The fourth edition of our season opener and it was a cracker. After a rain soaked inaugural edition, spring has landed right around the time of three years that have followed and this year was no different. A crisp morning with frozen ground, gave way to bluebird skies and trails that were in excellent condition almost throughout.
Stonor Park in all its glory on race day
The racing at the front was as action packed as expected, with many of the best of British Ultra racing lining up for their first big throw down of the year. But amongst the field of 438 starters were around 25% first time ultra runners too. Together with lots of regular Centurion runners - everyone looking to make it home inside the 9 hour cut off and just enjoy the day.
Listen to our post race recap podcast here or via any good host.
Ultimately we ended up with several records. A new female course record and a record for highest number of runners across a finish line at a Centurion event. Only by five, but we will take it!
The ladies race coming in was quite simply a two horse race between Fiona Pascall (Adidas) and Julia Davis (La Sportiva), but Julia's late withdrawal with a niggle she couldn't quite shake in time, left it likely that Fi would run away with proceedings and that she did. But the race for the podium positions behind was extremely close indeed.
Fiona Pascall
Fi has raced with us three times now and has three course records to show for it. Wendover Woods 50, North Downs Way 50 and now here too. She led from the start and immediately built an expanding time gap over Anna Klucnika's 2024 course record splits (4:32). At half way back at Stonor she ran straight through and out onto a loop two where she began reeling in many of the leading guys to boot, eventually crossing the line in 4:08:11 for the win.
Behind her, a close battle raged from the start for positions two through five and beyond. Lynne Nicholls and Sophie Biggs ran close together through the early stages, with Nicola Glover just back of them. Those three remained locked within a few minutes of each other, for the entire rest of the race. Lynne always had a small margin, with Sophie first and then Nicola passing her sat just behind. In the end second place went to Lynne in 4:39:51. Third to Nicola Glover in 4:46:17 and Sophie took fourth and the first FV50 prize.
Nicola Glover
The mens race took a different shape as the front group went off at an extremely fast pace before gradually fracturing to leave two out front - previous champion Mark Darbyshire (Centurion Ultra Team) and Benjamin Hall, with Ry Webb just behind. Early lead group member Dan Weller who won the 2023 event, dropped at half way. Mark and Benjamin ran toe to toe until the climb up to Bix check point where Mark was just able to snap the elastic that had seemingly held them together, before pulling away very gradually to form a small gap. In the end a hard charging Ry Webb (La Sportiva) who ran a brilliantly paced race, came closest to reaching Mark but ultimately just fell short. Mark took his second win here in 3:49:48. Ry took second in 3:52:59 and Benjamin third in 3:54:13.
Mens Podium LtR: Benjamin Hall, Mark Darbyshire, Ry Webb
Age Category awards went to the following:
Mark Darbyshire won the MV40 cat as well as taking the overall win. First MV50 went to Charles Sykes. First MV60 to David Allan and First MV70 to Keith Simpson, also our final finisher.
First FV40 went to second place Lynne Nicholls. First FV50 went to fourth overall Sophie Biggs. Our first FV60 award was taken by Nicky Callus, just one second ahead of Maya Betheja.
We had amazing feedback from runners from front to back in this race. A team of 60 volunteers made this event possible, we are so grateful to all of them as always, together with our course marking team, staff and sponsors.
Next up for us is the South Downs Way 50 in just under four weeks time.
470 runners began their respective 70 days journeys on Christmas Day as they have for the last six years.
As usual the distances on offer ranged from 50 miles over the 10 weeks, all the way up to 1000 miles. With the One Community week included over the half term period, giving all of the Slammers a chance to take part in an event within an event and boost their mileage as they neared the end of their challenge.
Runners from 24 countries took part. Bethany Everett at 2 years old the youngest to finish as she tackled her 50 mile challenge with dad Stephen and got it done with almost a week to spare! All the way up to Barbara Seale 80 years her senior completing 100 miles - what other event could bring such an age range and breadth of geography and demographics together. Amazing!
The event really does engage our community of incredible people, albeit virtually, at a time of year when our in person events are on their winter break and motivation can often be hardest to find thanks to the colder, darker and this year for sure, very much wetter months. It's such an uplifting event for so many people to be a part of and we get so many messages of support to keep the event going. We will of course keep it rolling and start back again on Christmas Day 2026 for One Slam 2027.
As always we donate 10% of revenue to charity, across both MIND and Protect Our Winters UK. With over 130 trees planted with Trees not Tees across One Slam and One Community runners foregoing their medals/ awards.
So much good coming from one little virtual race.
A huge thanks to our sponsors for the spot prizes, to Robbie Britton our Head of Endurance for providing the six included coaching webinars and especially to all of our 2026 One Slam runners. See you next year!
The Everett family came to our shop for their medals. Brittany was our youngest finisher this year!
Victoria Birdsell and Barbara Seale
We first held our One Community virtual event during the pandemic - in late May 2020. 4000 runners took part in that first edition in what was a crazy and strange time in our sport and indeed our world.
We've brought it back several times since, as part of the longer One Slam virtual event that we hold between Christmas and early March each year, designed to kick start runners race seasons and provide inspiration and motivation to get out during the longer, darker, colder and this year much wetter months.
One Community 2026 fell three weeks from the conclusion of One Slam and gave a much needed boost to 170 runners who took the opportunity to enjoy the extra event included with their Slam entry. And for those who just wanted to take on the individual challenge of running between 5km and 100 miles over the course of the week.
As with all of our virtual events, 10% of the entry fees went directly to our charity partners, MIND and Protect Our Winters UK whom we are delighted to be able to support.
Full results show runners distance chosen and the cumulative time taken between the first and last step including of course any downtime.
A huge thank you to all of our runners, sponsors and partners for making our twin virtual events such a positive way to start the year once again.
