Steve Birkinshaw

Did You Know?

• Birkinshaw gained a Ph.D. in 1997, studying nitrate pollution modelling.
• He works as a research hydrologist at Newcastle University, in the area of physically based hydrological modelling of river basins.

Fell running

Steve Birkinshaw first got into orienteering as a child, thanks to his family. He went on to take part in numerous long-distance fell races and finished the Bob Graham Round in 2005, clocking 17 hours 9 minutes. He also claimed victory at the Original Mountain Marathon (previously called the Karrimoor International Mountain Marathon) seven times: in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2009.

The record for running all 214 Wainwrights was set in 1987 by Joss Naylor, who did it in 7 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, beating Alan Heaton’s 1985 time of 9 days, 16 hours, and 42 minutes. Birkinshaw smashed that record on June 21, 2014, finishing in 6 days, 12 hours, and 58 minutes. His effort raised more than £22,000 for two multiple sclerosis charities—the MS Society and the Samson Centre for MS in Guildford—because his sister has the condition. He wrote about the experience in his book There is No Map in Hell, covering his route, timings, the complicated logistics of support runners and road crews, the planning involved, and the physical pain and mental struggles he faced. That record later fell to Paul Tierney, who completed the run in 6 days, 6 hours, and 4 minutes, starting at 8am on June 14, 2019, and finishing at 2:04pm on June 20.

After his Wainwrights run, Birkinshaw was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. In a 2017 article in Fell Runner, he said he wasn’t sure if he had fully recovered. He explained that some days he felt completely normal, while other days he experienced “brain fog,” though it was much milder than before. He added that he had done longer, harder runs and sometimes felt fine, sometimes really struggled. Overall, he was happy with where he was, acknowledging he might fully recover and return to his previous speed and intensity, or might never get there—but he could live a normal life and run every day. In July 2018, he joined Kilian Jornet for part of Jornet’s record-breaking Bob Graham Round, which Jornet finished in 12 hours and 52 minutes, an hour faster than the old record. Birkinshaw noted that, while he had recovered from his own Wainwrights round four years earlier, he was still 5 to 10 percent slower than he used to be.