Last updated 15 March 2024
The annual 100 mile event is the LDWA's flagship event. Held every year in a different part of the country, to coincide with the late May Bank Holiday, up to 500 people gather to walk 100 miles in 48 hours. In order to enter all these people will have completed a qualifying event beforehand. The first 100 mile event held was the Downsman 100 in 1973. There have been two years without a hundred mile event: 2001 when foot and mouth closed the countryside, and 2020 when COVID-19 prevented the event taking place. COVID-19 also affected the 2021 event which was run as a virtual 100.
Route descriptions for previous events, together with the results and the certificates have been archived here. Each event has its own unique badge and logo. Badges awarded can be viewed here.
The 100 mile event is also amusingly described in Out On Your Feet: The Hallucinatory World of Hundred-Mile Walking by Julie Welch. Out On Your Feet is the story of what happened: of the 50-mile walks she took part in to build up to the big day; the singular, admirable, often eccentric and above all tough-as-old-boots members of the long-distance fraternity; and finally the full wonder, pain, horror, exhilaration, even hallucination of walking a Hundred. (With fatigue as a constant travel companion, the mind will play tricks.)
