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We did it! 

On the weekend of 26- 27 July  our team of 5,  Matt White, Viv Alexander, Matt Pillinger, James Clarke and James’ wife Vicki completed the Adidas Thunder Run 24 hour relay race which started at 12 noon on Saturday and continued through the night with each of the team running 10km laps in turn for 24 hours!    Also with us was our ‘team manager’ Den Alexander who played an invaluable role in keeping us organised and healthy in mind and body over the weekend!   Below is an update of how the weekend went.

When we arrived on Friday night nothing could have prepared us for the sheer number of tents and runners there - it was like a music festival - only for runners! Having never done an event like this before none of us knew just how long we could keep going, and we were all very nervous!  12 noon on Saturday soon arrived and James was ready on the start line to get us going to a cracking start!  The course was hilly (149 metres of ascent on each lap) over grassland, tree routes and track.  It started with a hard 2km climb up through woodland and then undulated through grassland and more sections of woodland. There was one water station between 5 and 6km and then a further climb followed by the ‘technical section’ which meant a narrow trail with switchbacks and tree roots galore for about 1km. This was followed by a further climb to a ridge (with views for miles) and then down back through the campsite through grass and trail. It was no easy course and deserved some respect!

It was baking hot and most of us suffered in the heat of the day but on and on we went in turn, settling into a run, eat, rest, run pattern, with day turning to night and unbearably hot turning to showers overnight.  During the day we were happily being blasted by super-soakers to get cool but getting wet at night was not so much fun when there was no way to dry off!  

It was such an amazing experience to run at night through the countryside with a head torch and to see the continuous stream of head torch lights all night as teams continued to run non-stop.  It was challenging due to the tree roots and we all tried to stick with a group in these sections for maximum light

But the highlights more than made up for this and there were many. For instance being out running just after sun rise and climbing the final ridge to see the amazing view as everything was just waking up – awesome!  Other highlights included the fabulous support from spectators, having chats with other runners on course and hearing their stories, seeing the amazing solo runners who just kept going and going and our team which was amazingly supportive of each other. Every member of the team pushed themselves way beyond anything they had previously done.

In the end we ran 250km (25 laps) in 24 hours and 9 minutes and team Ordnance Survey came 22^nd out of 69 teams in our particular category which was brilliant! 

One thing that that kept us going during the challenge was the amount of money we want to raise to help Southampton Women’s Aid in the work they do to support families affected by domestic abuse. Thanks so much to those who have already sponsored us. If you haven’t and  you’re impressed with our achievement it would be great if you could sponsor us using the link below.  Every little helps

If you would prefer to donate offline, please let any of the participants know, all of whom have a paper form you can complete.