Endure 24

Admittedly , when you talk about Endure24 to non-runners, they do look at you as if you are slightly insane. “We run as many laps of a 5 mile trail run we can non-stop for 24 hours!” But there is a lot more to this event than would first seem…

To many runners, Endure24 is the highlight of their running calendar and often called the “Glastonbury of running”. It’s a huge festival taking place separately in Reading and Leeds over a weekend in June each year with thousands of participants either attempting to run solo or in mixed teams of varying sizes. The basic idea is to see how many laps of the 5 mile course each individual or team can complete in the 24 hours between midday on the Saturday and midday on Sunday.

Some take this very seriously with a few dedicated solo runners completing more than 24 laps or 120 plus miles (the current record is a mind-bending 28 laps or 140 miles!) and there is a special award for those solo runners doing over 100 miles. Teams for 8 or more fast runners can regularly complete over 40 laps (200 miles) in the 24 hours. However, the majority of participants are there to either complete a personal milestone as a solo runner, or to have a good time with a bunch of other running lunatics, some of whom do the event in fancy dress!

The course is quite challenging with several hills, mostly set in a forest and the trail itself can become an absolute quagmire if it rains heavily making progress very difficult at times. This year the event in Reading was subject to several bouts of heavy rain making the course treacherous in several places, especially the hills.

Having taken part myself as a team “fun” runner for many years, Endure24 is one of my running highlights of the year and this time I joined seven others in team Purple Haze (pictured below on our initial walk around the course) aiming to run 3-4 laps in total over the 24 hour period with a 6-7 hour break between each run.

Arriving on the Friday morning, we pitched the tents for ourselves and everyone else arriving later along with several gazebos and shared cooking equipment etc. The main site is setup with a hub around the start/finish line containing several food outlets and a large bar that opens on Friday night with a big disco and party starting later in the evening.

Team Purple Haze started with its first runner at 12pm along with everyone else, but if your first lap was not scheduled until later in the afternoon you tend to spend time chatting, eating and drinking tea around the firepit. This is the routine for most team runners with several hours to kill between sessions, although its also useful to rest and recover in between runs.

The weather this year was mixed to say the least, alternating between bright, warm sunshine and thunderstorms with prolonged rain. Luckily most tents remained dry inside throughout the weekend, but many of us got completely soaked at some point during the event and the rain turned the course underfoot into wet, slippery mud making for a challenging run at times.

The course its self is not flat