invited to take part in the 24-hour event to try to open up the sport to runners from other areas of long-distance running. Joss ran very fast, but about every four hours, he would disappear into a family-size tent pitched on the grass by the trackside. Each time, he emerged a new man, setting off at breakneck speed around the track, almost matching the speed of Don Ritchie, who was also running. Boyd was trundling around the track considerably more slowly and gradually tying up.
“I was just a young, inexperienced, 19-year-old uni[versity] student and had bumped into Boyd for the first time the previous weekend as Boyd was running the famous 54-mile London to Brighton Race. He had nowhere to stay and crashed on my floor in my hovel in Bethnal Green for the week before the 24-hour race.
“Anyway, I had never been introduced to Joss, and he didn’t know me from Adam. He was already a legend. At about 20 hours, I went over to the Naylor tent and peered in. All was revealed. Joss had brought his own medicinal masseur down from Workington in Cumbria. Harry Boult, who was in his late 70s at least, was providing remarkable support to Joss, who was entering the tent a broken man and emerging a Superman.”
Joss was to finish fourth, covering 221.320 kilometers (137.521 miles). He found running on a tartan track very hard.
The race was won by Tom Roden with 251.459 kilometers, falling short of the then-world 24-hour record. All the 24-hour runners were overshadowed by the previously mentioned ultra legend Don Ritchie, who used the event to target and break the then-world 100-mile record. His time of 11:30:51 was to stand until 2002 and is still one of the top 10 100-mile times on record.
Under the Radar Adventures
Without a doubt, Joss was happiest in his backyard of the Lake District fells, where he could simply head out of the front door, surrounded by some of the highest peaks in England, and climb high within minutes.
Joss did what he loved, fitting in training in between long, arduous days as a farmer — a far cry from the modern world of professional full-time trail and mountain runners.
Joss Naylor being interviwed by CBS during his 1972 24-hour record run of 63 peaks. Photo: Tommy Ore
Although many of his finest achievements are well documented, another story illustrates his innate sense of adventure.
Duncan Watson, a Scottish hill runner and one of the first two runners to complete Scotland’s famous 95-mile West Highland Way trail in one outing, recalls bumping into Joss and two other runners by Loch Lomond while out on a training run on the trail. In a subsequent conversation with the owner of the Inverarnan Inn, a small remote hotel and bar about halfway up the trail, they learned that Joss once called in for a drink when on the return leg of an out-and-back on the West Highland Way, a 190-mile journey from Glasgow to Fort William and back again.
No further details are available. However, one wonders just how many undocumented adventures Joss undertook in his life that go beyond a normal weekend training run!
Joss existed in the territory where myth meets reality.
Then, as now, away from the limelight or current social media spotlight, there are people of all standards finding their amazing adventures and life-enhancing experiences. Joss maybe did more adventures than most, and did them quickly. Without a doubt, he was a pioneer in many respects, and his inspiration will live on.
A Celebration of Life
Joss was active well into his eighties but was less so since suffering a stroke in 2021.
His funeral will take place this Friday, July 19. Fittingly, it will be held in the tiny St Olaf’s Church in the hamlet of Wasdale where Joss spent most of his life. It is reported to be the smallest church in England, seating just 35 people.
Fell running legends Joss Naylor and Steve Cliff atop a fell. Photo: Ian Charters
In a post on social media, the Fell Runners Association said Joss’s family asked any attendees who could to wear club colours and arrive by running over any of the passes into the village. “It was Joss’s wish that his funeral should be a colourful celebration of his life,” the post said.
“The Naylor family invite all fell runners to join them at Wasdale Head on Friday 19 July and to form a colourful guard of honour as Joss takes the short journey to his final resting place.”
Arrangements have been made to relay the service outside to enable his many friends and admirers to hear the ceremony and celebration of a life well lived.
This short tribute can only offer a glimpse into Joss. For a more in-depth read, “Joss: The Life and Times of the Legendary Lake District Fell Runner and Shepherd Joss Naylor” by Keith Richardson is recommended.
For further reading on the history and characters of British fell running, readers may wish to read “It’s a Hill, Get Over It!” by Steve Chilton or Richard Askwith’s, “Feet in the Clouds.”
For anyone visiting the Lakes soon, there is an exhibition on the history of fell running in the Lake District, including much memorabilia from Joss and others at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside until December 2024.
Call for Comments
- Do you have any Joss Naylor stories you’d like to share?
- How have you been influenced by Joss’s presence in the world?
