Hill running champion headlines Buxton Adventure Festival
15th Mar 2016
Top UK hill runner Finlay Wild will take to the stage at the Buxton Adventure Festival to share his love of the Cuillin of Skye, which lead to his record-breaking sub three-hour traverse of the famous 22-peak ridgeway.
The 2015 Hill Running Champion will detail his light and fast traverses of Britain’s most alpine terrain, his background as a mountaineer and adventures around Scotland. Finlay has won the gruelling Ben Nevis Hill Race for the last six years in a row, among other top results in many of Scotland’s toughest hill races.
Finlay’s talk, titled Cuillin Calling, will also cover his future plans. He is now dabbling in “skimo”, lightweight ski mountain racing popular in Europe and growing in Scotland, which he describes as “a perfect blend of hill running fitness with the speed of an all-out racing ski descent – the possibilities are exciting and many.”
He will be joined by Buxton local Aleksander Kashefi-Mofrad, who covered the 1,200 miles between Land’s End to John O’Groats on foot without shoes and in just 42 days. The feat was completed without support, requiring Aleks to carry everything he needed to eat, sleep and run.
He will tell his story about the training, endurance, highs and lows, which included tendinitis, horrendous weather conditions, a broken toe, a cold, food poisoning and an unfortunate meeting with a potential French murderer.
Completing the mini-festival line-up, there will be an audio-visual presentation from specialist running photographer James Carnegie and a screening of Miles Away, a short hill-running film from world-renowned mountaineer Dave MacLeod.
Finlay and Aleks will be at the Buxton Adventure Festival at 7:30pm on Tuesday, 12th April 2016. The event takes place at the Buxton Opera House Pavilion Arts Centre in the heart of the Peak District.
Matt Heason, Buxton Adventure Festival Director, says: “Finlay Wild’s hill running achievements are incredible and anyone who knows the 20-mile Cuillin Ridge, which can take competent hill walkers two days with an overnight bivouac, will understand how impossibly difficult it sounds to complete it in less than three hours. His talk will be fascinating for anyone interested in the mountains and world-class hill running.
“Equally, Buxton teacher Aleks’s mad but hugely impressive achievement of walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats barefoot will be hugely entertaining. Plus, we will be showing a short film and an audio-visual presentation from a top photographer. It will be an evening not to be missed.”
The Buxton Adventure Festival is supported by University of Derby, Buxton Advertiser, Buxton Opera House, The Old Hall Hotel, Go Ape and Heason Events.
