Shotley24: How far would you go?
If you were anywhere near the Shotley peninsula on the weekend of 17-18 July, you'll have noticed something was going on. Headtorches bobbing along the seawall in the dark. The sound of a samba band drifting across the fields in the sunshine. A fish & chip van (eventually 😜) doing brisk business outside the village hall. That was Shotley24; Coastal Trail Runners new 24-hour lap race, and easily one of the best things to happen to trail running in Suffolk this year.
For those who don't know it yet, Coastal Trail Runners is the outfit built by Dan and Hayley, who took over the Five Rivers Ultra in 2024 and haven't slowed down since. Shotley24 was their first event built entirely from scratch a new format, new location, no blueprint to fall back on. Runners had 24 hours to rack up as many laps of a 4.3-mile multi-terrain loop as they could manage, camping on-site between efforts, with a leaderboard ticking over the whole way through.
I can tell you first-hand that the atmosphere Dan and Hayley talk about below is real. People came and went as they pleased, the competitive crowd pushed hard for position, and everyone else could enjoy being out on a genuinely lovely stretch of Suffolk coast. It suited both camps at once, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds.
Building from a blank canvas
Running a first-year event on open public trails, rather than a closed-off site, was a serious gamble. Dan put it plainly: setting up a new format in a new location was a proper learning curve, and being the first event they'd built from nothing meant plenty of room to grow, but plenty that could catch them out too. In addition, the small matter of the lap timing. Coastal Trail Runners built a bespoke dibbing and online leaderboard system for the event, working with Tim at RealTimeRacing, who was on hand across the weekend to keep it running. Stepping into the unknown with your own tech on race day is a bold call, and by the sound of it, it paid off, the feedback on both the dibbing and the leaderboard has been very positive.
Community, not just a course
What comes through strongest from both Dan and Hayley isn't the route or the tech, though, it's who showed up around it. A local pub got a busy weekend of trade at a time when independent pubs need every bit of support they can get. The village hall hosted the hub. A local Pilates instructor and a local physio were on hand for the runners. A local food vendor fed people. A samba band played the finishers home in the sunshine. All these things weren't after-thoughts or little add-ins, they weren't decoration around the edges of the race, they were the whole point. Hayley's words on it say it best: it was always about bringing community together.
The Shotley community leaned in too, not just the running crowd, which is exactly the kind of local buy-in that turns an event into something a place is proud of rather than something that just happens to it.
Hayley was honest about the nerves behind the scenes; would people even sign up, would they get what Coastal Trail Runners were trying to do, had something been missed. That's the reality of building something new from a blank canvas rather than following a template. But choosing the open Shotley trails over an enclosed loop, because the route was simply too good not to use and Suffolk deserved showing off properly, was the right call. It usually is, when the thing you're building is meant to say something about the place it's in as much as the running itself.
A weekend of firsts
For a lot of runners, Shotley24 was a set of firsts, first time running through the night, first time on a headtorch, first time covering that kind of distance at all. Watching people step well outside their comfort zone and come out the other side buzzing is exactly the kind of thing that grows a local scene rather than just fills an entry list.
Dan and Hayley left the weekend with anxieties over whether people would come back for it again. Having been out there myself, and having watched the running community and the Shotley community fold into each other over that weekend, I'd say they've nothing to worry about. Suffolk's trail scene is bubbling; with Dan and Hayley being absolute giants in the scene; between supporting Ipswich Trail Runners, organising the Five Rivers Ultra, The Fort 20 on the way in Felixstowe, and now Shotley24, there's a real cluster of grassroots energy building along this coastline of which they are both a huge part of.
If you were at Debrief in June, you will have seen Dans talk about some of his toughest most memorable ultra races - together with partner Hayley, they're not just talking the talk, they're walking the walk. Creating opportunities for the trail community to compete, grow, and connect through their work at Coastal Trail Runners.
Roll on 2027.
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