24 Miles in 24 Hours: A memoir of bad decisions

🎶Greetings loved ones, lets take a journey 🎶

What is popping everyone, its Delirious Dylan writing a mileage memoir, a pavement publication, a jogging journal, a cardio chronicle some might say. I really have to come up with a more original intro to these things but I'm having fun writing it and you chose to be here and read it so it's honestly your fault if you have any gripes. In a similar manner of you making a questionable decision to take time out of your day to read these characters I smushed together to make some words, I also made a questionable decision at the start of this year. I decided to run 24 miles in 24 hours, 1 mile every hour for 24 consecutive hours on new years day. In the rain. Yes, that means running a very cold and wet mile at 2am. "How tf did you think that was a good idea?" "What's wrong with you?" "Why would you do that to yourself?" "How are you so insanely cool and epic and amazing??" All valid questions that you'd be asking right now, which I'll actually answer this time. 

1. I didn't think it was a good idea, in fact I went into it knowing it was a dumb idea. But I thought it was a fun challenge and a good way to keep myself up for the midnight fireworks.

2. A whole lot. :)

3. Honestly I was fairly uninformed going into this and did not really process how hard it was going to be on my body. But now I know more. Learn by doing.

4. I get that question fairly often and still haven't come up with a good answer. 

Now how did I end up doing this challenge? For some unknown reason I picked up running a couple months ago. Until about November I would've claimed I hated running (mostly cause I sucked at it), I don't think I can make that claim anymore (I still suck at it but that's the fun part). So of course this new hobby has influenced my instagram feed which has turned into a how-to guide for ironmans and ultra marathons. So at some point I came across the idea of the 24 Miles in 24 Hours challenge and that idea has been stuck in my head ever since then. 

A little aside, there is also another common challenge, the 24 in 24 in 24, 24 beers 24 miles 24 hours, a similar challenge to mine but adds an additional layer of fun. Although that idea sounds awful to me since I don't like beer, I also would've said the same thing about my 24 in 24 challenge a year ago since I didn't like running. I can't definitively say I won't do this variation of the challenge because who knows what the future holds, but I will publicly say that I shouldn't do it just so my parents can sleep at night. Hi Mom, hi Dad. 

Anywho, I thought the challenge was a cool idea but I never really had the time to commit a full day to running as well as the full day of sleep and body recovery required the day after...until new years 2026. 

I was supposed to be camping out on Catalina Island, but mother nature decided to screw that up and dump rain on us. So at about 2pm December 31st 2025, I find out this trip is canceled, and now I have a four day weekend with no plans...so less than an hour later my little brain comes up with the amazing idea that I should do the 24 in 24 challenge to ring in the new year. I don't know any better way to ring in the new year than to make a dumb decision. 

So after watching the new year click over on our UTC clock at work (which was really cool to see it go from 365 23 59 59 to 001 00 00 00), I headed home and started my journey with my first mile at 5pm December 31st 2025. 

5pm: [8:20/mi] First mile, I am chilling and so pumped

6pm: [8:34/mi] I did not pay attention to the clock and almost missed the second mile. I rushed out of the house so I had no music

7pm: [8:58/mi] Did this mile immediately after the last in order to give me more feeding time, no music again. really gives me the mental space to think about my decisions that led me here

8pm: [9:52/mi] I ate a massive burrito for dinner right before this, this was the first (of many) hard runs of this challenge. Incredibly determined to keep the burrito down, and I was narrowly successful. 

9pm: [9:20/mi] Started to get cold and rainy

10pm: [10:14/mi] cold. wet.

11pm: [10:49/mi] Started to feel my body have to work harder on this one

12am: [10:24/mi] HAPPY NEW YEAR! fireworks on base going crazy

1am:[9:31/mi] cold, wet, and rainy. nipples were so incredibly hard

2am: [9:23/mi] definitely delirious, almost ran into a car on this one...the car was parked

3am: [10:07/mi] my watch claims I got 16 minutes of sleep before this one, gave me a sleep score of 14/100. honestly falling asleep made this one much harder

4am: [9:47/mi] halfway. now dumping rain. I was avoiding puddles but realized my shoes are already soaked so might as well start stompin in the puddles. 

5am: [9:46/mi] tried to wait out the rain...it didnt stop. now i have to do back to back miles

6am: [10:30/mi] rain stopped for a little but everything im wearing is soaking wet

7am: [9:59/mi] sun is back out, ate too much caramel corn before this one and almost let it loose

8am: [9:38/mi] people are back out and about

9am: [9:56/mi] noticing my legs existing more. Had some waffles after this one which was nice.

10am: [9:29/mi] the sun is out and it is such a nice day. The nice day in question:

11am: [10:48/mi] slowin down so i can actually finish this thing

12pm: [10:31/mi] At this point I claimed its more of a mental game rather than a physical one for the remaining miles (i was so incredibly wrong)

1pm: [10:54/mi] really starting to slow down, not on purpose anymore

2pm: [11:19/mi] body struggled on this one but kicked into gear for the last quarter mile. i need to warm up before the last two miles

3pm: [11:28/mi] slowest mile of the whole thing. probably the hardest mile of the whole challenge mentally and physically, really was questioning my decision making skills on this one

4pm: [9:10/mi] DONE. Spotify decided to play Chumbawamba's one hit wonder "Tubthumping" on repeat and honestly it was so perfect. Go listen to that song and imagine me dripping wet with rain water, running on zero sleep, and fueled exclusively by a burrito, caramel corn, and waffles, as I crawl through the last mile of this heinous challenge. I also now have my song of the year. 

I think I perfectly encompassed my thoughts after my run in my Strava descriptions; happy I did it, glad its over. What better way to start the year than literally at rock bottom, wet, tired, sore, and questioning every decision that led to this one. No but seriously I think it was a great way to start the year, some classic type 2 fun. Highly recommend you all try it. If you have any fun (aka dumb) ideas or challenges I should do next new years eve, drop em in the comments below. 

xoxo,

Dyl 

p.s. nobody told me that the shoes I was running in were straight garbage. I bought real running shoes the day after this and my life was changed. The new shoes in question: