Great South Run 2024: United Minds and Team Basecamp runners set early alarm to beat the weather and complete the run

Stephen Hore, 41, of Southbourne, was one of a number of runners fundraising for United Minds, a men’s mental health charity, that decided to complete The Great South Run even though it had been cancelled. Joining with Team Basecamp, a large group of runners arranged to meet up early as they looked at the best time to avoid the worst of the weather.

The runners all arranged to meet over group chat at the Coffee Cup in Eastney at 6am, following the route as best they could with road closures now lifted. Completing the 10 miles in just over an hour, Stephen can understand why the event was cancelled.

He said: “As the morning went on the conditions really deteriorated towards the back end of our run. We wanted to finish as a group so we waited for a few to finish that were behind us and the weather was getting really bad. The decision to cancel made sense, it could have been really bad if everyone ran in that.

“For those that ran it closer to the two hour mark, it got really bad and I would not have recommended running in those conditions.”

This was meant to be Stephen’s first Great South Run and he was looking forward to experiencing the atmosphere. He said: “No one could have foreseen this weather but I missed the event and the atmosphere. All my friends that have done it before were saying ‘you’re going to love it’ ‘the atmosphere is great’ and obviously I have not been able to experience any of that.”

Having trained for six months, including lots of training runs with fellow United Minds and Team Basecamp runners, they all did not want the hard work to go to waste.

Stephen said: “The thing is once you have got it in your mind that you want to do it and you set yourself up, do all the training and the hard work, you’re going to want to finish it. Obviously everyone felt deflated with the news but everyone wanted to finish it, get those 10 miles in today, regardless of getting the medal it’s about the feeling of completing it.”

Even though it was not the full experience he had hoped for, it turned into a fantastic morning as the runners celebrated each others achievement in completing the 10 miles.

Stephen added: “The group chats and Facebook pages are going crazy. Everyone is happy that we have succeeded. It’s been a really good morning to be fair.”

The United Minds runners fundraising page can be found here.