One hour. One finish.

Everyone starts together on a closed, measured circuit and completes as many laps as they can. The race clock runs up to one hour.

Passing sixty minutes does not end the race. It arms the finish. The next time the race leader crosses the finish line, the Final Lap bell rings and every runner completes the lap they are on.

The runner with the greatest number of completed laps wins. Where lap totals are equal, the runner who crossed the line first takes the higher position. Everybody finishes in the same place, beneath the VOLTA arch.

An hour is long enough to separate athletes properly and short enough for a spectator to watch the whole thing without leaving.

It is a number everybody already understands. Nobody needs the format explained twice.

It gives a first-time competitor and a national-level runner a race they can both finish, on the same circuit, at the same time, scored on the same scale.

A conventional road race disperses its field across a city, so the crowd sees each athlete once and the athletes see almost nobody.

A compact circuit puts every athlete in front of the crowd every few minutes for the entire hour. Nobody disappears. The leaderboard moves in front of the people watching it.

It also means a fraction of the road closure, marshalling and municipal disruption of a marathon, which is why a city can host it more than once a year.

VOLTA HOUR is an individual race. One runner, one hour, as many laps as they can complete.

Individual results establish city, national and international marks and are the basis of every ranking.

There is no qualifying standard and no lap target. Anyone can enter. Walking is permitted, and a runner may stop and restart at any point in the race.

The main VOLTA HOUR competition is an individual race. Everybody gets the same sixty minutes and their own official distance.

Corporate, club and relay formats may be introduced separately, alongside the individual race rather than in place of it. Nothing about them is settled yet.

Clubs already race each other inside the individual competition: the live club leaderboard adds up the distances of everybody wearing the same colours.

Lap counting is by timing chip at the finish line, with a manual backup count kept independently for the whole race. There is one counting point, because there is one finish line.

Nothing is estimated. A lap either crossed the line or it did not, and your finishing time is the moment you crossed it for the last time.

A circuit must be measured and certified before an event can be sanctioned, so that a lap in one city means the same as a lap in another. Certification method publishes with the ratified rulebook.

Individual: women, men and an open category, each with age groups.

Age groups are provisional and will be confirmed in the ratified rulebook.

Every runner is ranked in their division and in the overall field on the same measure: distance covered in the hour.

Every verified result from a sanctioned event enters the athlete database and contributes to city, national and international rankings, ranked on laps completed.

A record stands only once ratified: the circuit certified, the timing verified and the result reviewed by a technical delegate.

No records exist yet. The first sanctioned event sets all of them.

Each sanctioned event has a technical delegate appointed by VOLTA HOUR, a chief timekeeper, and marshals at every corner and changeover box.

Sanctioning covers the circuit, the timing system, the officials, the medical plan and the results process.

An event that is not sanctioned does not produce ranked results or eligible records.

City event, national ranking, continental championship, VOLTA HOUR World Final.

Qualification standards publish alongside the ratified rulebook. The championship structure is in development and no championship date exists yet.

Running as far as possible in one hour is not a new idea. Timed one-hour running has a long history in athletics, on the track and on the road, and VOLTA HOUR did not invent it.

What VOLTA HOUR is building is new: a standardised city-arena format with a signature Final Lap and a single physical finish, live lap counting and leaderboards, a global athlete database, ratified rankings and records, collectible city patches, event sanctioning, licensed city operators and an international championship pathway.

VOLTA HOUR is the creator, rulebook owner, sanctioning organisation and international league operator of that format. It is not an internationally recognised governing body for athletics and does not claim to be.