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A marathon isn't boring if you train hard and actually "race" rather than just aiming to finish. Try and get a good finishing position within your age group, that would be a good challenge.
Also, have you considered trail/fell races? Look at the calendar on
or how about:
http://www.matlockac.org.uk/wpmara.htm
?
If it has to be walking then maybe:
The travelling thing is only part of it - personally I can think of better challenges to do that don't involve being in a car for 14hrs but it's the fact that you're causing large amounts of noise and disruption to rural communities while not giving them any benefit of being there (spending money in B&B's, cafes etc).
You always end up being in a large group whether you want to or not and 400 walkers in the space of 2hrs causes far more damage to the trails and surrounding countryside than 400 walkers over 3 days - there's simply not enough space there for everyone so people end up walking off the path and damaging the ground. It seems weird to be raising money for charity while simultaneously forcing other charities (National Trust etc) to spend their hard-earned money repairing the damage you've caused.
The idea has it's merits but it's the fact that there's no set date for it, it happens EVERY weekend throughout summer and every Monday there's a massive pile of litter round the carparks, the verges are chewed up by the sheer number of vehicles that have charged along the narrow roads and Mtn Rescue will have been called out each time at 3am to rescue some **** who went up there without a headtorch.
At least something like the [url= http://www.theomm.com ]OMM (Original Mountain Marathon)[/url] benefits the local community - it's one weekend of heavy traffic and hassle but loads of people stay there for a week or so, spending their money in the local shops/B&B's etc and it doesn't have the same erosion impact since not everyone is going the same route up the same hills.
To be fair, whilst I'm a lot more into that sort of thing than Munqe-chick, and could actually race one properly if I put my mind to it, I still reckon a marathon is pretty boring. We've suggested plenty of more interesting things though (and good call on the fell races and LDW challenges).
Not sure how you can even mention OMM in the same context, crazy-legs! Nothing at all like it, with people following lots of different routes, taking home their own rubbish and not waking people up in the small hours. Not to mention that 99% of OMM competitors are more capable of looking after themselves in the hills than 99% of 3 peakers.
A mountain marathon is of course another good idea for a challenge - or if you want to stay with biking there is always Polaris.
Our club did it 2 years ago as a charity thing....we took 6 days and cycled between the peaks, 512 miles of cycling from North Wales...Didn't half wipe the smiles off peoples faces when we told them what we were doing!..proper challenge and ace fun.
one van support for 7 of us and train back from Fort Bill before anyone gets precious about our carbon footprint!
In relation to running and marathons I'm just saying that running for more thatn 1 1/2 hours on the road bores me senseless and hence I know I would not train enough to enter a marathon competitively and I don't see the point of running ti just to finish (as I know I could).
I really loved the helly hansen adventure races especially as doing it in a team of 3 was so much more fun. Anything involving MTBing and I'm game! Running off road I like as well however Bicester is sh*** for it and there's no dam hills! Roll on the move back to Cardiff (whenever that may be in the future).
I have taken people's views on board in relation to the 3 peaks so I'll think about it.