The Run Sandringham 24 race proved to be a hard day's night for around 400 participants who lapped up the 24-hour challenge on repeated five-mile loops of the fabulous Royal Sandringham Estate in Norfolk over the weekend (19-20 August).

This year's entry was double the 2022 level, although the solo category remained fairly static with 135 masochists tackling the entire 24 hours as individuals. The greatest distance covered within the time limit was 140 miles (28 laps) by Alex Marshall, who was the overall winner as well as the first female.

Alex is an ultramarathon specialist who twice ran more than 70 miles in seven hours in races last year and who averaged 51:29 per lap on the Sandringham multi-terrain course. Alex was joined in beating 100 miles by Sarah Ellis (20 laps) in the women's race.

The leading solo men's mark was 115 miles (23 laps) by Tom Newman, followed by Joshua Trafford and Adam Masterson who both completed 105 miles (21 laps). There were 98 male finishers and 35 women ran at least one lap to get on the scoreboard.

One of the many attractions of this event is the wide variety of teams that can tackle the challenge in a relay format including male, female, and mixed pairs; small and large mixed teams, and small single-gender teams with up to five runners.

Easily the most popular category was the small mixed team of 3-5 runners, won by Easier Said Than Run II with an impressive 185 miles (37 laps). This was two laps more than the leading large mixed team: "Eat, Sleep, Run, Repeat".

The other group winners were Huddersfield Sharks (160 miles, 32 laps) in the small male teams; Bob's Sloe Runners (135 miles, 27 laps) in the small female teams; ADL Brothers (140 miles, 28 laps) in the male pairs; Drowned Rat Runners (75 miles, 15 laps) in the female pairs; and Ellinbrook (130 miles, 26 laps) in the mixed pairs.

The atmosphere of this joyous mix of running, resting, camping, fuelling, success, and sometimes failure can be seen in this short video...

Run Sandringham 24 is a runABC South Featured Race organised by Good Running Events. Full results and previous stories at the runABC South race listing here.

Photo courtesy Good Running Events on Facebook