Simon Booth (born 10 May 1968) is an English runner who was twice the British
fell running
Fell running, also sometimes known as hill running, is the sport of running and racing, off-road, over upland country where the gradient climbed is a significant component of the difficulty. The name arises from the origins of the English sport o ...
champion and who has represented his country at the
World Mountain Running Trophy.
As a youngster, Booth’s preferred sports were
rugby and
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
. However, an early indication of his running ability was his performance at the Cumbria Marathon from
Cockermouth
Cockermouth is a market town and civil parish in the Cumberland unitary authority area of Cumbria, England. The name refers to the town's position by the confluence of the River Cocker into the River Derwent. At the 2021 census, the built u ...
in 1982 when he was the first junior to finish at the age of fourteen and beat his father Bill Booth. Injuries ended Simon’s focus on rugby and after finishing second in the
Borrowdale Fell Race in 1989, his attention turned to fell running.
Booth won the
British Fell Running Championships The first British Fell Running Championships, then known as Fell Runner of the Year, were held in 1972 and the scoring was based on results in all fell running, fell races. In 1976 this was changed to the runner's best ten category A races and furt ...
in 2002 and 2005. He has performed especially well in the longer races and his wins include
Wasdale
Wasdale (; traditionally ) is a valley and civil parish in the western part of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Irt flows through the valley to its estuary at Ravenglass. A large part of the main valley floor is ...
, the
Ennerdale Horseshoe, Great Lakes, Duddon Valley,
Sedbergh Hills, the Anniversary Waltz, Buttermere Sailbeck,
Langdale
Great Langdale is a valley in the Lake District National Park in North West England, the epithet "Great" distinguishing it from the neighbouring valley of Little Langdale. Langdale is also the name of a valley in the Howgill Fells, elsewhere ...
, the
Three Peaks and Skiddaw.
He had a particularly notable sequence of results in the Borrowdale Fell Race which he won twelve times between 1995 and 2010.
Internationally, Booth competed in the
Mount Kinabalu Climbathon, finishing second in the 1999 race, just two seconds behind
Ian Holmes. In 2000, 2001 and 2002, he was the winner of La 6000D at
La Plagne
La Plagne () is a French ski area in the Alps, alpine valley of the Tarentaise Valley, Tarentaise (Savoie). Since 2003, La Plagne and the neighbouring resort of Les Arcs form the Paradiski ski area. It is currently owned by Compagnie des Alpes.
...
in France and he also won the
Avalanche Peak Challenge in New Zealand in 2001.
He represented England at the World Mountain Running Trophy in Alaska in 2003 and in 2005, he placed second in the
Skyrunner World Series.
In 2015, Booth devised the “No Cure, Always Hope, Ultra Run” from the
Newlands Valley based on the 10in10 challenge routes which were set up to raise money for research on
multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease resulting in damage to myelinthe insulating covers of nerve cellsin the brain and spinal cord. As a demyelinating disease, MS disrupts the nervous system's ability to Action potential, transmit ...
, a disease with which Booth’s brother Duncan was diagnosed in 2010.
10in10: No Cure, Always Hope, Ultra RunMathew Emery on YouTube: The Booth Brothers.
/ref>
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Simon
British fell runners
British sky runners
1968 births
Living people