Quote Originally Posted by IainR View Post
I think CD, 10 Welsh 1000m Peaks wins, how many did Billy have? :-)

3000ers record too.

For his career longevity, 49 and winner of Knock Du, awesome to stay at the top for so long.

Comparing Donelly, Bland, Mudge et al though is like comparing Cloughie, Shankly, Paisley and the great Sir Alex. All top of their game.

But then Kenny S held and still holds records of so many great races, e.g Snowdon and the Ben.

Yeah Wellington race route, while tough, was basically a hilly trail route, hardest part was probably that road section. Ran it many times when living there.
Criteria are everything. I discussed all this in my little opus Il Campionissimo in the June 2001 The Fellrunner.

For example Carol Greenwood at the time held over 50 women's records and still holds eg Snowdon. She won the Ben, 3 PPP; but not Wasdale or Ennerdale.

Ian Holmes has won 8 English Gold Medals but admits he is not good on long tough lakeland race which some would argue are the real test for fell runners.

In my article I concluded that based on eight Classic Fell Races, every day things like The Ben, Jura, Peris, PPP, 1000M, Borrowdale, Ennerdale, Wasdale: that over the previous 15 years the outstanding runners were Colin Donnelly and Angela Brand-Barker but Angela Mudge would become even better.

Clearly I was right about Angela but importantly I excluded Billy Bland from consideration because of the criteria for the article. In effect I was saying "clearly BB is the best" but I need to write 2500 words about other runners so who else is there? The answer to that was Colin D.