Of course I was aware of the National Geographic magazine when I was growing up and was impressed with the quality of its photography.

When I started working in Barrow-in-Furness at the North West Evening Mail in 1992 one of the bread and butter assignments during the summer was covering Lakeland sports meetings.

They were typical local community events with lots of track races, hound trailing and fell running.

And when I went to Grasmere Sports in August 1993 I was surprised to see that a photographer from the National Geographic.

It turned out that Annie Griffiths was working on an assignment about Cumbria and the Lake District and the guy who was writing the article was none other than Bill Bryson.

I later discovered Bryson’s writing with his Notes From A Small Island a couple of years later but I was not sure he was actually there for the event.

Having said that It was good to see how the American photographer worked – she was shooting using a Nikon F3 camera and it was the first time I had even seen a Domke F2 camera bag – I still use Domke bags to this day because they are so easy to work out of.

As I recall she got quite close to her subject on a wide angle lens and I followed her lead getting this shot of a fell runner being washed down after his race – although I shot it on a telephoto lens.

I was surprised to hear that the average National Geographic photographer shot around 10,000 frames on an assignment and that was in the days of film.

Having said that I was pleased to see how this image was used over a full page in the sports section.

From the North West Evening Mail on Saturday, August 28, 1993.