Runners Will Cover 26.2 Miles Inside a South London IKEA Store This December

Somewhere between the KALLAX shelves and the POÄNG chairs, 100 runners are about to attempt something that has never been done before.

On December 13, 2025, an official marathon will take place entirely inside the IKEA store in Croydon, south London — and the details are as wild as they sound.

From meatball aid stations to a finisher’s medal that arrives in pieces with assembly instructions, this race is rewriting every rule about what a marathon can look like.

Entries are expected to sell out within minutes — so here’s everything you need to know before the clock strikes 6 p.m. on June 26.

26.2 Miles of Showrooms, Tills, and Warehouse Floors

The race is being organized by Jay McCardle, race director and co-founder of Sussex Trail Events — a company with a very deliberate habit of staging races in places that make people do a double take.

Past events have included a multi-storey car park in Worthing, a pier race in Southend, and a run through the historic Shepton Mallet Prison.

I approached IKEA with the idea. We’ve done several similar things before. We did a multi-storey car park in Worthing in 2017 and Southend in 2026. Seven levels, up and down. We’ve done races on Southend Pier; races in Shepton Mallet Prison.

The IKEA Croydon course will send runners looping through showroom aisles, past the checkout tills, and along the warehouse floor. Each lap clocks in at roughly 1.5 kilometers, meaning competitors will need to complete approximately 17 loops to hit the full 26.2-mile distance.

The race kicks off at 6 p.m. and carries a hard six-hour cutoff — the store needs to be cleared by midnight, no exceptions.

The Course Already Comes Pre-Marked (Sort Of)

Any race director will tell you that course marking is one of the most time-consuming parts of event logistics. McCardle, it turns out, may have found the one venue on earth where that problem solves itself.

It has the arrows on the floor. I thought, ‘Well, I don’t even need to mark this!’

Those iconic IKEA directional arrows — the ones that have guided millions of bewildered shoppers past the Scandinavian textiles and into the marketplace — will now double as race route signage.

Genuinely, no one saw that coming.

The Finisher’s Medal Needs to Be Built

Most marathon finisher medals are handed over at the finish line, ready to be worn with exhausted pride. This one will require a little extra effort.

McCardle and his team are designing a medal that arrives in pieces, complete with assembly instructions — a nod to the very store runners will have just spent six hours circling.

We’re currently working on the T-shirt and the medal, which I want to be self-assembly and come with instructions.

It’s either the most on-brand finishing prize in marathon history, or a cruel joke for someone with jelly legs at midnight. Possibly both.

Aid Stations Will Be Serving Meatballs

Traditional marathon fueling usually means gels, bananas, and electrolyte drinks. This course has other ideas.

Because the store’s canteen will remain closed during the event, organizers are exploring a decidedly Swedish alternative for race-day nutrition.

They won’t open the canteen but we’re looking at having meatballs at the aid station. If not that, we might give a bag of meatballs to every finisher, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

Lingonberry sandwiches have also been floated as a possibility, according to the Sussex Trail Events listing. Sports nutritionists everywhere are quietly reconsidering everything they thought they knew.

No Spectators, No Cheer Squad — Just You and the Flatpack

Here’s the part that stings a little. Because IKEA Croydon remains a working environment throughout the event, supporters will not be permitted inside the store.

For security reasons, we can’t have supporters in there. It’s sad, but it’s the trade-off of doing an event like this.

Combined with a 6 p.m. start time and a midnight finish, runners should prepare for a solo slog through fluorescent-lit aisles with zero crowd energy to carry them through the wall.

Mental toughness will matter here just as much as physical fitness.

How to Get an Entry Before They’re Gone

The field is capped at just 100 runners, with 80 spots available to the general public. Entry fees are set at £80 for affiliated runners and £82 for unaffiliated runners.

Registrations open at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 26, through SIEntries and the Sussex Trail Events website — and Runner’s World has warned they are expected to disappear within minutes.

There’s also a charitable angle worth noting. Sixteen percent of all proceeds will be donated to Shelter, the UK charity tackling housing insecurity and homelessness — a meaningful cause attached to an already memorable event.

The event’s Arc safety permit is still pending approval, but with entries set to fly out the virtual door faster than a Billy bookcase on Black Friday, anyone even remotely tempted should have that registration page bookmarked and ready to go.