You start at sunrise. No pomp. No ceremony. Just a group of like-minded crazies, all filled with the ridiculous belief that six of us were going to run through the day and night, covering 350-ish kilometres and 7,000-ish metres of elevation, and somehow finish before the sun rose again. Welcome to one of Australia’s toughest races: Red Bull Race the Sun.

Our crew was a mix of strangers, misfits, and absolute weapons. All unsure if this was brave, stupid, or both. We had a strategy to break the route into 30-minute segments. That went out the window fast. In the final 8 hours, we were doing 100m sprints at 2:45 pace. But this is the kind of race where pace and time don’t tell the story. It’s everything that happened in between that we’ll remember forever.

There were moments of absolute mayhem and courage. A literal sprint finish nudged us into 5th place after 24 hours of racing. It was a rollercoaster of emotion, fatigue, and -4 degrees. At one point, we were all saying, “Fuck this! I'm going to cry!”

And then... the camaraderie. The jokes got dumber. There was probably too much talk about hot chips and gravy. There may have been some uncharacteristic yelling at the driver (sorry, Alex). We were pissing next to each other before the next person had to run. We didn’t care who ran further or faster. We cared who needed a Coke, lollies, a Red Bull, or a bangin' soundtrack. We all became part-runner, part-crew, part-family. The beauty of sport, condensed into a 24-hour furnace.

We finished with 21 minutes to spare. Beaten. Frozen. Grinning like idiots. Special thanks to p3recovery, Sodii Hydration, and Pure Sports Nutrition for fuelling us and sorting recovery when we needed it most.

And thank you Courtney Atkinson and Red Bull Australia for dreaming up crazy shit and the last-minute entry. This wasn’t just about running. It was about doing something hard, ridiculous, and oddly beautiful with people who used to be strangers and now aren’t.

To everyone who ran, drove, filmed, yelled, and sat in a van for 24 hours straight, thank you. We’ll never forget it. We raced the fuckin’ sun.

Video by @iia_visualz

Photos by @woodygphoto

Read the story here: https://au.blacksheep.cc/pages/red-bu...