Tips needed from race organisers

Need some advice/help. At the end of August i'm running/helping to organise a work half marathon for the Help for Hereos charity.We have everthing covered apart from water for the runners, we have about 150 runners and apart from going to every Tesco in a 50 miles radius and buying evey bottle of water, we have come unstuck for ideas.

Does anyone have any experience/remedies

Thanks in advance

If costco doesn;t work out, visit your local Tesco, ask to speak to the manager and let them know you'll want a large order.  Then agree with them to have a "home" (aka race HQ) delivery at the appropriate time.  As long as you give a couple of weeks notice, there should be absolutely no problem in getting extra stock in for you....and even with less notice, they should be able to manage it (as long as the store replenishment manager is not a complete numpty).

 (Sainbury's et al can probably also do it....but I've never worked for them!)

Thanks one and all, Heckenhocker  i know water is not that expensive but do Tesco ever do cost price on bulk as it is for a good cause etc? I'm not looking for freebies but everything we save goes to the H4H.

thanks again guys

is the water for a water station or for the finish?

these people are quite cheap

http://www.watersuppliers.co.uk/index.html for bottled water or macro

water stations are easy ,go to a  camping shop for 3 large, 5 gallon plastic water bottles and get plastic cups from Macro

Any local stores who would provide them FOC in return for publicity?

Our (local) 10k is organised by (local) charity who got drinks donated by one of the wine merchants - they just asked and got a good response in return.

FWIW, depending on size of your local Tesco, ours does sometimes do freebies, so worth asking.

Also, if you don't ask..............

I'm sure, given the charity, that they'll say "yes".

Good luck and

i help organise a race for about 100 people with 3 water stations (30 miles)
we managed to get enough water for a bottle for everyone at each station in the back of cars
we got them from one of the wholesale places - the name escapes me, the one you need a card for

my other top tip, particularly given what you are collecting for - is to get some cadets in to "man" the water stations
they are efficient and they can use it as part of their community service bit
we use the sea cadets

runners mostly like bottles FF
but if you are wanting to save money then the bucket thing works

but
you will then need large containers to get the water to the water stations

i think we paid about 15p each
i know it was something mad - and really cheap

Try contacting your local water company (eg. Anglian Water).

Someone told me a while ago that they may provide bottles of water, and for free.

definitely try the water company, for return of publicity they provided butts of water in small local event I ran last year.
and the cups, yep go for McDs (they have a community theme thing)

Makro may be the wholesaler where you need the card.

if all else fails buy a few black garden dustbins, fill um with a hose pipe and the runners'll be more than happy with a plastic cup of it. Most of the runs I've been on do it this way, after a good few miles you'd gladly drink it from a puddle if thats all their was.

Best of luck, let us know how you go it sorted