FELL running is up there with the toughest of sports. Reaching the ability and athleticism to race up and down Britain’s highest peaks takes stamina, peak fitness and years of specialised training.

So how did a teenage punk from Skipton, existing on a diet of cider, parties and loud music, become a British Champion fell runner?

In his new book Faster! Louder! How a punk rocker from Yorkshire became British Champion Fell Runner, writer and former Chumbawamba member Boff Whalley tells the fascinating story of his longtime friend, Gary Devine.

Gary was a maverick who “jogged onto the scene sporting spiky dyed pink hair and a tatty running vest, hungover from the previous night’s party, joking at the start line as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes - before showing everyone a muddy pair of heels and running off to win”.

This compelling underdog narrative traces him from ordinary schoolboy to extraordinary winner, against a backdrop of alcohol, fights, arrests and extreme guitar noise. The book focusses on the races of Gary’s victorious 1990 season, revealing how the fearless ethos of punk chimed perfectly with the spirited, gutsy root of mountain running, with elements of surprise and daring central to both.

A review by Richard Jobson of The Skids calls the book “ a great combination of different mad energy - punk and fell running. I knew nothing about the cult of fell running. Now I want to know more. The story has a unique take on music and running as a life force and is also a love letter to the fell running landscape.”

Richard Askwith, author of fell running book Feet In The Clouds, calls Faster! Louder! a “strange, exhilarating blast of a book, throbbing with energy and sweaty authenticity. It celebrates fell running as it used to be, rough and untamed, through the story of a maverick hero whose remarkable athletic triumphs are achieved against a grubby backdrop of brawls and hangovers, squats and drug-busts, and very loud music.”

Lancashire-born Boff Whalley lives in Otley. After 25 years of recording and touring with Chumbawamba, co-writing their hit Tubthumping, he started to write. He has written several touring plays and musicals, working as composer and writer for several theatre companies and at Tate Britain, Manchester Museum, and most recently with Welsh National Opera. He has been running on the fells for over 30 years, many of them as a team-mate and friend of Gary Devine.

* Faster! Louder! by Boff Whalley is published by Great Northern Books, £9.99. Visit gnbooks.co.uk