Race to the Eye 2013 - LONDON

London's newest charity challenge - Race to the Eye was launched last year in aid of the charity VSO. It's 30km, you choose East or West and it follows the Thames Path - a beautiful, easily accessible and exciting route! Prizes for fastest male, female and best fundraiser. Fundraising is a target and not a "must-do". After Party at Tattershall Castle on the Thames.

Perfect for people training for the Spring Marathons!!!

Enter/find out more info at www.racetotheeye.com

Who's in? Any queries about the race? I can try and help It's only 4 weeks away so getting excited now!

so you are charging £20 and £200 to run along the Thames path that people can run through everyday...........and it will be going through pedestrian areas which will be busy so not great for a marathon training plan......would be better to do it 6 am in the morning when its quiet and so not having to avoid all the people..........

why do you think think it would make a good training race for a marathon........

Seren - are you not tempted by the 100-step climb up and down the Greenwich foot tunnel? 

So in addition to all the tourists, cyclists, in-line-skaters, dog-walkers and regular runners on the Thames path, there will be (how many?) additional runners, not even all going in the same direction?

Sounds like a hoot.

How does it cost £20 per runner to put this on? There are no marshals or water except at half way, and the t-shirt would cost next to nothing to produce in bulk. The Thames Path is free so where is the money going?

I run the Thames Path a lot and it is a nightmare most days, especially around the London Eye...there will be carnage

I think the £200 sponsorship will be a stretch for many as well, especially if they are already fundraising for VLM.

Not to put a downer on it, but I can think of better pre-VLM events than this.

Thanks for the interest Seren - I imagine you'd say the same about London Marathon/the Thames Path Challenge/the Royal Parks Half Mara/pretty much any race that is held in public areas as opposed to private! As you can imagine, to corden off 60km of London footpath for a day is not feasible...

Just like any race - you're paying to race against people, have a route provided (including electronic map for this event - something new!), be in the running for a prize, have first aiders on hand, to be timed, have water points and get into the good atmosphere! The £200 is a fundraising target for the charity VSO - this is not compulsory but is a reachable target. The concept is that you put yourself through a challenge in return for sponsorship for a good cause.

In terms of training for a marathon- depending on your training regime obviously, but it's around the time most people will be up to about 18 miles if they're getting ready for an April 26.2... so perfect timing and on similar terrain to the big city marathons

if you are training for a marathon then 18 miles is not a challenge....and if you are racing it then you need to be able to have  aclear path............at least in london all the runners are going the same way and the public are not allowed on the road.......

most races i do pick a time or a route where there are not many public people so that you can race it........

if you were organising a charity walk i could understand the route and the challenge,.........

but as a running race it just doesn't make sense to me....

 good luck with the fundraising

Victoria probably not the responce you were looking for eh.

Anyhoo are there not rules on the RW T&C's about advertising races.

Freemers wrote (see)

How does it cost £20 per runner to put this on? There are no marshals or water except at half way, and the t-shirt would cost next to nothing to produce in bulk. The Thames Path is free so where is the money going?

I run the Thames Path a lot and it is a nightmare most days, especially around the London Eye...there will be carnage

I think the £200 sponsorship will be a stretch for many as well, especially if they are already fundraising for VLM.

Not to put a downer on it, but I can think of better pre-VLM events than this.

Hi Freemers - any profit made will go to the charity - this allows the charity to put the race on if people don't reach their fundraising targets.

PhilPub wrote (see)

Seren - are you not tempted by the 100-step climb up and down the Greenwich foot tunnel? 

Has anyone done a a risk assessment on this?

Wilkie wrote (see)

So in addition to all the tourists, cyclists, in-line-skaters, dog-walkers and regular runners on the Thames path, there will be (how many?) additional runners, not even all going in the same direction?

Sounds like a hoot.

 

Agree sounds like an absolute bloody nightmare to me!

Seriously, this is a terrible, terrible idea. How many participants do you expect to get, because if it's more than about 40 on each side of the river there are going to be a lot of pissed off people. 

its only 4 weeks to go so i would have thought most runners would have chosen their spring races by now.......and would not want the responsibility of fund raising........

I love the idea of new and different races to add to the calender........so will be happy to be proved wrong that this doesn't seem to have been oprganised by someone who runs

Great to see so many positive runners out there! Have sent this to the event organisers so will see what they can do about the constructive feedback provided.

Did any of you actually do it last year? I really enjoyed it - doing something good for charity and running in a nice place - met some other runners, and it was whilst I was training for 8 marathons in 8 days in April so it was good timing. Was hoping to find some other people going along again this year.

So going back to the original question... who is IN? Think there is also a walk that starts in the morning if anyone in for that too?

You didn't pick the best place to advertise (which you are not supposed to do on the forum in any case).  Many people who post here are more than a bit fed up with charity events and charities taking up places in popular events.

However, to answer your question, then - not me.  If you are interested in WHY runners might not find this event appealing, then take some notice of what you appear to think is non-constructive feedback.

Too many people milling about on the 'course', going in different directions, not moving at all, etc., dogs getting excited by runners, pulling on those long extending leads.  A race course should at least have everyone going in the same direction, and moving.

The foot tunnel steps sounds like a real nightmare - my question about the risk analysis is a serious one!

as I said .it suits a walking event brilliantly.......as for a training event.......training to race a marathon is much different to training to run 8 in 8.........I take it you didn't run flat out for any of your 8 marathons that you did.no doubt you ran then a bit easier than you would a single on to pace you for the 8.......

so your training run would be a world apart from someone training for a marathon which they intend to race.....

i take it that a lot of runners must have the same opinions as us or you would  not be trying to do some last minute desperate advertising on this forum.....

Wilkie's quite right 8in8 it might not seem like constructive criticism but it is.

I'm sorry to break it to you but what attracts most runners to a race, any race, is not the scenery but the practicalities - how easy will it be to get there/get home? Will there be enough toilets? Will the course be able to cope with a big field because if congestion gets in the way of a PB I might not bother? Will there be enough water stations with enough water if it's warm? Where will my supporters be able to see me on the route? What are the changing/bag storage facilities like? How long will it take me to collect my stuff afterwards? With respect, your website doesn't address any of that.

And then you have a race which seems to be positively inviting collisions with other runners, cyclists, dogs, prams, pedestrians, skaters, you name it.

And on top of that you expect runners to raise £200 running a course that most Londoners have access to, for free, all the time.

Can you really not see why hundreds of people are not begging to sign up?