It’s 5am on a Saturday. For fuck sake. Why. A world record attempt, that’s why. I go through the usual pre-morning run routine. I snooze. I shuffle to the kitchen. I get the porridge on the go and neck some coffee back. Half an hour later I’m on my way. It’s the burger run today and we’ve coincided it with running a leg of the The I Move London Relay – which is an Official Guinness World Record attempt for the longest not-stop running relay. Run in 10K and 5K loops, in central London, repeated for 30 days and 30 nights and covering 4,000 miles by 2,500 runners. 1 Baton to rule them all.

At London Bridge I meet a few of the other pacers and we make our way to Potters Field and the relay base camp. We check in, drop our bags, don our I Move Relay t shirts and the masses start to appear. We have about 30 runners today. Awesome. The plan is to pop the 10km leg of the relay before continuing as per usual burger run style, this time to honest burger in Greenwich. As we are joking and waiting, the relay runner from the preceding leg rocks up with Rod (the baton). It’s an awful reception he’s 20mins ahead of schedule, we aren’t all here yet. We barely notice him arrive. I feel bad. Oh well. Sorry stranger!

Dana warms us up, Tommy gives us a prep talk, it’s time to go! We’ve discussed running as a group. It’s unusual for us as we accommodate several pace groups. But this is different. It’s a social relay party! Immediately this goes to shit as the faster runners leg it into the morning. It’s so hard to control and contain a wide varying set of abilities. That said, the 10k route (from potters field to Westminster along the South Bank before taking the North Bank back to tower bridge) is a hoot. Loads of pictures and videos and posing with the baton (don’t drop it!) and we do manage to regroup occasionally. Tomorrow is the Ride London event and many roads are already closed as part of the weekend’s activities. This is a London Runner’s dream. It’s surreal to pound the streets freely and safely and without all the pollution!

The 90s tunes have been pumping and, as we come off tower bridge for the final straight back to base camp, we sing and dance to Europe’s Final Count Down. We done it (We did it?) Collectively we’ve brought Rod home and each and every runner. After handing the baton to the stage 623 runners We are treated to some Trek bars and some Fitwater (which is very funky and not particularly nice!).

It’s time to prep for the next 10km. A few more runners have joined us for the next 10km (and a few more had to leave us). As the burger run grows in strength we’ve gone down the T-shirt route. Pacers now have t shirts and runners can buy some too. We kit up. Pose for more photos and head off.

I’m taking the 9:30-10min mile group today. We loop back over London Bridge and along the Thames path on the north bank. It’s a scenic route of part of London I always find is less frequented (by me at least) with some great views across the river. The finale of the route sees us cross from the Isle of Dogs to Greenwich using the Victoria foot tunnel. This is always good fun.

Emerging the other side we reform with the earlier pace group and head to the burger joint. It’s earlier than usual but burgers and meat are had. A group of us stuck around for a beverage in Greenwich where the smutty laughter continued.

If you’d like to know more about the London burger run, what we do, where and when and if you’d like to join then get in touch with me or @ldnburgerrun on Instagram. It’s an open group for any and everyone of all abilities. We just want to have fun and company and it’s a great way to take your mind off running on longer runs!