Sussex Trail Events has staged races in a multi-storey car park, on a pier, and through a former prison. This is their weirdest one yet, and somehow the logistics make sense. The course marking problem that eats race directors alive? Solved. The arrows are already on the floor.

Runners loop through the showroom, past the tills, and along the warehouse floor. Roughly 17 laps. Start time is 6pm because the store is a working environment, which also means no spectators. You run a marathon under fluorescent lights past the KALLAX section with nobody cheering. Brutal and kind of perfect.

The details

  • Date | Sunday, December 13, 2026
  • Where | IKEA Croydon, south London
  • Field | 100 places, 80 general entry
  • Entry | £80 affiliated, £82 unaffiliated, closes December 6
  • Cutoff | Hard six hours, store cleared by midnight
  • Charity | 16% of proceeds to Shelter
  • Aid station | Meatballs, possibly lingonberry sandwiches
  • Medal | Arrives in pieces. You assemble it yourself. Instructions included.

One pattern worth noticing: novelty venue racing is becoming its own category. A supermarket six-hour event is already scheduled at a Tesco in Wales for June 2026. Race directors figured out that a weird venue does the marketing for them. This post you’re reading is proof.

If you lift too

A six-hour indoor loop race is actually a decent hybrid format. Flat, climate controlled, zero weather variables, aid every 10 minutes or so. The catch is the surface. Six hours on polished concrete is a different pounding than road, and your calves will notice by lap eight. If you were building for something like this, you’d want more time on hard flat surfaces and less trail, plus the single-leg work you’re probably already doing on lifting days.

Want a race you can actually enter without flying to London? Our open entry race picks are all registration-open, no lottery.