Darkside Running

Important announcement about our plans for 2024 - https://mailchi.mp/69f849b13936/introducing-the-new-darkside-sunset-marathon-and-ultras-15695317

A great local event, RD’d by Paul, who many of you will have met as part of the Darkside Support Team at our events. Well worth an entry if you still have space in your race calendar.

2023 Race permit arrived today! Still time to enter - entries close 16th April

What a race this year!

Barkley is trembling.

For the first time in its 36 year history, four runners - representing four countries - are on the 5th and final loop.

They have 60 hours to finish the Barkley Marathons.

Runners must hit the 48 hour cutoff to start the 5th loop. The first runner out chooses the direction in the final loop, subsequent runners must go the opposite. (Counter-clock direction could be ~two hours longer given elevation and climbs)

Here is the list of humans aspiring to make it back to the yellow gate and into the record book:
⛰️ John KELLY 🇺🇸 was first out and chose to run the final loop clockwise. Kelly was the last finisher in 2017. His 5th loop start: 46:02:55.

⛰️ Aurelien SANCHEZ 🇫🇷 was second out and has the misfortune to run the tougher counter-clock direction. His 5th loop start: 46:07:50

⛰️ Karel SABBE 🇧🇪 is third out. Only a 22 minute turnaround, he gets the clockwise direction. His 5th loop start: 46:59:20

⛰️ Damian HALL 🇬🇧 was the last to make the 5th loop. Facing the counter-clock direction, he made the run in 10 minutes and reportedly left carryover by a bag of Sonic. His 5th loop start: 47:49:03.

Nothing standing in the way.
Weather is clear. Sun is out.
Look for record setting finishes tonight!

Four humans on a mission today!!

Photos: Howie Stern.
💥 Follow Howie on IG and Keith Dunn on Twitter for updates.
Harvey Lewis - Ultra Runner is also posting as he is at the race!

If you’re still looking for a running adventure for 2023, we can highly recommend The Fellsman. An absolute classic in a stunning part of the world and a perfect pick-me-up until we return in 2024 😁

We know you are all busy pulling together your race plans for this year and thanks for all the enquires about our events over the last few weeks, It has been great to see such enthusiasm. Many thanks for your patience while we sorted them out.

As many of you will know, Darkside is a side project for us both, which we balance alongside our young families, day jobs, own running and a myriad of other commitments. The last four years have been a real joy (Covid maybe aside) and we have loved the way the running community has embraced our events and the crazy idea that began on that night run around the Cambridgeshire Fens back in 2018. We have big plans for all our events and some exciting ideas that we think will make them even better, while retaining the special challenge that they offer.

However, we would be lying if we said they were not a lot of work and are especially aware of the sacrifice our family and volunteers make to help us put these on. We have therefore taken the difficult decision to take a break for 2023 and return in 2024. We appreciate this will be disappointing news for many who had us pencilled into their calendars for this year but hope you understand our reasoning.

Rest assured this is not the end for Darkside and we are already putting plans in place for 2024 and some of the changes we have in mind. On that note, if you have any feedback or ideas you would like to throw into mix, we are all ears! While we can't promise to implement them all, we want our events to work for you, so are open to suggestions. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to drop us a line through Facebook or via email at [email protected].

Thanks for all your support since our first Sunrise event back in 2019. We have been honoured to host so many of you and see your beaming smiles cross our finish lines. A huge thanks as well to our enthusiastic volunteers, without whom none of this would have been possible.

We will open entries for our 2024 events later in the year and will be back with news of these once we have it. Remember, if you have any ideas, please don't hesitate to let us know.

All the best for your running in 2023. Hopefully we will join some of you on the start line ourselves. If not, we hope to see you at one of our events in 2024.

Mark and Giles
Race Directors
Darkside Running

We have sorted through all the photos we took during last weekends events and are sharing the best to bring back the memories.

We tried to get as many of you as we could, especially at the finish. Apologies to those we missed. Timing and/or lighting conspired against us.

Photos from the 2022 Sunrise Full and Half Ultramarathons, on the 10th and 11th December.

We have reviewed the timing data and uploaded a final set of results from last weekend’s Sunrise Full and Half Ultras to our website, which you can download using the following links:

Full Sunrise Results: https://www.darkside.run/downloads/2022/sunrise/full-sunrise-results.pdf

Half Sunrise Results: https://www.darkside.run/downloads/2022/sunrise/half-sunrise-results.pdf

If you spot any issues, please do let us know. We are aiming to upload these to UTMB, ITRA and DUV later this week.

We hope you managed to get a good nights sleep and warmup after your exertions over the weekend?

Huge thanks to you all for joining us over the weekend and to our wonderful crew for their efforts. Great work by everybody, especially considering the conditions we had to deal with both on and off the roads.

Publishing an official set of results is near the top of our todo list by please bare with us as we work through the admin, clear down after the weekend and like you, catch-up on some sleep 😴

The tracking website is still active and the results there are correct in terms of places, we just need to make a few tweaks to reflect those that finished together.

Congratulations again to our winners and all runners who made it to the finish line here in Yarmouth 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

For now, we will leave you with a shot of this mornings sunrise in Yarmouth, to hopefully bring back some memories of the weekend 😁

A new day has officially dawned at the finish line of the Sunrise Ultras. There are still plenty of runners out on the course and they have until sunset to reach us.

Congratulations to our four runners who beat the sunrise in 2022. All Half Sunrise runners, from left to right Alan Clark (2nd), Jamie Hall (1st), Pascal Fallas (3rd) and Matthew Carver (4th) 🌅🥶

More runners are approaching the finish, including the lead runner in the Full Sunrise!

Finish line ready and waiting at a slippery Great Yarmouth, with our first runner under a km away!

Race registration well underway for the Half Sunrise and the leading Full Sunrise runners are not far away.