Blue Lake 24-hour challenge goes the distance (+video)

EXTREME RUNNING: The distance of 2500km was covered by the pounding feet of local runners in Rotorua's 24-hour Blue Lake challenge on Saturday. Photo/ Supplied.

More than 2500km was covered by the pounding feet of local runners in Rotorua's 24-hour Blue Lake challenge on the weekend.

The challenge started at 9am on Saturday and out of the 77 participants who started , only two made it right through until the end - Paula Klein and Mgcini Masuku, both completing 20 laps of the 5.5km course around Tikitapu (Blue Lake).

Six others covered more than 100km between them and 15 did more than 50km.

One of the challenge organisers, Kurt Matthews, said he was "amazed" by the distance run.

"It was incredible, it was actually really inspirational to see people keep on going," he said.

"Credit to Paula and Mgcini. Past a certain point it becomes more about the mindset and not the actual running."

The challenge was set up two years ago after Matthews was encouraged by friend Chris Townley. Matthews said the main concept was to test people's limit.

"I started the challenge as a good way for people to see how far they could go," he said.

"We thought with it only being a 5.5km lap people wouldn't be afraid to push themselves as they would never be too far away from other people and somewhere that they could rest.

"I came up with the idea a few years ago and kept talking about it until finally Chris (who loves doing long distance adventures) told me to just hurry up and organise it.

"Plans for the future are to keep it a casual fun day where people can come and try to push themselves without the pressure of an event."