A few months ago James (Adams) threw out a potential “virtual” race idea where participants would have to run an increasing amount of miles each day and see who could survive the longest.

I liked the look of the challenge and we had a chat about organising a virtual event as a bit of a test for a potential real event later in the year and the Run Until You Drop challenge was born.

What is the Run Until You Drop Challenge?

Logo design by Mark Burnell

The challenge was quite simple. The aim is for each participant to run or walk an increasing amount of miles each day starting with a minimum of 1 mile on the 1st February, a minimum of 2 miles on the 2nd February, a minimum of 3 miles on the 3rd February.. you get the idea and see if you can get to the end of the month (28 days later). Therefore the challenge would end on the 28th February 2015.

If runners completed the minimum amount of miles each day then they would cover 406 miles in a month.

Obviously running every day without rest or increasing your daily/weekly mileage dramatically within a short period of time is likely to increase the risk of injury and we had to make it clear to people that they were doing this at their own risk and asked people to be sensible.

Part of the challenge was also to fit an increasing amount of miles around family/work life and so the challenge was designed to be a mixture of physical, mental and simple time logistics.

We setup a Facebook event and Twitter account, posted details of the event and see who signed up. Thanks to Mark Burnell for the cool logo.

Thanks Fetcheveryone!

Whilst this was primarily an honest based challenge as it would have been impossible for us to check everyone had achieved their miles, we wanted some form of tracking page and Ian from Fetcheveryone kindly setup a simple database where people could track their miles at the following location www.fetcheveryone.com/ruyd A few tweaks were required to get this working ok (we needed to count runs and walks for example) but the tracking page gave us a simple league table of who was in/out to refer to. Thanks for the work Ian, much appreciated.

A Reward

Finally, we thought about offering some form of reward. Unfortunately on our race budget of zero pounds we couldn’t offer medals, goody bags, memento’s but we did come up with the idea of designing a T-Shirt which people could buy if they wished at the end of the challenge. We decided to produce a “Dropped” and “Survivor” version and thanks once again to Mark Burnell for stepping in and helping turn a sketch into something which looked good.

Design by James Adams / Mark Burnell

How Many Took Part?

We had around 175 people signed up on the Fetcheveryone Page, about 80 people on a Strava group, followers on Twitter and 450 ish people signed up on Facebook. We estimated we had 200-250 people starting the challenge although its fair to say we had a mix of people at different levels of experience as some people were just aiming to get past week 1 or 2.

Bonus Challenges

Finally, I had this bright little idea of a daily bonus challenge to make each day a little more interesting. These were designed to be fun and help develop some interaction between everyone on the Facebook page. James and I bounced a few ideas of each other, so we had a starting list of ideas and we decided to alternate posting these each day.

Week 0 – Questions?

Naturally there were a few questions how the challenge worked and how we would track everything. We added a FAQ document to hopefully answer most of these but still received an odd few questions like “Can we be allowed one epic excuse day?” (Sorry, no). “ Am I allowed to run in a hat? It is very cold in Lincolnshire?” (Yes, and I positively encourage this) “Is it bad taste to count a couple of miles travelled while refereeing a football match?” (That’s fine) “Does walking count?” (Yes it’s a run or walk challenge) “If I run 10 miles on Day 1, can I have the next four days off?” (No). “Forgot my Garmin, will manual uploads be ok”(Yes, its an honest based challenge).

On the 30^th January, Jeff Venable posted “Where’s the drop button? When did I ever think that I was willing to do this?”

Our competitors were largely based in England but we had nearly twenty from the US and some as far away as… Wales to give the event a truly international feel.

Week 1 – Freshers Week

It was an easy week for me personally, with a 16 miler on Sunday 1^st followed by my usual 9-10 miles on the 2^nd to the 4^th and then one run on the Thursday and Friday because I had the Thames Trot event on the Saturday and the Wokingham Half Marathon on the Sunday.

So 28 miles required for the first 7 days and I ran about 107 miles.. idiot.

Thames Trot Finish, 7 miles required.. 48 miles completed 

Day 1

We kicked off the challenge on the 1^st Feb with the bonus objective to run 1 mile as fast as you can (relative to your level of ability). Personally, I  finished day 1 out of breath, hunched over with snot all over my face from the exertion and it’s only Day 1.

George Garratt posted “Stinking cold, swollen ankle, 1.7 mile walk completed. Day 1 done”.

Chisholm Deupree cheekily asked if US citizens could have a Day 1 pass because of the Super Bowl.. oh go on… er no.

I think Richard Clifton posted the fastest mile time with an (admittedly downhill) mile time of 5.18.

The good news lots of people were reporting they had made an effort on their run, which was all we asked, and the challenge was underway.

Peter Nilsson went a bit over the top with 15 miles on Day 1 in what he described as “moist conditions” (see below).

Day 2

Day 2 and 2 miles to be completed with a bonus challenge to run the two miles at identical paces. I don’t know about anyone else but I ran about 5 miles with my Garmin in face trying to match a couple of miles to fail three times in a row by 1 second.

Day 2 also saw a question about how several gym classes had destroyed a competitor on Day 1 and whether they could miss a day and make up the miles? (Afraid not!)

No problems so far for most people and so onto Day 3.

Day 3

An increase in mileage by 50% today from 2 to 3 miles and everyone had to take it pretty steady to avoid injury. Day 3 saw a full moon in the UK and we invited participants to post a photo of their best Werewolf pose, which I think was won by Richard Clifton with this effort.

Richard “Teenwolf” Clifton

Day 4

The bonus challenge on Day 4 was to say hello to every other runner or walker you passed.

Well my courteous hello was ignored by a group of joggers in deep conversation although Michiel Hoefsmit ran through London passing 1000’s of people and was soundly ignored by all of them. What a friendly nation we are in the UK…

Rich Meston posted on Day 4 that he was ‘loving the challenge so far for an unexpected reason as it gave him the chance to play with stuff he wanted to do in the past such as his running form and use his GoPro enroute’. Glad you enjoyed the challenge Rich.

Day 5

We didn’t want people to neglect their quality training with junk miles and so invited competitors to run up a hill on day 5 and post a photo of their hill.

Ian Shepherd kindly reminded the Facebook Group that the mileage totals for the four weeks would be 28, 77, 126 and 175. Lets just quietly ignore the 10% rule shall we?

James Adams bemoaned the lack of hills in Bedford and responded to me (living in Reading) that the next challenge would be to run somewhere nice! (ouch)

Fay Taylor-Ball unfortunately reported that she had ran out of time on Day 5, gutted! But was still out running the next day. Thanks for getting involved Fay and keep up the running.

Steve B Graham posted a picture of his hill… it doesn’t compare well to Bedford but will have to do I guess (see below).

Day 6

The most interesting fact of the day was posted by Peter Nilson who said “Guys, just a small astronomical update. If you’re an evening runner like me, and the skies are clear, you can’t but help notice the bright star in the SW. Not a star. Venus. Third brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon. Enjoy. Also, Jupiter rises in the east in the early evening so if you spot a fairly bright star that doesn’t twinkle, that’s it. Ponder your insignificance, tiny human!”

I’m sure I had to mentioned something about running aswell but I forget…

Day 6 fell on a Friday and we felt everyone deserved a reward for their first week’s efforts and the bonus challenge was to have a drink (whatever your choice) after your run. However, we were sure to ask people to drink responsibly as they had 7 miles to cover the next day.

Mikael Forsstrom posted this picture of drink, where he seemed to have taken Garmin out on a date.. sneaky miles eh?

Fredrika Gullfot embarrassingly reported she was out because she “forgot to run”. I mean come on surely everyone has devised an excel spreadsheet detailing the exact time and distance of every planned run during the month to achieve the minimum number of miles needed each day… so that will just be me then.

Day 7

Day 7 was “selfie” day. Frank Wormelsdorf and I both overdid the minimum 7 miles with a run at the Thames Trot event (48 miles). Here’s a copy of our pre-race selfie at the Thames Trot.

George Garratt’s ankle was giving him an issue and our first (but not last) reported injury drop could soon take place.

Dan Connors posted that 25% of the challenge (in miles) would occur on Day 14, 50% on Day 20 and 75% on Day 25. David Barker was suitably impressed with this post with the response “nerd”… but I suspect most of us had already worked out the sums ourselves.

Before he event started 55 people said they thought they would complete the challenge and a poll after week 1 indicated 74 people had completed the required mileage each day so far.

Week 2

Another comfortable week and I pretty much stuck to the targets each day adding an extra mile or so to the odd runs to match the targets. No problems at all to report this week but then I knew the first two weeks would be pretty straightforward.

Day 8

Day 8’s target was.. you’ve guessed it 8 miles with a bonus challenge to run in some old kit you haven’t worn for years and give these poor lost souls one more moment of glory..

Tim Downie reported himself as a dropout after a tough ElliptiGO session he decided that he couldn’t be arsed to go out for a run.. simple as.

Steve B Graham also missed Day 8 and was officially out but was going to continue running anyway.

Day 9

Day 9 and 9 miles to be completed with the bonus challenge to collect a piece of litter during your run and make the world a better (or slightly cleaner) place.

Unfortunately George Garratt officially dropped with injury and Przemek Wasilewski reported ‘feeling pretty wasted’ after Day 9.

Day 9 – Good deed day

Day 10

Day 10 and a bonus challenge to run somewhere new. Amanda Crozier posted about her “Two mile jog with the dog morning and evening and six mile wobble round the valley – on a road untravelled for many years”. Well done on the bonus challenge but it’s Day 10 Amanda.. Day 10.

Richard Tickner was the first to comment on the increasingly tough logistics with a plan to run 4 miles after midnight on Day 9 (i.e. Day 10) as he was flying on business the next day and had then planned to run another 6 late night the next day.

Day 11

Some early morning starts were being reported to get the miles done with Olaf Hauenstein reporting a 4am run to complete his miles. I tried a few early morning runs myself and found it horrible to get up so early and run but there was a small sense of satisfaction when you’ve already clocked up a few miles before people have even woken up.

The bonus challenge today was to invent a hash tag that described your run. Rich Cranswick started the ball rolling with a #whythehellamidoingthisimustbemad and David Sadler chipped in with #thechafingbegins

Tiagi Bandeira De Lima reported an injury alert as did James Adams with a #creakygroin

After 3 runs in a day I started with some #waitrosemiles followed by a #lunchtimebimble and then ran home and spooked a #startledjogger by accident. Don’t think any of them will be trending on twitter quite yet.

Finally, Luke MacKenzie Hill was feeling confident with a #11daysiseasy after a ‘dirty buffet lunch’. I’d prefer a clean one myself but each to their own.

Day 12

Day 12 was a Fight Club inspired day where we attacked random joggers and walkers. No, no, that wasn’t it. We decided that for the bonus challenge no-none was allowed to talk about the Run Until You Drop club, post about it, tweet about it or even brag about it and us runners like to brag to non-runners quite a bit.

Suggestions that the amount of tweets and Facebook posts were taking their toll on me were untrue! Anyway, I met Matt Dunn a fellow RUYD starter for lunch and we exchanged a knowing wink and then ran our miles for the day.

Jose Mounissy reported in as a drop out due to Daddy duties and unwell children. As we said at the start, it’s a logistics and life challenge as much as a physical one. Sorry to see you go Jose.

James Adams formally reported himself as a drop out with an injured leg. Creator of evil running challenge which was likely to cause injuries having to drop out due to injury… there’s a touch of ironicalness about that as someone would say.

Day 13

Friday 13^th and traditional bad luck day with 13 miles to be completed or a Half Marathon for those who were cocky enough to run an extra .1 of a mile. The bonus challenge was to try and reduce your bad luck by performing a pre-run ritual.

Alexa Jury kicked off the comments with an innovative pre-run ritual of ‘making sure my running bag is packed with all my work stuff’ (I do that aswell) although I also liked Dan Miltons suggestion of a ‘good slavering of lubricant of choice’. Strangely no-one mentioned the obvious one of making sure you have a proper ‘sit-down’ before going out for a run.

Unfortunately, we had a few reported drops just before the half-way mark with Ian Shepherd, Adrian Lee, Samuel Bolton and Kerry Hudson.

Jennifer Bradley got it all wrong today… by running 14 miles. I’m sure she was going to pay for that schoolgirl error later.

Day 14

Day 14 and after today everyone would be 50% of the way through the challenge in days.. but nowhere near in terms of miles.

The bonus challenge was to spell the word “LOVE” on your running route.

Ash Gilbert attempted to impress his wife Jen with this effort but I suspect he was drunk whilst running in a field…

At the end of week 2, 36 people confirmed they were left in the challenge. Numbers were dropping now.

Week 3 – “Ill Week”

This wasn’t a good week for me as I picked up a head cold, runny nose and the usual flu like symptoms. Didn’t sleep properly for a few nights and was feeling generally rotten.

That meant it wasn’t a great week running wise as I forced myself to plod out the miles and was now working on 3 runs a day to break this into manageable chunks before work, during lunchtime and after work. I tried to get these miles finished on my running commute home so I had some time off in the evenings… to keep up to date with the RUYD Facebook page.

The only saving grace was that it was half term week and with my wife and daughter off on holiday, I could time my runs to work so I didn’t need to do any silly 5am runs.. yet.

The weekend required 21 and 22 miles but I had a planned recce on the South West Coastal Path (pretty hilly) so on the back of a 100 mile midweek mileage, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday hiking around the coast and faced some heavy rain and wind on the Sunday. Not the best way to recover from being unwell a few days before.

Injury wise, I picked up a slight Achilles niggle but not quite enough to stop me running.

My “easy” weekend

Day 15

Day 15 and James kicked off the day with a Bon Jovi inspired “Whoooooaaahhhh, we’re half ay there… Whooooaaahhhhh Livin’ on a prayer” and a bonus aim to belt out a tune out loud whilst out on a run.

I’m thankful part of my lunchtime run can take place along a quiet trail as I’m sure no-one wanted to hear my warblings but I thought my selection of “I ran.. so far away” by a Flock of Seagulls was particularly apt.

Richard Ticker was livid today when his Garmin recorded 14.97 miles on his 15 mile run. Heads were going to roll when he got home…

Unfortunately Alexa Jury dropped today and Kate Hayden reported “things are starting to get real tough now”.

Day 16

Day 16 and were are into week 3. The bonus challenge for people was probably our silliest one so far with an aim to run ¼ mile backwards as part of your run.

Alice Out There reported she was finding it mentally harder now whilst Jonathon Logan reported he was out after changing jobs and some new commitments and Michael Lord signed out for similar reasons.

Bonus challenge win of the today went to Howard Seal for this video here.

Day 17

Day 17 and a look back at the reason we all took up running in the first place. Don’t give me all that “to get fit”, “to lose weight”, to “feel awesome” rubbish. NO! We all know the thing that got you into running was a meme. The ones you see banded around Facebook on a daily basis.

So aswell as 17 miles to be run, jogged, walked or crawled the bonus challenge was to create an inspiring meme..

We had a bit of fun with this one and here’s a couple of ones James and I came up with.

Day 18

Day 18 and just getting out and running sometimes seem to be the easy part. The logistics of when/where to run is now proving to be a little tricky.

On Monday I had to take 6 lots of running kit to work and 3 sets of work clothes just to get me through to Wednesday and the bonus challenge was to wear odd shoes for one (or part of your run).

However, we strongly recommended not trying a Hoka and a Vibram Five Finger on different feet as you end up running around in small circles.

I think I kept it fairly safe with two different white road shoes. Others like Jon Errington didn’t worry about it with this effort.

Day 19

Day 19 and people are still with us.

By this time it was definitely getting harder with people not looking forward to next week and were feeling down… feeling blue.

In the spirit of feeling down in the dumps as the end of the challenge feels a little too far away at the moment… the bonus challenge was to wear something blue on your run be it a trainer (ideally two), socks, shorts, top, jacket or a hat.

Super bonus points for anyone who dresses all in blue or who can accessorise something blue such as a Garmin, buff or headphones.

Frank Womelsdorf went all out for the bonus win today with this effort (although I was more impressed with the hat to be honest).

Day 20

Day 20 and a Happy Chinese New Year! It’s now the year of the Sheep or Goat. I think you get to choose.

The challenge for day 20 was to spot some interesting wildlife on your run.

We had chickens (a start), squirrels (meh), a grey hound (not bad), sheep (so so), a swan(mmm), an Iguana (alright), a White Deer (good) but Alice topped it all with Camels and Wild Raging Ponies!

Unfortunately, today saw the end for Richard Clifton who dropped with an injury. Bad luck Richard.

Day 21

Day 21 and 21 miles to cover and we finally made it to the weekend which afforded people more time to get the runs done.

To celebrate this Saturday, we had a special “hat” day where participants were invited to wear a hat of any description.. the sillier the better.

There was only ‘The Hat’ for me and so we had some much better efforts from Oskars woolly hat, Kate Haydens “walkers hat”, Mark Bissetts “cricket hat” and a joint effort from Rich Cranswick and Dan Milton with their tag team effort.

Love at first hat 

Joint winners of the day were Alice ‘Out There’ with a cap and ultra beard combination looking like an extra from ‘The Life of Brian’ and Howard Seal for this fancy hat shot ontop of a cold looking Dale Head.

“Are there any women in this crowd?”

Unfortunately we lost Drazen Paunovic today with his final worlds “I am out. Just can’t do it any more…” Sorry to see you go Drazen.

 Week 4 “Hell Week”

6 days to go and 153 miles to cover. I was now into early morning runs and faced getting up at 5am most days to get a few miles in. Nevermind the wife, the washing machine was groaning from the workload it was being put under!

Tuesday saw a 4.45am start to complete 12 miles then a shower, change, breakfast and the school run. We arrived half an hour before the gates opened and I managed to get a cheeky 15 minute sleep in the car before the drop off and return to work. I decided that a 4am wake up was too early and changed my routine to wake at 5am and make up the miles in the evening.

It was fair to say that my knees were starting to feel a little sore and I was carrying the Achilles niggle which obviously wasn’t recovering without any rest. Strangely, there was the odd day when you woke up with no niggles and the day after they came back again. I was forced to ice my knees and on the last couple of days but being so close to the end failure wasn’t an option!

Day 22

Day 22 and 22 miles to cover and the last days running on a Sunday. The bonus challenge was to try and combine your run with another sport although everyone was probably starting to feel a little tired with the running as there weren’t too many good anecdotes to report.

Day 23

Day 23 and the start of “Hell week” with 153 miles left to cover in 6 days which was about the same amount of miles in the same amount of time that runners cover in the Marathon Des Sables. So in the last week the runners were matching the “Toughest Footrace in the World” mile for mile. I bet those MDS runners didn’t also have to cover the school run, a full working day, washing your kit and Facebooking every night aswell.

The bonus challenge was to find something funny on your run. Andrea Stewart had 23 miles in the pouring rain to contend with which wasn’t very funny for her.

Oskar Mazgon took the lead for while when he complained of cramp in his right butt cheek after his. Dan Milton went the opposite way and had a serious sense of humour failure on a stormy (not storming) run along the North Downs Way and so I will claim the bonus challenge victory with this picture of an er… ‘oddly shaped toadstool’ which I spotted on my run. I’m sure I’ve described it correctly.

An oddly carved.. toadstool

Unfortunately Andy Wicks retired on Day 23.

Day 24

Day 24 and 100 years ago 24 miles would have been classed as a Marathon. They only changed the distance because the King of England couldn’t be bothered to walk to the race so they extended it to him. Bloody Brits.

The bonus challenge was to do something that you would have done 100 years ago. My lame effort was to get home under my own steam as the common man would not have had access to motor vehicle transport in those days (yeah.. I just ran home)

Wendy Shaw was still nailing the early morning runs with a 4.30am start to get the miles in early.

Dave McNamara threatened to retire on Day 24 and at 5pm didn’t have the energy to get off the couch 17.3 short of the target. At 7pm he managed to drag myself out for a pre arranged curry with his better half. By 9pm and a curry and half a lager later “this was the best he felt all day.” His wife smiles and he smiles as he takes a look at the clock 9:10pm pace calculator starts working overtime, doable but a good 2 mins/mile faster than anything he has run in the last week. Wife sees the steam coming from Dave’s ears “you’re going for it aren’t you” Dave responds “Wench fill the water bottle up whilst I get my trainers” 9:20pm he’s out the door. 11:49pm mile 24 done. Legend… for getting away with use of the word “wench”.

Day 25

25 days of torment and people were ready to tap out and quit. Today was the birthday of legendary US wrestler Ric “Nature Boy” Flair and in honour of Rics birthday and our US participants the bonus challenge was to perform your best WWE wrestler impression whilst out on a run.

Frank Wormelsdorf went with a Hacksaw Jim Duggan effort with his makeshift 2 x 4 he found on a run. I found a pair of The Rock elbow pads which I wore on my run but winner of the bonus challenge was Oskar Mazgon for going full Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka with this fence leaping forest shot.

“He’s gone top rope… he’s gone top rope”

“Hoooooooooooooooooo”

“Can you smell… that I’ve just been running?”

And that’s the bottom line for the day ‘cos Ash Gilbert said so.

Day 26

Day 26… nearly there people, nearly there. As the challenge was to cover only 26 miles, the bonus challenge was NOT to run 26.2 and then claim you ran a marathon today. We all know the only reason you wanted to run 26.2 was to brag anyway!

Mark Bissett was aiming to get his run done today in one long stint preferring to get it out of the way as he described his legs as “wrecked” whilst others continued to bank the miles on multiple runs.

Unfortunately Anne Green had to drop today after getting through 25 days… incredibly close to the end but an injury saw an end to her efforts, bad luck Anne.

Day 27

Day 27 was “Ultra marathon” day on the challenge and remaining participants were encouraged to do something on your run that you would do on an ultra.

Alice ‘Out There’ probably sealed the bonus challenge win by running 27 miles undertrained; with an inferiority complex; wearing 2 Garmins and with a homemade protein brownie… some nice ultra touches there but you had me at 2 Garmins.

Day 28

The final day we had been waiting for. It wasn’t quite Parade Day with 28 miles to cover but the remaining 26 participants were encouraged to celebrate their runs and post pictures of their finish.

Mark Bissett was keen starting at 3.40am in the morning in gales and was back and our first survivor having logged his miles by the time he posted at 8.55am and could spend the day content on Facebook.

Wendy Shaw was our first female to survive running a mentally challenge 28 x 1 mile laps of the blog and then celebrated with a good old fashioned cup of tea, guvnor.

Oskar had a battle to survive the last day according to this photo but completed his first run of the day with a second to follow.

At 12.48 Paul Stead reported in as a survivor and at 13.37 Seko Blackstarliner also reported he was a survivor and Dan Connors posted his post run celebratory beer at 13.40.

Well deserved!

“Steady effort from Paul Stead” (hilarious I know)

Frank Womelsdorf posted his epic finishing picture.. outside Sainsburys and that was shortly followed by Ash Gilbert posting his finishing picture.

“Couldn’t have chosen a better finish myself.. loads of food, and a toilet:

“Get this man a selfie stick”

By 16.01 Andrea Stewart had reported in as our second female survivor and 15 minutes later Howard Seal confirmed his finish.

Andrea is the one everyone is pointing to and even made medals for everyone… where’s ours? Can’t believe I did an event without a medal!

“Howard on his way to the finish”

Paul Lewis confirmed his finish at 16.38 followed by Dan Milton at 16.46.

There were some amazing scenes at some backstreet in some town somewhere as I completed the challenge with my third run of the day and celebrated in style by running through some coloured ribbon tied to a lamp post… doesn’t get bigger than this folks. Interestingly, I was on 470 miles before the last day and 28 miles would have left me on 48 miles for the month… so I felt duty bound to run an extra two to make it a round 500 miles for the month. That reminds me of the Proclaimers song…. “and I can run 500 miles … and I will not be running 500 more!”

“Amazing scenes”

Ten minutes later and Oskar Mazgon reported in as Dan Milton sat down to a well earned dinner.

I would have wanted a slightly bigger meal than that when I finished to be honest..

It was now getting into evening time and for UK based athletes only 5 hours to go to complete the challenge.

Kate Hayden was reported as a finisher by her husband John by 7.30 who was so impressed with her efforts that he said he was definitely doing the challenge next year… definitely… you read it here first.

Alice ‘Out There’ was the next survivor to report in and we learned from twitter that Dave Andrews was also a confirmed finisher.

Alice FTW!

News turned to some of our US participants whose results were going to follow due to the difference in time zones with Mark Manny reporting in his success followed by John Wallace III and John Price. Well done guys!

“Mark and fans celebrate”

“These feet have run 400+ miles you know… yes we can tell”

Phil Smith reported his success as did Jon Errington who ran some miles in the UK, flew to Lanzarote and finished his miles in a different country on the same day.and Terence Zengerik also reported in to confirm his finish.

The Aftermath

The last few days were mentally a little tough. I was pretty keen to get a few miles done early and couldn’t wait to chip away a few more at lunch. Sometimes, it felt like the amount of miles you had to run were just hanging over you but the banter on twitter and Facebook kept me motivated.

How long could I have lasted? On the basis that I wouldn’t take any time off then time-wise I still had an buffer of time in the evenings so theoretically could have plodded another couple of hours in the evening but that would have meant little to no contact with the family. Injury wise, I was starting to feel the toll though so perhaps was getting closer to the point of where I couldn’t run. So if this had been an endless challenge then I may have lasted another few days to a week but then either available time or an injury would have caught up with me so I was pleased the challenge finished when it did! An end date to the challenge was a good motivator to get to the end.

The day after the challenge I woke at 5am as usual but gently turned over and went back to sleep for the first time in a couple of weeks thinking… thank goodness I don’t have to get up!

Final Thanks

Well done to everyone who got involved, took part, supported or just joined in the banter on Facebook and Twitter and massive congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge, epic achievement if perhaps not recommended!

Thanks to James for the original idea and Mark Burnell for the fantastic designs. I was happy to help co-host the events.

We hope you all had fun getting involved in the event especially the bonus challenges.

So who wants to see an annual event with a kilometer based fun run version aswell?

Here’s a link to the T-Shirt shop here which will be open for a couple of weeks so a bulk order can be placed.

The Awesome 2015 Survivors List 

Wendy Shaw – survived!

Paul Stead – survived!

Thomas Hayward – survived!

John Price – survived!

Oskar Mazgon – survived!

Kate Hayden – survived!

Philip Smith – survived!

Craigy Norris – survived!

Andrea Stewart – survived!

Jonathon Errington – survived!

Dan Connors – survived!

Mark Bissett – survived!

Howard Seal – survived!

Seko Blackstarliner – survived!

Paul Lewis – survived!

Ash Gilbert – survived!

Dave Andrews – survived!

Frank Womelsdorf – survived!

John Wallace III – survived!

Paul Ali – survived!

Dan Milton – survived!

Alice Out There – survived!

Terrence Zengerik – survived!

Mark Manny – survived!

And I haven’t yet seen confirmation from our final two but assume they also survived?

Joe Green

Joel Gat