Running on the track of the Olympic 10,000-meter finals, Li Ji might never have imagined that more than a decade later, she would be so exhausted during a 24-hour outdoor race on Shenzhen's Dapeng Peninsula that she could barely "recognize herself."
On November 16, the Red Bull 24-Hour Beach Challenge — currently the only non-stop, round-the-clock comprehensive outdoor sports event in China — concluded on Shenzhen's Dapeng Peninsula. A total of 65 teams comprising 219 outdoor enthusiasts from Guangdong, Xinjiang, France, and other regions and countries geared up for the competition. In the end, the Jetway Precision team, consisting of Li Ji (female), Guo Qingsong, Li Qiang, and Ye Junchu, won the professional group championship with an overwhelming lead of nearly two hours, finishing in 19 hours, 44 minutes, and 43 seconds. Shenzhen Little Ironman Team 1 and Osprey Pure Heart Forward Team secured second and third places with times of 21 hours, 41 minutes, 4 seconds and 21 hours, 43 minutes, 18 seconds, respectively. As a specially invited experience team, China’s only professional outdoor sports team — the Red Bull Outdoor Team, which has finished as the runner-up five times in international mountain and outdoor professional events — also participated in the full competition during their “off-season.”
Leading the Jetway Precision team to the top marked Li Ji’s fourth victory in the Red Bull 24-Hour Trail Challenge. The 33-year-old athlete from Liaoning was once a member of the “Ma’s Army” and finished seventh in the women’s 10,000-meter final at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. After retiring, she transitioned to marathon racing, competing in major marathons from Beijing to Tokyo to Boston without missing a single one. Yet every year at the end of the year, she specifically schedules a stop on the Dapeng Peninsula. The reason is simple: it’s “exhausting” and “fun.”
“Whether it’s the Olympics or marathons, I’ve done too many pure running events. What I need is a comprehensive outdoor challenge like the Red Bull 24-Hour, which includes not just running and cycling, but also kayaking, and even requires you to use your brain to solve problems — all within 24 hours and across 25 events! It’s not only physically exhausting but also ‘brain-burning,’” said Li Ji. “To be honest, every time I’m so tired I can barely recognize myself, and I don’t want to come back. But by the end of the year, I always do, simply because there are so many different elements — it’s just so much fun!”
That’s exactly what makes the Red Bull 24-Hour so appealing — the event often turns out to be even more enjoyable than you expect by the time you cross the finish line. The race is divided into professional and open categories. Each professional team consists of four members, including at least one of each gender. They must complete 120 kilometers of coastal terrain spanning mountains and water around the Dapeng Peninsula within 24 hours. This includes not only “physical events” such as 70 kilometers of mountain biking, 20 kilometers of trail running, 12 kilometers of mountain hiking, 6 kilometers of run-bike alternation, 2.5 kilometers of beach sprinting, 4 kilometers of sea kayaking, and 2.4 kilometers of canoeing, but also “brain-burning challenges” like orienteering, nighttime orienteering, fishing, and the stacking game "Jenga."
“If we just wanted to see who’s the fastest, we could have simply invited China’s top 20 toughest trail running teams and let them run as they please,” said Chen Wenda, the event’s chief judge. “But that’s not the point of the Red Bull 24-Hour Beach Challenge. We’re testing overall capabilities — from physical strength to mental agility — as well as each participant’s teamwork. In short, it’s not just about bravery, but also brains.”
At 6 p.m. on the evening of the 15th, under the setting sun of the Dapeng Peninsula, the Red Bull 24-Hour Beach Challenge commenced. The initial mountain trail running section quickly became a grueling test for the hundred-plus athletes from across the country: over 80% of the course consisted of narrow mountain paths through dense forests, with elevation gains and drops of around 100 meters, and almost the entire stretch had to be navigated in near darkness using only a headlamp. Thanks to their abundant stamina and strong willpower, Li Ji’s Jetway Precision team pulled away from the other competitors halfway through the mountain section, reached the final peak at 400 meters altitude, and then began the nightmarish descent.
“It was a dirt slope coming down from the mountaintop, extremely steep, with virtually no real path — you had to push through bushes and brambles. There was no way to run normally, but to maintain our lead, we couldn’t slow down either. By the end, I didn’t even know how I made it down. It was sheer agony!” Li Ji recalled. After enduring that pitch-dark descent where “everything seemed to stab at you,” she twisted her ankle on a downhill section: “At first it hurt a lot, but because of my responsibility to the team, I had to push through. Eventually, the pain numbed, and I just kept running. Every year, I get to experience ‘the descent is harder than the climb’ here.”
Li Ji even joked that it’s because of the annual Red Bull 24-Hour Trail Challenge that she doesn’t dare grow her hair long anymore: “I really have to keep it short, otherwise I’d be scared of tree branches scratching me while running.” As for how she manages to endure the pain, even Li Ji can’t explain: “Unlike during long-distance runs, every time I take part in the 24-hour challenge, I can strongly feel my own existence through the pain, and then gradually process it over the long haul. I can even tell you, those pains and struggles hold something magical. No advertising here, but this kind of endurance race truly lives up to its slogan: Your energy, beyond your imagination.”
If the grueling mountain trekking is about “bravery,” then the following nighttime orienteering showcases the essence of being “both brave and smart” — a crucial quality for any championship team. Within a 1-square-kilometer “pitch-black” jungle, participants had to rely solely on a compass and a map to locate 5 mandatory checkpoints and 13 optional ones by punching in the fastest time possible. The Jetway Precision team’s meticulous division of labor during this stage secured them the shortest time of 40 minutes, building a 1-hour and 15-minute lead after the first day and laying a solid foundation for their eventual victory.
“We didn’t rush into the nighttime orienteering area right away. Instead, we sat down and assigned roles first. According to the rules, all four team members must find and punch the mandatory checkpoints, but only one person needs to punch the optional ones. So, clarifying everyone’s task was key,” said Guo Qingsong, a member of the winning team. He added that orienteering differs from regular trail running — it mainly involves map reading, which actually provides a bit of rest. Charging in blindly only wastes time. Gesturing to his head, he said, “This is about judgment and teamwork, not just brute physical strength.”
Pajula, a Red Bull Outdoor Team athlete from Xinjiang, agreed with this view. Outdoor sports should not be about reckless bravado. “Especially the Red Bull 24-Hour Beach Race — there are plenty of physical and mental challenges. You’re constantly switching between muscle memory and brainstorms. The process may not always be enjoyable, but that’s precisely what makes it fun.”
Pajula has competed in the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge and is one of China’s few internationally competitive trail runners. However, he doesn’t want to be seen as just a “muscle-bound” running machine: “Take the ‘Jenga’ block-stacking challenge after the mountain biking — I know everyone’s minds are racing and they all want to grab the blocks, but I yelled ‘calm down.’ Once everyone settled, I did the whole Jenga stack alone in just five minutes — the fastest time of the day!”
As a beach challenge, the event naturally embraces coastal characteristics. The nearby Dapeng Fortress on the Dapeng Peninsula was a key military coastal defense installation during the Ming and Qing dynasties and is the only national-level cultural heritage site in Shenzhen. Shenzhen’s nickname “Pengcheng” (City of Roc) originates from this. To give participants a richer taste of Lingnan culture, this year’s Red Bull 24-Hour Beach Challenge featured a more engaging “Discover Dapeng” orienteering project. Competitors used keys obtained from earlier stages to access the ancient city and complete 10 unique intellectual challenges covering math, physics, language, and folk customs.
“The questions were all over the place — they really pushed us to think outside the box,” said Ye Junchu, a bespectacled and mild-mannered participant. “Some were couplets, some related to the Five Elements, and some even involved the NBA — I was baffled. The easiest were the brain teasers, like ‘what cloth can’t be cut?’ Obviously, it’s a ‘waterfall.’ Another question was ‘emerging from the mud unsoiled’ — clearly about lotus flowers. Then you had to find something related to ‘lotus’ nearby — it could be an object or even just a painting...” Ye Junchu, a student at Shenzhen University, was specially invited to take part in the intellectual challenges.
Under extreme fatigue and oxygen-deprived conditions, these “brain-burning” puzzles gave many teams a hard time. But after going through the ordeal, many participants found the trade-off surprisingly rewarding, uncovering unseen landscapes of different times. Guillaume, a French competitor representing the Oriental Climbing Gym team, said the sudden appearance of the ancient city and the unfamiliar yet fascinating Chinese culture made him “fall in love with the environment there.”
“I felt like I had almost traveled through time. In France, when we talk about 24 hours, we think of the Le Mans endurance race. But here in Shenzhen, beyond the surface-level toughness, there’s so much worth striving for. And the result of that trade-off is happiness — something worth experiencing again.”