This weekend I stupidly entered the Challenge Hub 24hr.

Why stupidly?

Well this was my fourth ultra marathon in just 42 days, my sixth ultra of the year and thirteenth race of the year. I was exhausted going in and despite warnings from both my partner, running friends and my own body I had the desire to go for it because I’d heard so many positive things about the event organisers.

Now normally I would go on to talk my race through but I don’t really feel the need – we all know it probably went badly 🙂 however, I did pound out another ultra distance, claim another medal and have the honour of meeting some of the most amazing runners running today – you know who you are (Mal, Peter, Chris, Mike, etc).

What I would like to say is that Mike at Challenge Hub puts on events to rival anyone’s. You go to his event and it immediately feels like family, everyone involved in the set up (organisers, volunteers, medics) are amazing characters, and hugely friendly, as well as 100% effective. All the runners came away feeling very well looked after and having been put through a heck of an endurance event. If Challenge Hub comes back next year I will certainly be signing up to it. There was something beautiful and blissful about running around a multi terrain quarter marathon track as many times as you can with nothing but the sound of the frogs to scare you witless.

This was 100% awesome.

I learnt so much about endurance this weekend both in terms of how to treat your body but also how to keep running big distance into your 50s and beyond. This felt very much like a lesson in how to ultra. I’m so grateful to everyone. So for those that don’t get in to the North Downs Way 50 or some other equally interesting race can I recommend that you campaign vigorously (and sign up) for future Challenge Hub events and be involved in something truly special.