The 40th staging of the Highland Cross took place on Saturday, June 22, 2024 – and I was among the 750 or so people lined up at the start in Kintail. While my training hadn’t been as fulsome as I might have hoped, I managed a decent enough run and was happy on the bike section, completing the 50-mile duathlon in a time of 5 hours, 28 minutes and 29 seconds.
Read my Active Outdoors feature on the event here.
The 2024 event also saw a 31-year-old record broken by men’s winner Ewan Brown, who took 18 seconds off the long-held course record, finishing in 3:13.13 – a phenomenal time!
Here’s a short video I made of the event, to show the parts that only those who take part – or volunteer on the course – get to see each year…
The Highland Cross has raised £5.9 million for local charities over the last four decades, and exists to help the people of the region. It relies on a mammoth community effort to stage the event each year, as well as the generosity of those in the Highlands and far beyond in some cases who regularly contribute to the participants, who enter in teams of three and agree to raise a minimum amount per team.
My sponsorship page will remain open here until the end of July (I think!) 2024. Thank you so much for all the support and donations which really helped me through the day this year!
Before the event, I spoke to the two founders of the Highland Cross, Calum Munro and Gerry Grant, about the history of the event and what the future might hold. Read the feature here.
Next up, here’s my Strava routes from the run section and the cycle section (the extra time was for the transition, which was maybe up to 10 minutes from what I remember!).
Find out more about the Highland Cross here.