Endeavour 192: The Way of Winter
From bold challenges, life-long memories are made.
Pyllon Endeavour was a project that first started in 2018 on the West Highland Way. We set out then as a team of talented ultra runners to push each other to find new limits, and to come together as a community to inspire others and to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing.
The Challenge
Ultra running has enriched our lives in so many ways and we hoped that more people might get involved in the sport or at least better understand our purpose.
In the following years, Endeavour continued, with our boldest event being our Scottish National Trail FKT - with the team running continuously across the country for 5 days, in winter. We tackled some of Scotland’s toughest terrain, and even now, still feel the fear of running in some of those areas! The hardship was worthwhile. We connected with the whole ultra community in Scotland and beyond, and had many conversations about mental health - conversations that would never have happened. Since our first Endeavour we also raised over £35,000 for SAMH.
This November, Pyllon Endeavour will return! And we are going back to where it all started. The West Highland Way. We’ll run from Milngavie, to Fort William and back home again - some 192 miles.
TWO PYLLON TEAMS
Back in 2018 our Pyllon Racing team set out to complete this epic challenge in 24 hours. You may recall that the finishing time was just 6 minutes beyond our target. So it’s always left us with an itch to scratch despite the overwhelming success of the project.
This year, we are excited about doing things differently. Firstly, we will have 2 x Pyllon teams running. A male team and a female team. Not in competition with each other, but to share the experience, offer support and help drive bigger performances from all of us.
We are also planning on opening this event up to other non-Pyllon teams to take part. Again, not as a race but to let other people enjoy the same rewards as we have experienced tackling bold challenges as a team.
Get involved!
If you are keen to support the event there are lots of ways to get involved. We have some very clear aims for the event and we need your help if we are going to succeed! Here’s how you can get involved:
FOLLOW: We will have live GPS trackers when we start and it will be with us throughout the challenge. You will also be able to follow our live updates on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook on the Pyllon accounts. Please follow for updates. You can track both teams using the following link https://track.trail.live/event/pyllon-endeavour
SUPPORT: It’s a challenging event to organise and support - so we’d really welcome any support out on the course during the event. Please get in touch if there’s any way you can help! Contact us
CREATE: If you would like to create your own experience on the day, with a team of your own, we can help to sort out a tracker for you and your team and share our planning documents so that you can run your own Endeavour project at the same time. Maybe you have a bunch of friends who are keen to do things in your own way - and tackle the same challenge as us? It would be great to know there were other teams out of the course at the same time as us. If you are keen to run your own Endeavour, please contact us to see how we might be able to help.
SHARE: We are trying to reach as many people as possible, and we’d love to get #PyllonEndeavour trending, so please help us out by sharing, retweeting, following and commenting!
DONATE: We are raising funds for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) for the vital research they do into heart and circulatory diseases. The BHF are working towards preventing these conditions from developing and helping those with existing conditions to have better, longer lives. We all know someone who’s life has been cut short - and the important role exercise plays in health and longevity. If you can spare any money please show your support by making a donation.
MOVE: Exercise has so many positive effects and if more of us had the time, support and encouragement to make it an essential part of everyday life, we’d live happier and healthier lives. We hope that our own endurance efforts will encourage other people to get outside and walk / run more.
Summary - Endeavour 2022
The event will start in Milngavie - beside the train station on the weekend of 25/26th November. We will likely start between 12:00 and 16:00 on Friday 25th November. Our teams will run non-stop to the finish back in Milngavie. We have some clear targets for each team, but are very aware of how the conditions will impact our attempts.
If you are also keen to set up your own team, you could start at a time that suits you and we’d plan to have your team appear on our event tracking page - using the same trackers as the Pyllon teams. There would be a small cost to set this up and for tracker hire. Please get in touch to discuss.
Our teams will start by 16:00 at the latest on Friday 25th November from Milngavie and we hope to finish at the same place by the evening of Saturday 26th November.
We will prepare a list of who is running each leg and expected timings once we have finalised the teams.
The West Highland Way
Fo those of you not familiar with the WHW, it is 96 miles long and runs from Milngavie (north of Glasgow) to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands, The trail, which opened in 1980, was Scotland's first officially designated Long Distance Route, and there's been a race along it since 1991. We will run as a relay team on this iconic route to Fort William and back again. That’s 192 miles. We start around 3pm. The run will be in the dark for 75% of it and we will double up on more remote and technical sections to ensure runner safety.
We will be attempting to complete the run in 24 and 30 hours. That’s 192 miles, close to 30,000 feet of ascent, mostly in the dark, across some remote parts of Scotland and from the lowlands to the highlands and back again.
Each runner will complete a distance greater than a marathon in the Endeavour. For safety reasons we will have 2 runners out on the course at some points.
If you have any questions please email support@pyllonultra.com
“For many of us, The West Highland Way holds a special place in hearts - so it feels right to go back again with some new teams and to try to help others suffer less from broken hearts by raising some money for the British Heart Foundation.”