Andy Hood.

Ultra Challenge South Coast Challenge (100K) – 5th September

Taking on an ultra is a bucket list goal for a lot of runners, and Ultra Challenge run some of the most inclusive and accessible ultras in the UK. This one had an extra layer to it: I wasn't just running, I was pacing Toby Freeman, founder of The Robin Cancer Trust, through the back half of his own personal Big Ballsy Challenge.

Toby started the full 100K in Eastbourne. I met him at the halfway rest point in Hove to pace him through the night and on to the finish line in Arundel. My own surgery in April meant I couldn't take on the full distance myself this year. My insides are still healing, and there was a real risk I'd have taken backward steps if I'd pushed for the whole 100K, so this was my first event back since the operation, and I was sensible about it.

By the time I joined Toby, he'd already covered more than 50K on a hilly course, on a hot day, wearing a costume that weighs around 5kg: a giant pair of testicles, designed to spark exactly the kind of conversation that saves lives. A quick calculation puts the extra weight he carried over the full 100K at around 32,500kg. No wonder he was eating like a dinosaur by the time I caught up with him.

Ultra Challenge are known for great routes, brilliant crew and support from fellow participants that's hard to match, and that reputation held up all night. Through towns and villages, people cheered and stopped to chat. Drivers hooted, passengers hung out of windows taking photos, and plenty of strangers promised to go home and check themselves. If the goal was to create conversation and awareness, it worked, again and again, mile after mile.

As night fell, the job was to keep Toby's mind off the distance. That's how we ended up writing and recording original songs on the move, briefing ChatGPT for lyrics and turning to Suno to produce the track, then singing along horrifically out of tune to "Toby's Balls" on a remote stretch of the Downs with only a field of pigs for company. It inspired two more tracks before the night was out.

At the 99K mark we caught the first hints of sunrise breaking over the Downs, reds and oranges spreading across the sky. Then 100K, then the final kilometre, turning the last corner to cheers of "here he is." Toby has become something of a minor celebrity on these events, and the Ultra Challenge crew welcomed him at every aid station with open arms, sweat and all.

At the finish, Toby had a quiet, private moment, pulling out a photo of his brother Robin, lost to testicular cancer at just 24, standing next to their Mum, who is currently facing her own cancer battle. Every step of that 100K was taken for others as much as for deeply personal reasons, and it was a genuine privilege to share those final miles and that moment with him.

Together we spoke to dozens of people, inspired a fair few to go and check themselves, and generated photos and conversations that will keep rippling out across social media long after the medal's been hung up.

The costume has now been handed over to me. Its next outing will be the London Marathon next year.