Tommy Price completed the Bob Graham Round in 23 hours and 35 minutes on 6 September 2026, four years after a cardiac arrest on the same fells left him face down in the snow with his heart stopped and his body temperature at 18°C (64.4°F). According to Marathon Handbook, the Tommy Price Bob Graham Round finish closes a chapter that began with one of the most dramatic rescues in the history of Lake District trail running.
The Bob Graham Round covers 66 miles and 27,000 vertical feet across 42 fells in the Lake District National Park. Named after the man who first completed it in 1932, it is only counted as successful if all 42 peaks are done within 24 hours. Price’s 23 hours and 35 minutes puts him comfortably inside that threshold, by a margin that would have seemed unthinkable to anyone who saw him airlifted off Hall’s Fell in January 2022.
What Happened on Hall’s Fell in January 2022
Price set out from the traditional starting point at the old Moot Hall in Keswick and was attempting the Round with his friend Max. He succumbed to hypothermia shortly after the third of the 42 peaks, along the Hall’s Fell section, and could no longer walk. Max left to raise the alarm with Keswick Mountain Rescue. While Max was gone, Price went into cardiac arrest.
Rescuers found him face down in the snow. They made three unsuccessful attempts to restart his heart before an airlift took him to Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. His body temperature had fallen to 18°C, nearly half the normal level. One rescuer told the BBC that the extreme cold had probably saved him, because it prevented his brain and organs from suffering fatal damage while his heart was not beating.
At Newcastle Hospitals, doctors faced the challenge of rewarming Price without his heart circulating blood. Marathon Handbook reports that they ran his blood through an ECMO machine, circulating and oxygenating it outside his body while they brought his temperature back up. Once his body reached a safe temperature, doctors restarted his heart and placed him in an induced coma for five days. Recovery was slow: it took months before he regained feeling in his hands and feet.
The Road Back to Moot Hall
Price did not return directly to the fells. His first public athletic milestone after his recovery was the London Marathon, which he completed in 3 hours and 10 minutes, raising money for the organisation that had saved his life. The Bob Graham Round, though, remained what he described as unfinished business.
‘I am very lucky to be alive and even luckier to be able to run still,’ Price said. ‘It was unfinished business and I had to do it to finish the story.’
The symmetry of his finish on 6 September was not accidental. Jonny Hulme, a Keswick Mountain Rescue volunteer who was among the first responders to reach Price on that day in 2022, ran with him along the opening leg of the successful attempt. At Moot Hall, waiting at the finish line, was Dr John Ferris, the man who had organised Price’s arrival at Royal Victoria Infirmary four years earlier, there to congratulate his former patient in person.
Price crossed the finish line inside 23 hours and 35 minutes, completing the Tommy Price Bob Graham Round that had been left unfinished since that January night on the fells. The 24-hour clock, which had run out on him before he reached the fourth peak, this time had 25 minutes to spare.
