Conventional wisdom has it that serious training is required for an undertaking of this magnitude. In our case the reality was somewhat different.
While a fast time would certainly have required heavy-duty training (eg. long days in the hills and hard fell races) we all have other things in our lives which prevent us from making too many trips "oop norf". Alan, Garry and John have all been fell running and mountain marathoning for a number of years, albeit sometimes infrequently (between one and half a dozen events a year). We got round on the back of general running fitness and this experience of the hills. Our recce the previous autumn included the longest day any of us had ever spent in the hills (eleven hours) and remained the longest until the Real Thing. Our normal weekly mileage is in the twenties but Garry even preceded the round with a couple of months more or less devoid of running due to family circumstances.
So don't believe anyone who says that you must do a lot of training for the BGR!
On the other hand, it has been said that you need to practice three things for a successful BGR: climbing, climbing and climbing. This is very true and we are luckily all pretty strong ascenders. Of course, you do need to be able to handle a lot of descents as well (what goes up must come down!), many of them rough and/or steep, but you probably lose less time being cautious in descent than by being a slow ascender (IMHO).
If you know the area reasonably well then a recce is perhaps not critical. Garry knows the Lakes better than the others, having been fell running the longest (since 1984) but even he bagged a few new tops on the round (Seat Sandal and some of the Dodds). Figuring out good descent routes can save a bit of time and no one wants to get lost in the middle of Keswick one minute before the 24 hour cutoff! Some of our pacers sussed bits that we weren't sure about but we still had a few problems (eg. Gable, Yewbarrow and Bowfell descents, lower part of Skiddaw ascent) and lost some time which could have been avoided.
We took huge amounts of food (eg. Garry had 10 lbs of day food and 20lbs for the road crossings) but ate little of it. Most of our sustenance consisted of sports drink (PSP-22) and small quantities of the normal day food (cereal bars, sweets, rolls, chocolate, etc.) occasionally supplemented by something more substantial at road crossings (eg. Pot Noodles).
Success was due in no small part to our support team. With four of us attempting the round well-organised support was critical. Pacers generally carried our waterproofs and water; runners carried their own hill food and some additional water. To reduce the amount that pacers had to carry we had a few extra supporters to meet us on the fells with water. Our supporters were utilised as follows:
You will notice that the runners did quite a bit for themselves and were unaccompanied for the first leg and from Scafell to Rossett Pike (other than one pacer marking the top of Lord's Rake before waiting for Rob and the other pacer). We were fine for the first three legs but by the fourth and fifth thinking was left to the pacers and they would have needed to navigate for us had visibility been poor.