Sabrina Verjee

For me, tackling all 214 Wainwrights over a period of several years felt like a huge enough challenge so, as I began reading ‘Where There’s a Hill’, I thought I fully understood the scale of the challenge Sabrina faced of running them in just under six days. In fact I’d been following her various attempts and can recall feeling so pleased for her when she achieved her goal in June 2021. However, it wasn’t until I read her account that I truly appreciated the physical toll days and nights of running with little sleep takes, no matter how fit and experienced you are. There were moments when her descriptions of how she pushed herself to carry on, even when she was struggling with asthma attacks, suffering from injuries, disoriented from sleep-deprivation and battling against bad weather conditions, felt almost unbearable to read. I marvelled at her dogged determination to fight through whatever pain and discomfort she was experiencing and to carry on regardless … but I also found myself wondering about the punishment she was inflicting on her body!
I enjoyed gaining insights into the minutiae of what is involved in undertaking such a challenge: the meticulous planning of the optimal, most ‘efficient’ route to follow to achieve the ultimate goal and the importance of the vital practical and psychological support and encouragement from pacers and a team of supporters. Throughout her account she pays homage to everyone who played a part in helping her achieve her goal, conveying a real sense of a close-knit ‘community’ of fell runners, always ready to offer support to one another. Just one example of this was that not long after her own record-breaking run she was on the fells again, supporting a runner who was aiming to break her record!
I enjoyed all the photographs and appreciated being able to refer to the map in the centre of the book which traced the day-by-day routes she took on her record-achieving fourth attempt. I also appreciated the various sketched illustrations throughout the book which showed some of the changes she made to the route on her final attempt, as well as her rationale for making those changes. Knowing the terrain so well, this enabled me to recognise how such apparently small changes can not only be more energy-efficient, but can also save valuable time. The combination of Sabrina’s highly-evocative narrative and these ‘visual-aids’ allowed me to feel as though I was following her every step of the way … but, thankfully, from the comfort of my armchair!
In her acknowledgments Sabrina thanks Kirsty Reade at Vertebrate Press for giving her the ‘nudge’ to write about her various attempts at running the Wainwrights, as well as the rest of the team who helped her to achieve what might otherwise have been an unfulfilled desire to write this book. Having now read her enthralling account
(seldom has the description ‘awe-inspiring’ felt more apposite) I’m delighted that she responded to that timely ‘nudge’! I found her writing-style immediately engaging, almost conversational in its tone, and appreciated the insights she provided into how she used her experiences of feeling an ‘outsider’ as a child (never picked for school sports teams and excluded from even the informal playground games) to develop the grit and determination to become a record-breaking ultrarunner. I think that even people who have no interest in such extreme sporting events would be able to recognise the challenges she had to overcome to achieve her goals … and maybe even feel inspired to not give up on their own dreams!… (meer)