Could You Survive a 24-Hour SAS Selection Challenge?

SAS selection is one of the world’s toughest endurance challenges, only about 10% of candidates pass, and it demands extreme fitness, mental grit, and clear decision-making under pressure. Over the next 24 hours, you’ll face heavy pack marches, navigation through brutal terrain, strength tests, and sleep deprivation. We’ll go hour by hour, ask yourself: could you survive? With dedicated training and the right tools (like a weighted vest, loaded rucksack, or sandbag), you can start preparing for this level of intensity. Let’s begin.

Hour 1: 04:00 – Wake-Up Shock

At 04:00, a piercing whistle jerks you awake from a shallow sleep. Your body aches in the freezing dark as instructors immediately yell for you to get moving – the 24-hour trial has begun.

Hour 2: 05:00 – Breakfast of Champions

In the pre-dawn darkness, you force down a greasy breakfast despite having no appetite, knowing you’ll need every calorie to fuel the brutal morning march.

Hour 3: 06:00 – Gear Up and Fear

By 06:00 you’re geared up with a 25 kg rucksack digging into your shoulders; instructors call out the names of those who quit – a stark reminder not everyone will make it.

Hour 4: 07:00 – The Fan Dance Begins

At first light, you begin the infamous Fan Dance – a 24 km mountain march with a 25 kg pack on your back. The incline is brutal and your legs and lungs burn from the start.

Hour 5: 08:00 – Climbing the Pain Cave

An hour into the climb, every step is agony, but you refuse to falter on a test meant to weed out the weak.

Hour 6: 09:00 – Summit and Descent

Around 09:00 you finally crest the summit of Pen y Fan, but there’s no time to celebrate – you plunge down the far side, knees jolting under the heavy load as you descend.

Hour 7: 10:00 – Turnaround Point

At the bottom checkpoint, you immediately start climbing back up with no rest. Your muscles scream in protest, but you force yourself to continue upward through sheer grit.

Hour 8: 11:00 – Pushing Through Pain

Late morning and you’re near collapse – feet blistered, shoulders raw – yet you keep pushing through the pain, knowing that quitting is not an option.

Hour 9: 12:00 – End of the March

By noon, you stagger across the finish line of the Fan Dance within the time limit. A few others miss the cutoff and are dropped, but you made it – utterly exhausted, yet relieved.

Hour 10: 13:00 – Brief Recovery

You get a brief break to gulp water, choke down a ration bar, and tape up your blisters. Every muscle is quivering from the morning’s ordeal, but there’s no time for real recovery.

Hour 11: 14:00 – Strength Test

Early afternoon brings a brute-strength task: in teams, you must haul a stretcher with a heavy dummy and a 20 kg sandbag. Your legs nearly buckle, but you grit your teeth and grind it out together.

Hour 12: 15:00 – Drilled to the Limit

Next, a punishing circuit of sprints and burpees tests your will under extreme fatigue. Your heart pounds and your head spins, but somehow you keep moving when many would have quit.

Hour 13: 16:00 – Navigation Challenge

Near dusk, you begin a solo land navigation test. With only a map and compass, you must trek alone to find distant checkpoints across the wilderness – a huge challenge on exhausted legs.

Hour 14: 17:00 – Alone with Your Thoughts

By 17:00 you’re utterly alone on the hills. In the eerie silence, self-doubt creeps in, but you push it aside – out here it’s you versus you, and you refuse to give up.

Hour 15: 18:00 – Dusk and Determination

Night falls and the temperature plummets. Hungry and drained, you still manage to locate another checkpoint flag – a small victory that spurs you onward into the darkness.

Hour 16: 19:00 – The Long March

19:00 – roughly 15 hours in – and you’ve likely marched dozens of kilometers by now, akin to the SAS “Endurance” 40-mile march. Every part of your body is screaming, but you trudge on autopilot through the hills.

Hour 17: 20:00 – Final Checkpoint

Around 20:00 you reach the final navigation checkpoint. Only a fraction of the starting candidates are left. You’re desperate to rest, but the next phase hits without pause.

Hour 18: 21:00 – Escape and Evasion

In the dead of night, the escape-and-evasion phase begins. You are told to disappear into the woods and evade a pursuing hunter force. Running on fumes, you creep through the darkness trying to stay silent and unseen.

Hour 19: 22:00 – Hunted in the Dark

For an hour, you play cat-and-mouse in the pitch-black forest. Every snapped twig makes your heart jump. You’re so exhausted you see shapes in the dark, but you stay crouched in the mud, holding your breath to avoid detection.

Hour 20: 23:00 – Captured

Eventually you’re caught and dragged from your hiding spot – captured at last. You’re blindfolded and forced into a stress position while interrogators blast you with lights and noise, simulating the final torture-test of selection. You’re barely conscious, and you somehow muster the last bit of mental strength to endure it.

Hour 21: 00:00 – Zero Hour, No Sleep

Midnight – 20 hours with no sleep. You stand shivering in the cold, body trembling and eyelids sagging, but you fight hard to stay awake and alert against the crushing exhaustion.

Hour 22: 01:00 – Mind Over Matter

1 a.m. and time has lost meaning. You’ve covered over 50 km by now and are running on pure willpower. Despite how broken you feel, you take pride that you’ve endured what few ever could.

Hour 23: 02:00 – Near the Breaking Point

By 2 a.m., you’re on the verge of collapse. A couple of others have already succumbed, but you refuse to let yourself quit with the finish so close. Digging deeper than ever, you hang on for the final hour.

Hour 24: 03:00 – The Finish Line

At last, around 04:00, an instructor blows the whistle – the 24-hour ordeal is over. You collapse to the ground as dawn breaks, every fibre of you in agony yet flooded with relief. Out of everyone who started, only a handful remain, and you’re one of them.

Even the fittest civilians would struggle to endure a real SAS selection, but with the right preparation and mindset, it’s possible to push far beyond ordinary limits. If you train hard, with long ruck marches, weighted vest workouts, and sandbag drills, and use quality gear like a Force Fitness weighted vest or rucksack, you can greatly increase your endurance and resilience.

You might never experience actual special forces selection, but by striving for that standard you’ll become tougher, fitter, and mentally stronger. This 24-hour journey proves one thing: the human body and spirit are capable of astounding feats when pushed to the limit.

A Quick Note on Authenticity

It’s important to be clear: we are not special forces operators, and we don’t claim to know the exact selection process in detail. The 24-hour experience you’ve just read is a researched, imagined take on the kind of mental and physical demands that SAS candidates might endure, based on publicly available information and real accounts from those who’ve attempted it.

The real selection process is classified, adaptive, and far more complex than any blog can capture. What we’ve done here is pull together a realistic simulation to inspire and challenge everyday athletes to train with greater intent—and to respect the extreme standards these individuals operate under.