24 Hour Treadmill Challenge Recap!
The title says it all… we both ran for 24 hours. And on a treadmill too to make things a little more interesting…
The fact that we actually joked about this treadmill challenge a few months back then turned it from idea to reality is astounding.
I don’t think we’ve worked harder than ever before getting this event organised.
Click here to read what was involved leading up to the event.
Our treadmills didn’t arrive till the day before from JHTA (Johnson Health Tech Australia) and were still in testing phase as they were brand new…
The day before on the Friday was a big of a rush getting the 300 sausages that Super Butcher donated, collecting the marquees from the Local Member of Burleigh (Michael Hart), collecting the generator from the coffee van people, collecting another marquee from CCQ (Cancer Council QLD), then testing the treadmills followed by coming home and getting the last of everything ready for the 24 hours of torture…
You’re meant to have a decent sleep leading up to a marathon so you could imagine that sleep is crucial with a 24 hour challenge — we only had around 5 hours the night before and not that much through the week getting the rest of everything sorted.
On the morning of the event, we were up at 3am, and it was raining so hard that we didn’t know what to do.
Luckily the rain was over by 5am!
Our plan was to get to Justin’s Park in Burleigh by 5am and start setting up so that gives us plenty of time to be ready by 7am.
By 6:50am, we had everything set up leaving us 10 minutes to collect our bearings and relax…
By 7am we were off and had no idea what we were in for.
The plan was to get 30km in the first 3 hours which we did with ease.
Our mate Daniel Ramage was the first to join us on the spare equipment. He stayed with us for the first marathon, literally.
Shoutout to Dan, he’s quick. He ran the GC Airport Marathon in 2h36m so he caught up to us pretty quickly haha.
Dan was initially meant to bring a treadmill down and run the entire 24 hours with us but there was a bit of transport trouble on his end but he still managed to get quite a bit of running and cycling in.
The triathlon club Dan is associated with lent him 3 wind trainers for anyone to plug their bikes in and cycle on the spot while we ran.
So he brought a bike, Ant brought his, and a spare one for any cyclists coming by as well as a cross-trainer and a spare treadmill was what we had as spare equipment!
Originally, we wanted 5 treadmills for this event (2 for us Pelicans and 3 spare) but obtaining treadmills seemed more difficult than solving the Da Vinci Code at this point.
Our mate Mike came to the rescue and provided his spare treadmill that we did end up selling for $100 afterwards, putting us closer to our $20k!
Between 9–11am it was havoc. It was that windy that everyone was trying to hold down a marquee and then there’s us runners holding the one above us looking like Mary Poppins.
Then out of nowhere, all the media stations rocked up. We had Channel 7, Channel 9, ABC Radio, and Rebel FM in the space of an hour.
Exposure is what we needed so this was perfect for them to come early on throughout the day and then put a segment about us later in the evening news.
The Channel 7 Facebook video has had more than 14,000 views which is great to see exposure go a little viral for us. Click here to watch it.
Not too long after, we had former Miss World Australia and fellow CCQ ambassador Tess Alexander stop by to help represent CCQ and stayed for a couple hours to chat with us.
As well as an awesome person, she’s a great role model for fitness. Whom are the best people to be around because we’re all like-minded people pushing each other and bettering ourselves.
The wind had gotten that bad that the majority of the marquees had caved in, drastically changing the layout of our event from 10 marquees to 3…
Luckily we got the media coverage with the marquees prior to them collapsing…
8 hours went by and we had reached the 60km mark.
Throughout the day our team was helping out as much as possible collecting donations, getting us food/ water or jumping on the spare equipment.
Even though we had a big day, our team did too and some clocked up to 4–5 hours on the bike in total!
Things started to get tough around the 10 hour mark — the feet were cramping, it was the hottest part of the day, and we realised we weren’t even halfway yet.
But the start of our mates started showing up to support us which always puts a smile on our faces.
This would’ve been the perfect science/ psychology experiment to see how much dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol, and any other hormones were produced throughout this event… the dopamine would’ve been pretty high when our friends came by because we were suddenly in the mood to run for a bit.
Before we knew it, darkness came and it had been 12 hours into this absurd 24 hour challenge.
The atmosphere changed because it’s not as wild with not as many people but whether there’s lots of people or no people around us, our mission was to keep going and finish strong with the remaining 12 hours.
Just to clarify, after the first 30km of running, it was run/ walk/ run/ walk. However, there were periods where we walked longer than expected because we were too knackered to run.
Tofes’ (Chris) parents were a great support for us as Murray (Dad) was in charge of the bbq and Joy (Mum) was dressed up as a daffodil getting us food & water as well getting anything for our support crew.
At this point, this was the longest we’ve ever ran! Prior to that was a month ago at the Brisbane River Run 100km ultramarathon where it took us 13.5 hours.
Let’s fast forward to 15 hours into the event. This is the start of the beer saga.
Ant wasn’t really in the mood to drink but Tofes on the other hand just keep downing them like they were water haha.
In the space of 3 hours he had drank 8 beers and was definitely not sober…
Giggling and stumbling on the way to the toilet haha.
Usually it takes us around 13 hours to complete 100km but it took us 16 hours with this challenge in particular.
Running on a treadmill is much different to running on road or trail as you’re stuck on this platform on the spot and the treadmill is resetted every 60mins stopping all momentum.
As the night (and early morning) got on, more of our friends started showing up
Always good to have those ‘lift-me-up moments’ when times got tough.
And times did get very tough…
You had Tofes stuck on the toilet for 15 minutes because he couldn’t get off because the muscles just contracted everything.
Then there was a moment at 1am where Tofes went to change socks then lay down for a 5 minute nap and everything locked up again and was more than just a mental wall, a physical wall came about which suck so much!
After 20minutes, he popped a codeine and slowly got back up and powered through.
Not long after, Ant was sitting on his treadmill popping his feet blisters then resting for 15 minutes.
Every time Ant went to the toilet to drop a deuce, there was bloody everytime. Never a good sign…
We both pushed past our most challenging mental and physical wall to date with any event and we’re sprinting against each other 21 hours in!
Shit gets really competitive between us both that the only difference was 500m!
While any normal person would be in bed at this time or have stopped running after the treadmill after a few hours at the most, we were running hard 21 hours into this challenge.
That’s what endurance is all about.
Despite being sick and tired of the treadmills early on… surprisingly, the last 3 hours went very quick that it was sunrise before we knew it.
This was probably one of the best sunrises we’ve seen in long time and the extra light and picturesque background gave us our 358th wind haha.
Before we knew it was 6:30am — we’d been on treadmills for 23.5hours and was the toughest day we’ve ever had.
As each minute passed by, the crowd in front of us got larger and full of smiles everywhere.
Suddenly, there was only 5 minutes left. We started to to run leading up to this part and it started to get a little emotional.
Everything in the past 10 weeks organising this event and the last day started to sink in.
With our mate Coden (who dressed up as a daffodil the entire 24 hours haha), he was on the mic telling everyone about us and growing the crowd followed with a 10 second countdown to 7am.
Suddenly, it was 7am.
Stop the treadmills. We’ve fucking done it. We just put our bodies on treadmills for 24 hours.
Nothing but joy and smiles.
Everything we’ve worked for the last 10 weeks leading up to and the last 24 hours was finally over!.
The next 30 minutes was clean up, getting food in us and talking with everyone who came down.
After a big event like this, an ice bath is required and boy did that make a difference afterwards!
Getting in the bath was a mission in itself looking like a newborn giraffe all wobbly and whatnot…
Then it was food and rest for the rest of the day.
By Monday we were recovered as Ant went for a swim and Tofes went for a walk that lead into a run haha.
Anyway, that was The Wounded Pelicans 24 Hour Treadmill Challenge! We would never recommend an event like this and we don’t ever want to see a treadmill again in our lives…
But this event would not have been possible if it wasn’t for our team and the support that came down and saw us.
Here are a list of everyone we’d like to thank in particular:
- Isaac Burton (cocoSAMU biz-dev exec) and Coden Sutherland for helping us organise the event and being with us from start to finish
- Tofes’ parents (Murray & Joy) for cooking the bbq/ getting us food/ water and staying with us from start to finish
- Daniel Ramage and Mike for help setup and bring their equipment for the general public to use
- Our friends and family that came down to cheer us on at all times of the day especially the ones that came at the early hours of the morning when it’s the toughest
- All the media stations that came down to give us exposure to help us raise awareness
- The businesses that sponsored the event — JHTA, cocoSAMU, Super Butcher, Burleigh Brewing Co, MOJO
- CCQ for helping us set up and giving us a hand with the marketing
- All the people that donated!
Unfortunately, we didn’t raise our $6k target for the day and got $1.5k but you can still donate if you’d like — https://give.everydayhero.com/au/the-wounded-pelicans
Leave a comment if you came down or what your thoughts are about this treadmill challenge.
Our next event is #30 — Nerang Short Course Trail Half Marathon this Saturday…
Let us know if you’ll be there!
Enjoy.
Tofes (Chris) & Ant — The Wounded Pelicans
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