Endure24 2018 - A Festival for Runners! (Including Highlights Video)

Endure24 is a running event which until a month or so ago I’d heard only the odd comment about or seen on someone’s Strava feed. I had little idea of what the event was about. When I joined the Alton Sports Ambassadors program recently I was invited to an Alton Sports/Mizuno preview day at Wasing Park, near Reading, the site of the Southern leg of Endure24 (there’s a Northern edition at Bramham Park in Leeds at the end of June). We got to try out some Mizuno trail shoes and take them for a run around the race course, guided by Graham Johnson, Marketing Manager for Mizuno UK. During the course of the day Graham introduced us to the overall layout and format of Endure24. The event is a 24-hour team (or solo) race on an 8k off-road loop, with the aim to complete as many laps as possible between 12pm Saturday and 12pm Sunday on the race weekend. Teams range in size from 2 up to 8, either male, female or mixed. The course is a mixture of (a bit) tarmac, forest tracks and single-track (some a bit twisty and technical through the woods). The whole event is structured a bit like a music festival, in fact it touts itself as a ‘Glastonbury for Runners’, with fields full of runners tents surrounding the central race village. The race village has food, drink, entertainment and shops, as well as a giant fire pit for keeping warm at night! During the trip up to Wasing Park, Graham very kindly offered me a place on one of Mizuno’s three teams at this year’s event, so I got to give it a go myself…

The original plan had been to go with the whole family up to Wasing Park and camp together overnight on the Friday, but due to my youngest daughter have a suspected chicken pox outbreak it ended up just being me and my son Cameron who went. This turned out to probably not be bad thing as our campsite for the weekend was right next to the race village which was very noisy with the Friday night party in full swing. However, this being a running event, the DJ shut-down at 11pm prompt so that everyone could get the chance of a decent night’s sleep ahead of the race the next day. The upside of our camping location was that the race course went right past the front of the tent so we were immersed in the race for the whole weekend! 

Team Mizuno camp for the weekend

On arrival on Friday a couple of hours was spent putting our ridiculously big tent up (a mission on your own!) and getting all the kit stashed inside. I picked up some nice running kit from Mizuno for the race, including a pair of Wave Hayate 4 trail shoes which according to Mizuno are “Designed and built to give you both performance and explosive pace. The low-slung, aggressive lightweight trail shoe doesn’t compromise on grip or protection. The Michelin outsole gives you incredible grip uphill and swift movement for technical downhill runs” I’d never run in these shoes before, but had got on well with the Wave Mujin 4 shoes at the course preview day. Putting them on and wearing for a few hours told me that they would be fine for at least my first lap. As it turned out they were excellent and I wore them for all of my time out on the course with zero problems and plenty of grip on the loose surfaces. 

The race village (Friday evening)

Saturday morning dawned and it was time to start prepping for the race. You need to be a bit careful about what you eat and when over the weekend. It’s very important to keep fuelled up, but care is required to make sure you don’t end up going out for a lap shortly after consuming a bacon roll or the like! I made up porridge at our tent a good 3-4hours pre-race to ensure it was well digested by the time the race kicked off. Our teams were still in a slight state of flux up to an hour before things kicked off and we held a team briefing at 11am to confirm who was running with who and it what order! I had been given the lead-out position in team ‘Hayate’ running with Toby, Scott, Simon (all from Alton Sports), Tim, Rhys (both from Silva UK), Rob and Hannah (both from Mizuno UK). By this point the sun was out and warming things up rapidly so I opted for a light weight vest for lap number 1. Lining up on the start line, the DJ was pumping out Fat Boy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” and it was amping the field up nicely! Following the pre-run brief by the RD the gun was fired on the stroke of noon and we were off. 

The start line

Ready to go on the line!

The golden rule of Endure is to not run your first lap like a race, but it felt like one for the first 400m or so, the spectators (50/50 runners and supporters) were great and they carried the field down the finish straight and left up the road towards the trees. The course has 2 decent length hills, the first being less than ½ mile from the start, it soon brought the pace down. After only a mile or so I was joined by City of Salisbury runner (and Salisbury 10 Race Director) Stuart Holloway and we fell into a similar pace. Stuart was running in a team of 5, so definitely didn’t want to over-cook his opener. We ran round the rest of the lap together having a natter which kept the lid on our pace. Coming back into the race village we looped around the back of the solo/pairs camping area and our own camp site before closing the finish line and spotting the next team mate (Toby) to hand over the red wristband to. Lap 1 came in at 31:12 (6:25/M), given the amount of effort required for this I was hopeful that I’d be able to do the rest of my laps at a similar sort of pace.

As I was part of a team of 8 I then had around 4 ½ hours before my next lap was due, so I got some food and chilled out with Milly and the kids (Chickenpox scare turned out to be false so she came up with Isabelle before the start on Saturday morning). There was a nice kid’s activity area hosted by ‘Living Paintings’ a charity which published ‘touch to see’ books for blind children. There was also a couple of story time reading sessions in the big Mizuno marquee, so there was plenty for little ones to do. 

The family heading home mid-afternoon and I got ready for lap 2. At 4:30 I picked up the team wristband from Simon and set off on the course. My legs were a little cranky to start with but soon got going, it was still very warm, with the trees blocking any of the cooling breeze felt out in the open of the race village. Lap 2 was straight forward as I started to learn the terrain, although the second big hill of the loop (aka ‘Heartbreak’) was a lot tougher this time round and really sapped my pace. Lap 2 was pretty much the same as lap 1 time-wise in 31:07 and I finished feeling like I could manage a few more! 



Back at Alton Sports base camp in the Race Village I grabbed a pasta and bolognaise for dinner and hatched an over-night plan. We swapped Toby’s c.1:30am lap for my c.5:30am one, so I would do a double in the middle of the night but could then get to bed, have a longer rest and not have to lever myself out of bed quite so early Sunday morning.

Start/finish straight & wirstband handover area

By the time my 3^rd lap came around at around 9:00pm it was well on the way to getting dark and runner lights were mandatory after 8pm. I’d brought a variety of head torches (and the odd MTB light) with me, all of which I’ve run with at some point in the past and hadn’t made up my mind which one to take out for my first dark lap. As it turns out I didn’t need to worry about choosing as Tim Young from Silva UK kindly offered me the use of one of their Trail Speed 3 headlights, which, at a maximum output of 800 lumens, massively outstripped the power of any of my lights! The only downside of the light was the chunky battery on the back, but the addition of an over-top strap and a back to front running cap made it secure enough to run with at speed. 

To start with I didn’t need the light on anything other than LOW mode as I ran up the tarmac of the first hill, but once on the dirt track and under trees I needed a bit more light so flicked it on to the twin LED FLOOD mode. The track lit up like I was driving in a rally car! This was a serious light…I alternated the power setting from LOW to FLOOD/MAX depending on the technicality of the terrain, the brightest setting was also handy to let slower runners I was coming up behind them, it was definitely more polite than shouting! By the end of the lap I was convinced this was the light I’d need later on when it got really dark…. Lap 3 wasn’t quite my fastest (31:3x), but it was definitely the best feeling so far, probably helped by the dropping temperature now the sun had set.



 Despite everyone’s natural assumption that their lap times would slow down as the event went on, we actually kept quite close to the predicted timings. The trick was to go find the next runner after you’d come in from a lap and handed over so that they had the heads up that they would need to be ready to get out on the course in the next 30-40mins. Between lap 3 and starting 4+5 I kept the food intake simple with a pot of instant noodles and a banana back in my tent. I also donned a couple of layers as it was starting to feel chilly (the noodles helped warm me up too). Despite it now been dark the temperature was still muggy for my third lap and I came back in really damp with sweat, so the big fire bowl in the middle of the race village came in very handy to dry my vest out! With most of the course being in dense woodland the temperature while running was still very reasonable, so I wanted to stick with my Mizuno vest which had been very comfortable and cool for the laps so far.

 At 1:28am Simon came back in to hand over for my ‘graveyard shift’ double lap. Now the Silva Trail Speed 3 light really came into its own, giving me the confidence to keep the pace up. Lap 4 was ok but slower than the previous three, Heartbreak Hill was definitely tough going this time round and it was tricky picking out the tree roots through the twisty single-track of the ‘Fairy Woods’. If lap 4 was an effort, lap 5 was a borderline slog, my legs were starting to go and I stumbled a few times on the looser sections. Two lots of ‘HB Hill’ in short order really sapped my legs and I struggled to rally them for the last mile and a half back to the finish. I got round the two laps in just under 1hr 6mins and was very glad to get back in to the finish and hand over to Tim. 



I rewarded myself for the late night efforts with a large slices of Rocky Road & Carrot Cake from the 24hour catering tent. A quick check of the live results table showed us as 5^th large mixed team and then I bid Scott from Alton Sports goodnight (he was due out after Tim) and headed back to our camp. I gave Hannah (who was due out after Scott) a shout to make sure she was awake, made her a coffee to keep awake while running(!) and then got my head down just after 3:30am to the gentle sound of feet running on grass past the tent with the first glimmers of dawn on the horizon.

I was awake again just after seven, I’ve never been much good at lie-ins in tents! It was a greyish morning with a little mist in the air. Although I was not down to run until later in the morning (having skipped my early am lap in the rota) I was cautious with eating in case I had to get out earlier than expected. So I just had a couple of bananas and a good strong coffee while simultaneously watching runners finishing their laps and the Comrades Ultra marathon streaming live from South Africa. 

Breakfast+Comrades+Runner Spectating!

After doing as much kit/tent packing as possible (I had brought far too much stuff and a very big tent!) I got back over into the race village to check out how things were going. By and large our team was still running to schedule, with only one slight hiccup in the small hours with one runner finishing a lap and having to go hunting for the team member to handover to… A spot of lap schedule tweaking and I was down to run out last and 40^th lap starting about 15mins before the finishing gun at 12pm. We were still in 5^th place and, saving any major slow down/issue, looking likely to stay there. I took over the team armband from Toby at 11:43 and set off to see what my legs were now capable of. It took a few hundred metres for them to get into gear but then they felt pretty good, even going up the first hill! I ticked off a sub 6min mile three (nice stretch just before you hit Heartbreaker) and managed to get the next mile in 6:35, despite the hill. I ran in the last 0.8 of a mile at 6:06/M to clock my fastest lap of the weekend in 30:20.

Overall it was an amazing weekend, the whole event has a wonderful atmosphere. It’s really great for families too, whether just visiting for the day or camping over the weekend. The good weather definitely helped, but even if it hadn’t been I think it would still be a lot of fun (just need to bring lots of running kit). Many thanks to the awesome guys at Alton Sports and Mizuno UK for giving me the opportunity to experience Endure24, we had a great time as a team! Also thank you to Tim Young from Silva for the loan of the rally car like head torch! I’ll definitely be looking to come back for another go next year, I’m tempted by the idea of doing it ‘solo’ and aiming to get into the 100mile (20 lap) club…. 

To finish up on Endure24 2018, here's a little compalation of video clips from the weekend, including an attempt at an 'on-the-run' interview with Stuart Holloway of CoSARC & some of our first lap chit-chat!

May, a Busy Month Post Marathon!....and a Special Annoucement

I've had a busy 6 or so weeks since the fun in the blistering (!) heat of the London Marathon.

Only 10 days after the marathon I was lining up in the New Forest for round #2 of the summer RR10  Hampshire running clubs XC series at Stoney Cross. Usually this is just to chalk up one of the 6 required races to get an overall position in the series, as my legs are still trashed from London. However this year having not gone through the marathon at anything like 100% effort the recovery was a lot swifter. That said I was fully expecting a quickish start (the first mile is all downhill!) followed by a rapid decceleration and hang on for the majority of the 4.5ish miles. My first mile was quick in 5:21 but so were quite a few others, leaving me in around 7-8th place at the bottom of the first of the two big climbs. Miraculously my legs were better going up hill and I had got passed around 3-4 people by the time the top was reached. I think I was in 4th place by this point. I was running with Mike Gregory from Stubbington Green and we had Tom Cully from Southampton in our sights. Mike had the edge over me coming down the hill again through the 3rd mile and we both got past Tom. I thought Mike was away at this point (plus I was still expecting my legs to give up, especially with the slog up the second hill in the last mile!), but I managed to keep reasonably close to him and coming up the final climb I wound him in and got past. I was sure he would reciprocate the move once we got on the flat(ish) section into the finish, but I'd got a big enough gap to keep 3rd place all the way to the line, despite some tricky boggy bits that needed negotiating. 1st & 2nd place, both from Romsey Roadrunners, were well away in front, but I was really pleased with my best ever RR10 finish position so soon after the marathon!



10 days later on Sunday13th May it was time for my traditional London recovery guaging run, the Lymington RNLI 10k. The normal style is to run a fast first 5km to Keyhaven and then have to slow down as my legs remind me that I ran a hard marathon only a few weeks before. In previous years I've done quie well in the race despite the proximity to London, with a win in 2014, 3rd in 2013 and 5th in 2012. Finish position tends to rely very much on who turns up though... The course is lovely, being multi-terrain including a couple of miles along the Keyhaven & Pennington Marshes seawall.

At the start there wasn't anyone massively quicker than me visible with local runner Adam Jundi and Totton Runner James Dean being the likely competition....

We got through the first 2 miles are a clippy 5:29 pace with myself Adam and James at the front by the time we hit the gravel track on the seawall at Keyhaven harbour. At that point Adam decided to push ahead and my legs couldn't respond, James went after Adam, leaving me in 3rd.

1-2-3 running on the Seawall in the Lymington 10k

Which is how it stayed until we got into the last half mile, then I realised I was slowly creeping up on James and by the time we turned back into Woodside park with around 400m to go I was getting close. After a couple of hundred metres across grass the course pops through a gap in a hedge and into the finishing area. You then have to run up to an oak tree, do a near on 180 degree turn around said tree and then it's less than 100m straight to the finish. Approaching the tree I was really close to James and by taking the 'racing line' (wide in-hit the apex-wide out) I nipped past and into 2nd place. Unfortunately I didn't have enough sprint left in my legs and James squeezed back past to beat me by a second. Still a 34:30 clocking was great for the course and Adam was only 10 seconds in front at the line, so it was a good close race in the end.



Over the first May bank holiday we went on the first of two family camping trips in May, heading down to The Purbecks for a long weekend camping at Norden Farm (great farm based campsite close to Corfe). I got the oppotunity to get in a great 16 mile mostly trail run trhough Corfe to Chapman's Pool on the coast, along the South West Coast Footpath to Kimmeridge Bay and then back inland via corfe again. It wa a stunning day, but fairly warm and with some fun hills to climb, especially on the coast path! I took some video along the way and will hopefully get it uploaded to YouTube soon....

May had another very important event.... Some time in late 2017 Penny Malcolm called a semi-secret meeting of like minded people one evening in The House Martin pub in New Milton. The agenda? How to satisfy the thirst of various small children to run 2km quite early on a Sunday morning! Our children love doing junior parkrun on Sunday mornings, but the closest to us are either at Moors Valley Country Park or Riverside Park in Southampton, both at least a half hour drive away (which makes it an early start, especially with multiple children!). So a plan was hatched to bring junior parkrun to the local area. A proposal document was drawn up suggesting using the Trim Trail at Fawcetts Field recreational ground and send off to New Milton Town Council for consideration. We had more meetings in The House Martin and got in contact with our local parkrun Ambassadors, Malcolm White & Tamsyn Smith, who provided masses of help and guidence. A list of core volunteers and potential Run Directors was put together. We got in contact with New Forest District Council's Jamie Burton (Physical Activity & Partner Manager) who quickly offered for the Council to cover the start up costs, so we had one major hundle cleared early on 😁

At a meeting of the Town Council Amenities committee in January we got the seal of approval to use Fawcetts Field. From then on the parkrun UK HQ new event delivery system swung into action. Fast forward to 12th May and we were stood in Fawcetts Field running a dress rehersal event to check all the plans were good. All went well, so on Sunday 20th May we started the first official New Milton junior parkrun with 62 children completing the 2km 2.5lap course around the Trim Trail. It was a hugely satisfying moment and quite emotional, definitely the best running event I've helped organise and better than breaking the 2:30 marathon mark in 2017!

My son Cameron (in pink) and mate Ollie finishing New Milton junor parkrun #1

By the end of the month I was ready for camping trip number 2! Before that though I had a 3 night work trip to Cologne, Germany. Staying in the city centre there was plenty of miles of Rhine River paths to explore on the run (run tour video coming soon!).

Our second camping trip was for the half-term week staying at Treyarnon Bay Campsite in North Cornwall near Padstow. Weather was pretty good and I got some nice runs in, no focus on mileage/training, just getting out when the chance arose. I did do another nice SW Coast Path run with 12 miles from Treyarnon Bay to Padstow via Constantine Bay, Trevose Head, Harlyn Bay, Trevone Bay and Stepper Point. I video'd bits of the run again but this time in more of a "vlog" style with a bit more talking and reviewing of the Inov8 Parkclaw 275 GTX shoes I was waering as well as a Salomon Advanced Skin 3 ultra vest. Look out for a post with this soon too!

...and one last thing....

I'm really stoked to announce that I'm being invited to join the Alton Sports Ambassador program 😎 The program is designed to celebate local runners and their achievements, For me it means getting to try out bits of new kit, taking part in some interesting events and generally help promote running in the local area. Alton Sports have stores in Alton, Four Marks, Farnham and Eastleigh (very close to my work, so I'm in there a fair bit!), I can highly recommend popping in to see them if you're in the market for any running kit, especially for shoe advice. They are a lovely bunch of people, really enthusiastic and friendly!

As an Ambassador I've already been up to the site of this year's Reading Endure24 event (Alton Sports Blog Post all about it) with Mizuno to preview the course and try out some trail shoes. I'll be running at Endure24 on 9-10th June as part of a Mizuno/Alton Sports team. I’ve heard great things about this event, which is described as the ‘Glastonbury for runners’. The aim is to complete as many 8km laps in 24 hours in teams of 1(!) to 8. With be very tiring I'm sure, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Going for a Run with Alton Sports & Graham from Mizuno UK on the the Endure24 Course at Wasing Park, Reading

Practical testing of the Mizuno Wave Mujin 4 GTX shoe!

After Endure I'll  be running the Serpent Trail 50k race on the South Downs in early July and also have the Salisbury 5-4-3-2-1 50k trail race on the radar. I plan to run both of these events competitively, which means I’ll need to start getting some more time on my feet on the trails of the New Forest and up some decent hills! I'll be planning in an ultra run-to-work (c.27miles) as some point, since the New Forest is so dry at the moment and the mornings are very light.

Of course I'll be continuing to don my New Forest Runners vest and taking part in more of the excellent RR10 club cross country series on Wednesday nights through the summer. However, the focus of the summer is to relax more before potentially building for an autumn marathon, with either the  York or Bournemouth Marathons being options in October....