2020 was going to be my year. Everything was in place. I had the London Marathon in the Spring to kick things off followed by the South Downs Way 50 and it’s bigger sister race the SDW100 – my first 100 miler.

And then we all know what happened….

Suddenly 2020 was looking a bit shit. I’m a photographer – I photograph weddings and corporate work. It was all cancelled. So now I had no work and no races. The kids weren’t at school and we were barely allowed outside let alone long runs in the countryside.

Running means a lot to me. It is my escape, my passion and it keeps me sane. Just as lockdown hit I decided this was a good time to get a coach. After a great experience at PXP3 in the Lakes in February I decided to ask Kaz if she would coach me. Aside from the fact that I now had no income it seemed to be the perfect time to have someone help me improve! I now had the whole summer to prepare for my postponed races, loads of free time and someone to give my training the structure it has always needed. 2020 was looking up already!

PXP3 taught me a lot of things – Adventure and Being Bold really resonated though and, with this in mind, a couple of months into becoming a Pyllon athlete (treating ourselves as “athletes” being another big learning) and after some encouragement by Kaz to think about some adventures/challenges I settled on a 24 hour challenge. What this would consist of I wasn’t sure. I had watched a great video on Youtube by an Aussie guy called Beau Miles who ran a mile an hour for 24 hours and used the spare time each hour to complete tasks – planting trees, mending things, making things. That could work I thought. But one mile an hour wasn’t much of a running challenge. Plus he was really good at DIY. I most definitely am not……

I spoke to Kaz. She’ll know. She did. She mentioned Last Man Standing where competitors set off to complete a circuit on the hour every hour. If you aren’t at the start line as the whistle sounds you’re out. The last man/woman standing wins.

Interesting idea. Given I was the only competitor I adapted. I would run 5km every hour from my house. I would return to the house and be ready to set off every hour on the hour for 24 hours. That would be 120km. Seemed simple enough….

This seemed like the ideal challenge for me. One of my main concerns about running 100 miles was how I would feel at 2 in the morning after a full day of running.

Would I be able to resist the urge to sleep, would I want to die rather then carry on?

This gave me the opportunity to test it. Having decided a date I started to get the plan in motion. A few local friends would join me on a few of the hours, I would run a minimum of 5km each hour but I would run more if I felt like it. This way I would “bank” some mileage early on that I may need to eat into in the early hours of the night. Having not run more than 50 miles before I hadn’t run through the night so I had no idea how I would feel at that point. If I felt awful then I could run less than 5km and use up my surplus from earlier. If I felt OK then I could increase my overall total mileage.

My family got involved too and this was great. My wife Jennie is a Trustee for the Jo Cox Foundation and she mentioned, in passing, to the Chief Executive that I was planning this challenge. It turns out that, due to COVID the planned Great Get Together was, understandably, not going ahead so they were instead planning a “Run for Jo”. So, as a family, we planned to run the last hour together. On the day they also started banging it around on social media which was never my plan! I’m not very good at blowing my own trumpet so this felt a bit weird and an added pressure but the cause was good so I wasn’t going to complain. My daughter Thea designed me a progress chart (see pic), my son Samson set up my “aid station” and I was good to go.

So at 10am on Friday 19 th June I set off. In the rain….! I deliberately banked a few extra kilometres in the first few hours to give me the surplus I thought I might need later on. From my doorstep I chose various different routes – some hilly, some flat – some trail, some road. The first few hours went by in a bit of a blur and I focussed on keeping myself fed and watered, avoiding sugar early on and opting for real food which worked brilliantly (thanks Kaz for the tip!). One of my other worries for longer races is how my stomach would fare so this would be a good test and one that couldn’t have gone much better. By the end of the challenge I had only taken one, maybe two gels and the rest was real food (and quite a lot of crisps…).

As the afternoon turned to evening I was joined at various points by friends and family. Samson came with me on his bike and it was a joy to share this experience with him. Jennie did too and as I ran towards midnight and beyond I found myself running down the middle of the COVID empty main road with 4 of my good friends –chatting & laughing – it made such a difference to have that kind of support and to see how a challenge like this can really inspire people.

By 3am though I was back on my own. 7 hours to go. I was tired, no doubt, but I was still running well and I hadn’t run less than 5km each hour at any stage so I was ahead of my plan. I now also had a few things to look forward to as I ran towards Saturday morning. At 4.30am I was blessed with a cacophony that was the dawn chorus and by 5am the sun was beginning to come up. This was what I had been looking forward to – getting through those night hours and being rewarded with the next morning’s warmth.

I still had 5 hours of running to go and each one definitely felt like it was taking longer than before. Just keep going, just keep going.

Those last few hours were a bit of a blur but the last hour was not. I set off with my family to do the last push and to Run for Jo. It was joyous. My feet were sore and my head was tired but to run and share this with them was wonderful. They had been such a huge support to me in this challenge (and they support my running obsession all the time…) that this was the perfect way to finish the challenge.

I turned the corner in my local park at 10am on Saturday to be greeted by friends, many of whom had run with me earlier that day/night – I got the opportunity to thank them for their encouragement and support. Many said they now felt inspired to do something themselves – I never really expected that but it was great to hear.

In the end I ran 141km so 21km over my initial target. On analysis I actually only ran for 15 hours of the 24 which surprised me and gave me a bit of confidence leading up to my 100 mile race in November (EDIT: subsequently cancelled) though that will have a few more hills…!

I bloody loved this challenge – it covered a lot of bases for me during this really difficult time. I had a purpose and a goal and I experienced something new. I’m not sure we experience new things enough but they are there – just outside your front door.