Registration/start and finish are at the Royal Oak Hotel in Great Ayton. The start is on the main road outside The Royal Oak. Unfortunately for many, a lot of people tend not to remember the start too well due to the previous nights excesses.

Since 2001 the race has been run in an anti-clockwise direction because of barbed wire fencing along the side of the footpath to Rye Hill which makes the path too narrow for a mass start.