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Tom Bedford - Olympic Trials Race Director
54 Plays4 years ago
Tom is a Race Director and owner of the Richmond Running Festival.
Tom and his team were the organisers of the Olympic trials at Kew Gardens.
Their upcoming events include May 15th Air 10 & May 16th Kew Gardens 10k.
We discuss:
The Olympic Trials.
Current challenges for Race Directors and Events.
The future of running events.
You can get a £10 discount for the Kew Gardens 10K event on May 16th using code UKRUNCHAT10 (all capitals).
Sign up here https://www.richmondrunfest.co.uk/events/may-kew-gardens-10k/
Follow Richmond Run Fest on Twitter
Follow Richmond Run Fest on Instagram
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Tom Bedford and Olympic Trials
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, welcome to episode 34 of the UK sports chat podcast. On today's episode I am speaking with Tom Bedford. Tom is a race director and recently was the organiser of the Olympic trials at
Richmond Running Festival and Listener Discount
00:00:15
Speaker
Kew Gardens.
00:00:15
Speaker
He's owner of the Richmond Running Festival and their upcoming events include May the 15th, the Air 10K and May the 16th Q Gardens 10K for which you can get a £10 discount using code UKRUNCHAT10 all in capitals.
Challenges of Event Cancellations and Parkrun Return
00:00:31
Speaker
It's a really interesting chat this we discuss the Olympic trials, the challenges that are facing race directors all over the country at the moment as we see more events
00:00:41
Speaker
Being cancelled this week and also we discussed the return of parkrun I'd love to ask you all a favor if you have two minutes after listening Would you please leave us a review on whatever red platform it is that you're listening on?
Stress of Event Planning During the Pandemic
00:00:57
Speaker
Enjoy this chat with Tom and we'll see you in the next episode Welcome Tom. How are you?
00:01:05
Speaker
I'm very good, very stressed. But, you know, as we were saying before we came on air, I'm breathing. So that's a good start to be during a pandemic. But yeah, no, very busy with so many events that we're planning for and not planning for and changing throughout. But yeah, no, it's good to be here. Cheers. Yeah, you've had a lot going on this last couple of months, haven't you?
00:01:35
Speaker
yeah it's um it's certainly the weirdest weirdest you know it's the weirdest for everyone out there you know um but putting on events and um and different types of events the the constant changing landscape of covid um it's uh it's you just don't know what's coming next sort of thing and um i i was thinking earlier on today on the walk into work how um
00:02:02
Speaker
how just my previous life of a year ago was over a year ago now, how much would I pay as a tax to go back to that? At the moment, it would be quite high.
Organizing Olympic Trials Under Restrictions
00:02:15
Speaker
So I did say in the intro about the Olympic trials, I mentioned that you were the race director on there. How did that all go?
00:02:28
Speaker
It was, again, probably one of the most stressful four months, well, maybe five months as well, all in all of my life. But, you know, if the fact that the fact that it, you know, it went so well, couldn't have gone any better, you know,
00:02:51
Speaker
I'm just so, just so sort of grateful and thankful for all them hours that not just myself, but my team and my old man, loads of people in the sport got together behind it. And it was certainly the weirdest build up I've ever had to a race, but then it went perfectly on the day. So it was, it was worth it in the end. Certainly.
Unpredictable Challenges and Streaming Needs
00:03:14
Speaker
Go on. Why, why was it weird?
00:03:16
Speaker
Just the constant, just not knowing, even a few weeks out, we were truly trying to get streaming, just in case it was an amazing event and people wanted to see it. Being in meetings with British athletics worked very hard with us the whole way through.
00:03:37
Speaker
Um, you know, just waiting for Boris sometimes to say, well, listen, there's no point having a conversation about what we're going to do until this Boris speech or the, the roadmaps and everything else sort of thing, because you just couldn't plan for that. And it was, it was, I think we were like, uh,
00:03:56
Speaker
a day before one of the roadmaps, one of the different steps. So it was all quite interesting. So we had to go in full COVID with it, even though 24 hours later, COVID wouldn't be so much of a problem.
High Stakes of Olympic Trials
00:04:10
Speaker
It's just this constant dilemma with it.
00:04:18
Speaker
It was a weird event as well, because we're, you know, we're used to putting on events for thousands of thousands of runners. I think the total finishes of the race walks as well, which was a new one to me, but the total finishing of participants was probably under 50. So you put all this work in, you know, sometimes more, much harder work.
00:04:42
Speaker
for 50 people. And it's just quite a different event from that point of view. And also just the stakes couldn't be any higher. If we messed up a horror or just didn't factor in something, then we could have ruined someone's Olympic dreams. It turned out the other day.
00:05:08
Speaker
It was a lot of pressure, lots of sleepless nights and that, but you know, Steph, you know, what's Steph Davis and Chris Thompson, you know, Tom Bosworth and everyone else sort of thing, it was, you know, for them to get to the Olympics because of us, it feels very satisfying. Yeah, it's very good. It's very good. I can't even imagine that pressure. I think about our race, the shoes we have, and we have
00:05:35
Speaker
1500 to 2000 runners. And that build up, I don't know if you feel the same, the pressure on your shoulder, it really can get to you. But then when you've done everything, I feel like you have a little bit of a lull, like the calm before the storm in the few days before, because you know that everything's done. There isn't really anything you can do until you get in and set up and the gun goes off and everybody goes. It's quite the experience.
00:06:02
Speaker
We, the way I sort of describe it, it's sort of almost two weeks out from the event where, you know, I sort of stand up and make an announcement in the office and saying, right, if we haven't booked anything now, it's not happening. And then we turn in, you know, we then have like a 48 hour period of we need to get things done. Otherwise it's gone. We're not going to mess anything up because we need to go through that planning. And yeah, absolutely.
00:06:29
Speaker
I actually enjoy race week because you're sort of problem solving. There will always be something that comes up, road works that you don't know about. Didn't we tell you this gate's not opening or just park car parking. You lose staff.
00:06:52
Speaker
Um, we had one last September medals. Um, medals were, were physically in the country, but couldn't get off of, you know, not off a boat or, you know, couldn't get out of the storage because there was a strike going on. Yeah. And then you just, I sort of quite, I don't like that, but, um, I sort of quite liked the race week where you're just problem solving, um, damage limitation, thinking outside the box and, um,
00:07:20
Speaker
Um, you know, you don't want big, big problems like that, but you know, yeah, that you have that lull where you're sort of actually, I'm quite comfortable, um, with this, you know, um, one, one thing an old coach used to say about training for me was, um, worry about, um, you know, just worry about you being not, not getting injured, you know, don't worry about the things you can't control. Um, you know, worry about the things you can control.
00:07:46
Speaker
And it works perfectly with events because you can send yourself into some very, very dark moments, sleeping at night when you're thinking about what happens if barriers don't turn up. Just weird places your mind can take you sometimes when you put on events and it will get sorted out in the end. So yeah, I do agree with that sort of lull period where you've done everything and you're just waiting to put it on.
Logistics of Kew Gardens Event
00:08:16
Speaker
You mentioned the streaming as well, I really enjoyed it. And it was an early start of that Olympic day, wasn't it? The whole event was just weird, weird, weird. And I mean, it was on a Friday. And the reason why it was on a Friday is because our events when we were going to have a 10K and a full marathon happening on the Saturday and Sunday. So that's why it was originally on a Friday.
00:08:43
Speaker
And then British athletes didn't want to change it from that once the other events sadly were postponed. We're dealing with Kew Gardens, which for people that don't know Kew is a beautiful botanical
00:08:59
Speaker
uh, gardens in Southwest London. I think it's the second biggest tourist attraction in London or something. Um, so we needed to be our first, our final runner, uh, finished at 10 42 and the gates for Q garden opened at 11. So we had 18 minutes. And so as much, so once, um, once Tom, oh, Chris Thompson and, and, and, and Steph had gone over the line.
00:09:26
Speaker
I immediately went from the front of the pack to the back of the pack, because if that person, and I can't, I can't remember the name, but if, if that, if one of them dropped out, suddenly you could gain an extra five minutes, which is like, you know, 20% extra D-rig time, which, which just makes so much difference. So yeah, yeah. You know, we had to be open Q gardens opened up bang on 11 o'clock. So that's one of the reasons why we had to start so early. Originally we were.
00:09:54
Speaker
Um, we weren't doing the race walks and then the race walks needed to needed an Olympic, um, trial. So we included them, but the poor guys had to get up very early for that. So just, you know, and then, and then that meant you're working in the dark to set the events up because you can only really get in, um, move things around once Q shut the previous day. Um, so yeah, just lots and lots of strange things. So it was, it was an early
Organizing Events with Little Support
00:10:22
Speaker
start.
00:10:22
Speaker
I'm just so pleased and thankful for Muller for being a sponsor of British athletics and allowing us to do the streaming because I can't imagine what would have happened if them performances or them races would have happened and only probably 80 people were inside Kew Gardens. It was brilliant. I really enjoyed it.
00:10:51
Speaker
But whilst all that was going on, you and your team were also organizing all your other events that are coming up. So, I mean, we had the disappointment of a couple of weeks of you, Richmond Marathon, having to be postponed. Yeah, but strangely, our Q Gardens, our Air 10K, which stands for Audio Inspired Running, that is still able to go ahead. And we've added a 10K, which is, you know, I just feel so sorry for
00:11:19
Speaker
all the runners out there listening and you know I'll apologise on behalf of all race directors and events companies out there because it's so difficult for us to get our head around such little support and guidance from various quarters without pointing
00:11:38
Speaker
fingers with it. But it's so difficult that we were able to put on a 10K event all inside Kew Gardens, but our Richmond marathon after 10 miles went on to public land. And that was a big issue for the local authorities. And you've got local authorities up and down as we speak, you know, that the park runner are starting to come across some issues with local authorities.
00:12:05
Speaker
Um, and, um, and it's, it's the risk of transmission from park run events to our running events are so low. I think park run did a, um, a study last week that went out and said it was, you know, from all of their events, it was one, one in 2.6 million, um, chances of transmission from that. And, you know, on the other side of that, you know, people aren't going shopping.
00:12:35
Speaker
Um, on that Saturday morning or, or they're not going to be in a gym where there was also this risk. There's risk in, you know, there's all, there's always going to be that risk, but it's just sort of how we can mitigate, um, and, and, and reduce the risk, um, from something that's so healthy for, for runners up and down the country to get back to doing park runs, um, doing races and big races as well. Um, you know, how much money millions is.
00:13:01
Speaker
Raised by London marathon and bath half which sadly and postponed today Yeah, because you know, I do get it from the councils and local authorities and that but it's just a weird one that private property Guidance is there you're allowed to come back you know, so pubs now use this sort of analogy that you know, I
00:13:22
Speaker
pubs have been given guidance to, to come back and at different stages, they can do the X, Y, and Z. Um, they agreed to it. And, you know, every pub in the, you know, in, in England, um, Wales now is back and et cetera, but you're given guidance to a pub. They agreed to it. They can come back, you know, running events and park runs have been given guidance. Yeah. And, but there's a problem.
00:13:48
Speaker
And we can't really figure out what the problem is because we're not really being told certain information about it. And I think a lot of it is just.
00:13:56
Speaker
people that don't really know running, haven't really sort of looked into it and how racist now are. I think when certain local authorities, they hear about a running event, they just think of London marathon, masses, masses, masses, 50 minutes to go over the start line. How could you social distance that? And a lot of events up and down the country, including us last September where we put on
00:14:23
Speaker
over two days, a 10K event, um, 3,500 runners over, um, over the both days, um, public health came down threatening, you know, if, if you're, you know, if you're not social distancing, blah, blah, blah, we're going to shut you down for the next day. And then they wrote a really nice email back saying, wow, didn't think you're going to
00:14:42
Speaker
pull this off, but you've done it. So, you know, based directors up and down the country have been, you know, doing it in their own way, taking guidance seriously. And it's just, it's a real shame at the moment that we're not seeing, and we're potentially not seeing many other events returning in autumn now, because we're not too far away from events coming back, you know, above half, you know, they, I think when they announced today, you know, that they couldn't come back, it's because they don't know exactly
00:15:11
Speaker
If they're going to be social distancing, do we need passports? You know, COVID passports? Are you allowed spectators in or not? It's sort of quite frustrating that we sort of...
00:15:26
Speaker
the answers and the information I believe is there now. We know how low risk transmission is in outdoor environments. So let's, let's, let's get back, but we're going to have casinos, cinemas, indoor pubs and don't get me wrong, I love, I love
00:15:43
Speaker
pubs with the most person listening to this. So don't get me wrong. I'm not moaning about that. But again, we're going to be in a situation as a UK country across Europe that we are going to be going back to casinos, cinemas, indoor environments where transmission is high.
00:16:07
Speaker
before healthy running events that do physical mental wellness raises millions and keeps your local charities who are then going out and looking after cancer patients, looking after local facilities and support networks, and they're going to suffer going into this. So it's quite frustrating. Sorry, I'm sort of mumbling now.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, it is. I understand your frustration. So for listeners out there, race directors all get together on Run Britain webinars and give each other advice.
Educating Authorities About Event Flow
00:16:50
Speaker
And you've been a big part of the advice on some of those webinars over the last six months. And you were just talking then about educating. I remember you making a really interesting point on one of them that
00:17:02
Speaker
You know, local authorities, as an example, they don't just deal with running events, they deal with all events, don't they, for their local authority. And I remember you giving me an example, and it was on the PowerPoint that your event that went ahead, the Public Health Commended, that you're talking about,
00:17:22
Speaker
It was very much, it was a through route, wasn't it? You had it, it was point to point. You marked all the social distancing out at the start, but you could manage the flow of people because it was a start to finish. It wasn't, I think the example you gave was a concert. You weren't all heading into a mosh pit where you were all gathered shoulder to shoulder.
00:17:42
Speaker
you could you could actively manage the numbers that were going through this this through route which was um but perhaps there's some education around that isn't there for yeah i mean again it's breaking down it's breaking down the ideology and that image of the of the london marathon yeah that a lot of people and i do get it none of this is easy out there so i know i'm you know i'm trying i i am very forgiving on local authorities and landowners who who just
00:18:12
Speaker
aren't sort of seeing the images in my head. And the biggest frustration that we had initially with Kew Gardens, who were asking, you know, who are very protective, very responsible, you know, got, you know, their own health and safety officers who read every single word, like pull up spelling mistakes in my risk assessments, you know, thoroughly go through it. And the biggest thing we had challenged that we had to do was explain that our event is a throughput of
00:18:42
Speaker
It's not an event or a mass gathering. It's a throughput. And I think I use the analogy of a train station. We're based in London. Our trains go into Waterloo. We're not talking about our event that you, some local authorities and landowners sort of look at our event as if what's the total number of people going into Waterloo throughout the whole day. It's not like that. You've got trains of 100 people coming in,
00:19:13
Speaker
scheduled at different times. That's why they, you know, certain trains are delayed. Okay. Cause you don't, you don't want 20 trains going into Waterloo all at the same time because you know, you just can't do that. So it's sort of describing that to, um, you know, local authorities, um, sort of describing it to runners as well. You know, we, you know, we had runners ringing us up, pointing fingers saying, you're, you know, you're going to be a super spreader and how can you, how can you stop this, that and the other?
00:19:43
Speaker
And we sort of explaining why it is, but I think the biggest thing for us, we were certainly the biggest, I think the biggest event for us was like 300 people or something around that. We were going in with 1,800 people.
00:20:01
Speaker
So it was a big big step Which is why public health were we're saying we just can't see You know, we just can't see it. Yes, you know They just can't go through the Yeah
00:20:17
Speaker
And, um, and yeah, no, it was just, you know, it was breaking that down and saying, right, well, these people with certain color bibs are going through entrance at these times. They're using toilets, then baggage, then moving around and we've got holding areas. So, um, it's like a canal lock system is what we, we sort of created initially. Um, and you know, it works, it works very well. You know, we just did it in a way to avoid people going into sort of big pens and waiting 20 minutes before a race.
00:20:46
Speaker
people will be going through and then into supermarket, social distance supermarket lines. And then we have this rolling wave start, which really did work well. We've got our event in two weeks time where we'll be doing a similar system, but some improvements.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was sort of, you know, every race director was looking at it and everyone was, you know, just looking at it in a different way, you know, as long as I was social distancing, it's just great that they were doing their bit. And, you know, we had our stab at it, but it benefited the country.
00:21:26
Speaker
And running a community around the world, this is the problem. We've looked to try and compete it by doing this. And this is our best step at it. Yeah. You mentioned Parkrun.
00:21:44
Speaker
It's an interesting one this, isn't it? Because they, if you think of the, but Paul, Paul Sinton Hewitt's letter came out yesterday, didn't they? And I saw that Tom Williams had commented on Twitter as well, saying about the amount of people that were getting behind it. The, um, the, the worry is that if they don't all open at once, then because it's so popular, you'll, you'll just go down, you know, people will travel an hour, won't they? And go, and go to the one that is open. And that, that call to arms they put out yesterday, it looks like by the,
00:22:14
Speaker
by the tweet that Tom put out yesterday that they've had a very good response to it. Yeah. I think, you know, again, we're celebrating success and at the moment I sort of know and I won't point fingers and sort of do it, but I think it's true to say that there are a lot of events that
00:22:41
Speaker
will not be coming back. A lot of them are actually within the M25 and whole boroughs are saying no. One of the ones that is a big worry, let's make an example of this. I'm not saying that it has or hasn't been, but we're local to Bushy Park and Bushy Park
00:23:04
Speaker
on some of its big days have 2000. And you know, without a shadow of a doubt, there's just a lot of people, we then got Richmond Park up the road, which probably does 600. And then we've actually got three, three miles later, there's a small one in Kingston, and then there's one in Wimbledon common and that. So if you lost
00:23:20
Speaker
the Royal Parks, both the Royal Parks one, which is Bushey and Richmond Park, you've suddenly got 2,500 local park runners that are then going to go to the smaller Kingston and Wimbledon common events, you know, just following this example. And then they can't support that.
00:23:42
Speaker
So I really do sympathise and fear for if not enough local authorities get behind it, it's actually probably causing a bigger problem and a bigger risk.
00:23:57
Speaker
from transmission if that's how they're looking at it. I really, you know, do read Park Run's previous blog about, they did their research notes and as I said, you know, one in 2.6 million chance of transmission. And, you know, the biggest problem is we're gonna, if they don't all come back,
00:24:20
Speaker
in certain areas, they can't come back at all because everyone's just going to go to the other things. And the whole beauty of Park Run is there's no limit. There's no fee. There's no limit. Come down, whether you're going to walk with your dog
00:24:35
Speaker
um um you know in a in push chairs that that's the beauty and the essence of park runs okay and you know i i do i do fear that they won't hit their um that they potentially won't hit their um you know june 5th um return date um because there's not enough there's not enough saying yes oh dear
00:25:01
Speaker
I mean listen I don't want to speak out of turn but I think that's sort of you know reading between the lines of...
00:25:08
Speaker
of Paul's call out yesterday, you know, because, you know, that's, that's the big fear with it, because responsibly, they can't, they can't put the pressure on, you know, and sometimes it's not the local authorities, you know, you have park runs, it's the landowners, and these landowners are either privately owned,
00:25:31
Speaker
you know, or publicly owned, you know, wherever you are, there's big, big issues across
Parkrun's Nationwide Return Challenges
00:25:42
Speaker
the mall. So it's not always a local authorities, even though I'm hearing certain boroughs, you know, in London, I'm just just doing a wide band saying no. Yeah, you can't come back because unless you come back with
00:25:55
Speaker
30 people, we don't believe in the guidance that that that parkrun have been given from the government. We just don't feel as though you can you can fulfill it. So therefore, we're not ready for something like that to return. And that is a big worry. Because, you know, if park runs can't come back, you know, and as I said, going back to our original analogies,
00:26:21
Speaker
Where do we want the risk of transmission if there is going to be that higher risk of transmission, say? Do we want it at park runs where people are getting healthier, where we're, you know, dealing with, you know, helping the NHS? Or if park runs aren't happening and people aren't returning to fitness, okay, you know, but they go into cinemas or eat out to help them. Big problem.
Impact of COVID on Future Events
00:26:51
Speaker
How do you think this impacts events in the future? I'm thinking that in a couple of different ways. Do we see more people?
00:27:01
Speaker
I mean the trail trend was really coming on anyway but will that explode and we see less road races and more trail because potentially they're a little bit easier to manage. Do licensing standards change and some of the COVID measures stay?
00:27:22
Speaker
What do you think? The, I mean, the, the COVID measures can't say because events, including myself, you know, yes, we put on an event last year, less than 50% of our normal, um, of our normal runners. Um, people look at it and from the outdoor say what a successful event, lots of positive comments and that, um, it barely, you know, speaking truthfully on this, what it did for me.
00:27:49
Speaker
was it kept, it meant I didn't have to sack a member of star. I haven't been paid in a year and a bit. My wife has an Uber, who puts on the event. And I'm not saying this is all about money. I'm just sort of going, giving some reasons behind the scenes. So running events can't come back at a 50% venue. Football, stadiums, theaters, music concerts can't come back unless they're going to double the prices.
00:28:18
Speaker
So, so, you know, maybe they could come back and then if, if, if only the 50% of runners that do come back can pay the prices, then then that's, that will possibly happen. Um, you know, it's, it's, you know, any sort of running, whether it park run trail running.
00:28:37
Speaker
Um, I mean we're seeing, we are seeing events happening at the moment and this is sort of the frustration thing of that, you know, it's all happening on private property. Um, but you know, um, you know, we're, we're, we're just about to announce we're moving our Richmond marathon to Kempton, um, park, um, race course, you know, and, um, and, you know, it's going to be a bit of a lat, um, marathon. It certainly won't be as beautiful, but it is flat sort of thing. Um, but you know, give us the, give us one that's happening then.
00:29:05
Speaker
And 29th of May, which is sort of two weeks after what we were originally doing for that. Cause I just, you know, I felt, we felt so sorry and gutted for our runners had gone through, you know, 10 weeks, three months of training and, you know, right at that pivotal ball bit, you know, um, um, you know, that they didn't have an opportunity to race. So we've been, you know, really, really scrambling.
00:29:30
Speaker
Um, you know probably frustrating our runners because we haven't been able to tell them all the information because we didn't know all the information but we wanted to let you know Let them know certain information Um as soon as we found out about it because it does affect their lives We didn't want people going out and running a 22 mile run On a weekend. So we told them on a friday just so we didn't have to disappoint them
00:29:55
Speaker
on a Monday after that. But you know, events are happening, don't get me wrong, but you know, I sort of do fear unless, unless, you know, look at Bath Half as an example, I know there were some other mitigating circumstances with roadworks, apparently. But I do know for a fact, you know, one of the major frustrations that we've got with local authorities is
00:30:23
Speaker
Right, I understand you saying this is not, you know, this is not a right time at the moment. But what's what when is the right time? You know, and there's not really an answer at the moment, there's nothing consistently is sort of a put your finger up in the air. And say, you know, I guess the answer is once every single COVID case is gone.
00:30:47
Speaker
Well, we just, you know, if that's the case, then geez, you know, it's, it's, you know, London's not happening this year. Again, we're going to lose people to, to running because, you know, and people aren't going to find running. If you haven't got park runs, you haven't got, you know, there's no one coming into the sport, you know, it's, um, it's very scary. Hmm. You,
Introduction to the Air 10K Event
00:31:10
Speaker
um,
00:31:10
Speaker
Tell us about the events you've got coming up then. I know you've got your Air 10K on the Saturday and the Q Garden 10K on the Sunday. And two weeks later is this new... I think we've got a bit of an exclusive that on. You've got your new marathon that you're putting on for people who were going to take part in Richmond, which is brilliant. It just shows how agile you and your team are. It's a fair play because it's no mean feat to put that line in that short space of time.
00:31:37
Speaker
But tell us about the Air 10K, thank you. So the Air 10K, again, I laugh at it sometimes because I can only cry. It was originally going to be in Richmond Park last May.
00:31:54
Speaker
Um, you know, you go through the whole process of it's air stands for the audio inspired running. And I still think it's, um, quite annoyingly, I think a few other events, we were sort of going to go with this brand new event. We knew it was good. The concept was going to be copied. Um, but essentially, um, it's, was in a venue, Richmond park, and now it's in Q garden. So people can download, um, a podcast where we've got, um, essentially mute, you know, performance enhancing music, um,
00:32:24
Speaker
from a sound doctor from Brunel University. So performance enhancing music, where I think, you know, he reckons some of his stuff, you can improve different types of beats and certain melodies for the music that you listen to, could improve your performance by 15%. So we're sort of working on the ways of, right, well, how can we get that into a running event? You know, for some people,
00:32:50
Speaker
or a bit older, you can remember Run To The Beat, which was an original concept for that. And they would have music every mile. Well, we've now got the technology that you've got music, headphones, mobiles, podcasts that can go with you the whole way around. So what will happen there is people would download a podcast for it. They can listen to their music as they go around.
00:33:17
Speaker
but also for Kew Gardens, for example, you get a tour guide. So my wife is going to be doing a sound track, a sound over, voiceover, sorry. As you run past the Palm House, you're going to get a bit of history with that. Some funny stories about this, that, and the other as well. So it's sort of a tour guide, stroke, performance enhancer across music. So yes, we're excited about that.
00:33:47
Speaker
just with everything that's been going on. We haven't, you know, we've been just trying our best to get that in a good position. But that's gonna be, that's really exciting from us. That one is it, the 15th? Yeah, that's the 15th of May. And then the Sunday because we were just in a situation where
00:34:06
Speaker
the Richmond Marathon couldn't happen but we could put on another 10k so we've added a Q Gardens 10k which is the sort of same course and it sort of allows you know we've got lots of tickets for that it's a nice flat course so you can you know Q Gardens is Q Gardens and you know you saw from the personal best and all the records from
00:34:30
Speaker
from the Olympic trial and people have the ability to get out there and get a PB. So that's happening on the 16th. All of our races, so after the run, it's quite difficult to set it because there is an asterisk to it, but with both of our races, for this 10K, you can finish, you can meet up with your family, two adults, two kids,
00:34:59
Speaker
and all go into Kew Gardens up to midday. So actually, if you work out the price of it, if you've got a family and want a day out in Kew Gardens and a t-shirt and a medal and everything else, it's actually cheaper to enter this race, keep bringing your family down.
00:35:16
Speaker
and have a great day out at Kew Gardens for the price of you know less than what you would be paying just going up as a member of public so we're very fortunate with Kew Gardens as a venue so yeah so that's on the 16th so yeah so we're really pushing entries for that
00:35:35
Speaker
And again, it's just trying to sort of try to earn enough to continue not sacking my staff. It's going to be it's going to be quite awkward one day that if this does continue, I'm going to have to sack my wife. I'm not looking forward to that moment. No, it might be followed. I might have to sack myself first before I suggest that, I think. And then, yeah, and then we're rolling on to the Richmond Marathon at
00:36:04
Speaker
Kempton Park racecourse, which is where London Marathon are doing a pilot event in a couple of weeks down there Run through put on some good events down there and there's a half marathon 10k and 5k the day after our event with a different event company. Yeah It's actually a nice little story about that sort of thing, you know, I'm sharing my problems with another local race organizer Yeah, so, you know and saying, you know if there was an opportunity for us to
00:36:35
Speaker
get a marathon away. It's not Kew Gardens, but people really need this. Peter Wedderburn at Quicksilver events, he said, well, potentially you could do it the day before we're putting on our event. So one of the good things about COVID is some of the friendships and collaborations that we're helping out other race directors to
Race Directors Collaborating During COVID
00:37:03
Speaker
solve problems sort of thing. So that is one of the good things that's sort of coming out of it. And we're looking forward to that as well, just to hopefully just allow people to have trained so hard during what we can all agree is a horrible winter that we've all had. They get to release and get their race on.
Tom's Personal Interests
00:37:27
Speaker
So that's what we're doing on the 29th and then September.
00:37:31
Speaker
Oh, fingers crossed. We are back to our normal Richard and Run Fest, where we do 10 Ks, half marathons, an evening five K followed by a music band. Every runner gets a beer, you know, so I just, I do hope we're, we're heading in that the right direction. Um, so we can all be getting back to normal. Um, and the latter part of this bit, um, that's a part of this beer. Sorry, I'm talking about the beer now year. So, um, yeah, they're looking forward to that fingers crossed.
00:38:01
Speaker
Don't we all? Don't we all? We've all got our fingers crossed. Tom, what do you do to chill out?
00:38:08
Speaker
not put on running events. What's your other hobby then? What's your non-running? Funny, I mean I used to run a lot when I was younger and up to sort of my late 20s, I'm coming up to my 40s now. I play football now, but the ironic thing was when we set up Rich Run Run Fest eight years ago with my wife, I stopped running and started playing football.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess my outlet is chasing a ball, mis-controlling it, scoring own goals for either the first team on a Saturday or now the Vets team on a Sunday. So that's my enjoyment on a Spurs fan, but that's not enjoyable at the moment. I usually club.
00:39:01
Speaker
football I guess is my outlet along with a nice cold beer. Cool, well then I hope you get to have a game of footy with your mates and that then after these events have gone ahead swimmingly in May. Just to our listeners, so as I mentioned in the podcast Tom's been
00:39:23
Speaker
leading the way on some of the Run Britain webinars that we've been on and it's team put on the Olympic trials and there's a reason that they get asked to do these things.
Promotion of Tom's Events and Discount
00:39:33
Speaker
It's because they're brilliant at what they do. So if you're looking for an event in the next few weeks, then do consider signing up for Tom's events that we've just spoke about. There's actually £10 off. We have a discount code, don't we Tom, for Sunday event in Kew Gardens?
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah, everyone gets a t-shirt. We've got an outrageous t-shirt this year, an evil looking deer on the front, and it's called Bad Ass Buck. So if you do check out our punky deer t-shirt, we're known for our medals in normal times and that, but yeah, 10 pounds off for UK run chat crew. But yeah, but also do support
00:40:16
Speaker
loads of other events as well. If, you know, if you can't make that day, you know, do think of poor race directors out there who are about to sack their wives and that, but I think it's time now at the moment, support local park runs from, from getting back, you know, don't, don't assume that it's naturally just going to happen because I'm telling you right now, it's, at the moment it's quite, it's not looking as though it is. So do get behind your sort of local running community, your local running clubs and that.
00:40:43
Speaker
And that could be just a great thing to take away from this podcast. Yeah, great. Love your words. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for coming on. It's been good to chat and we'll speak again soon. Brilliant. See you in a bit.