The #Sportstiks Brentwood Half Marathon and Fun Run Gallery for 2022 is now live and online here - http://sspimg.com/Brentwood-Half-2022-Gallery
Free downloads, accurate searching, over 72,000 images from across 8 locations on the course and our team of 5 photographers operating over 13 cameras. It was busy in the office afterwards as the indexing team catalogued their way through it - with everything done except squeezing it onto the internet by 8pm. The first download - after it was all live at midnight - was at 2:24am ! Do some people ever sleep ?
A beautiful sunny day with that perfect thin cloud to keep things just right - what more did everyone need to run a PB ? not a lot - judging by the number of people telling the commentator they had just done one ! Excellent conditions for it.
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| The start of the 2022 Brentwood Half Marathon - double thumbs up ! |
Two Years on
It is of course almost exactly today the Two year anniversary of lockdown for the first Covid wave. The 2020 event was the last race we saw, and only about half the people turned up - understandably. On the monday, coincidentally after the Cheltenham Gold Cup, everything was closed.
Since then we have learned that it's airborne, exposure time and concentration matters - making outside - especially in the open wind and with a breeze - almost the safest of places, and we don't tend to stand *that* close to strangers anymore. And also we have vaccines that have made the chances of serious illness significantly less, and on top of that - wearing a *good* mask (N95 or better) can reduce the risk of infection even more significantly in almost any situation.
Unfortunately for those without vaccinations and who's authoritarian leaders discourage them or they are unable to wear a mask (because the standard sizes are wrong) - are still the most vulnerable and the risk remains as high as it has ever been - two years on and it's still a deadly pandemic.
I made note of an interesting fact the other day - never in the history of viruses has natural heard immunity ever been reached - it's only been achieved with vaccines - and only when the roll out has been near 100% and even then - it's taken decades !
So despite nationally the figures showing some of the highest infection numbers in the region of 4% in Brentwood are currently infected - events like mass participation running are still safe to take place. To be honest - the most dangerous place to be is on the finish line as a supporter - packed in tight to another supporter whilst you wait and shout for your runner to come in - being a runner is the safest place to be - on the move and in the fresh air a safe distance from everyone !
If you're interested in covid data - then this is the best first place to look an see what the score is - https://covid.joinzoe.com/data
The second best place I go to to see the score and full ONS data breakdown - is follow this chap here - https://twitter.com/RP131 - he puts out the latest 4pm data release in a few minutes - and the graphs are very good and easy to understand.
Thinking of that journey in the past 24 months, we had 13 without any work, and a long layoff this winter as well between the end of October to the end of February - about 4 months. So 17 ex24. That's a long time with no work ! If it hadn't been for some of the big event schedules and indeed events like Brentwood taking place - it's a simple and clear reality that we wouldn't be here today - so we're grateful to be back and providing free race photos for everyone - included in your race entry.
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| The mayor and the medics were out in force to make sure you left the start area ! |
Share your photos ! #BrentwoodHalf
So hopefully now it's your turn to do your bit with the photos - to share the great event you took part in, and use them to raise some money for either your charity of choice or for the official race charities - which includes the Saint Francis Hospice https://www.sfh.org.uk/ - and you can of course set up a justgiving page (even one £10 donation makes a difference!) and then chase your friends with your new found energy to donate to them ! - obviously - using your race photos of proof !
So how do we compare to other races on Sunday with our services ?
Not all photo services are the same !!
Brentwood Half - Free Downloads, 1768 runners, 72,000 images, ready end of Sunday, very accurate and instant race number search facility with instant download button, 5 photographers.
Fleet half - Free downloads, 2000 runners - 9716 images - ready Monday morning, only one photographer ? Search results are 50/50 on accuracy using race numbers.
Eastleigh 10k - Purchase images, 3000 runners - instructions say check for gallery Tuesday evening
Hampton Court palace half - 3300 runners, gallery online sunday - possibly two photographers - unable to determine number of images (unlikely to be a large amount given when they were put online and the way it's hosted) search function unusable for race number, or lucky if you are in most of the photos it thinks you might be in if you did have a name bib - searching for a common name means you get everyone and more with the same name. Image composition and quality is "very different to how we would do it". A bit of searching about it enable me to discover their image handling platform - https://imgix.com/ - so that was an interesting bit of market knowledge and that they use Machine Learning to do their tagging - albeit clearly with mixed results/success.
Hastings Half - No race photos. 1997 runners on the day. With it being the race directors last year, and an imminent change to the organisation and outsourcing of key operational functions of the event and the overall funds the event had to hand after missing a years race, the organisers decided against including race photos as part of the runners race package. Let's see if 2023 moves with the times !
Bear in mind - the Colchester Half marathon later this year (they moved to the end of May) will currently be doing volunteer photos and putting them on facebook for you to hunt through for hours, if you have the time.
So overall - did the Sportstiks Brentwood Half Marathon Runners get good coverage and a good service ? - I think they certainly did !
There's generally only two things people want to know when people have run a race - how fast they went (what was their time) and what they looked like. (these things are so important - they will often double up with their own race watch time and take their own Selfies before and after). The rest of it is as they say - optional.
So - based on this - what should you be entering for your optimal race experience ?
Remember - if it doesn't have *good* free photos - and a search function that *actually* works - don't enter it - because the organisers literally don't value you and your time as much as you do.
So how about some photos from Brentwood ?
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| All off at the get go - caught me a bit by surprise ! |
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| winner of the fun run by a long way |
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| He did better than his Cambridge Half time two weeks ago |
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| yes, drop a win on a half marathon to prepare for a 12 lap 50k run in scotland in a few weeks time |
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| rock on |
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| it's a pacer bus, no looking out of the windows |
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| Mike never found his friend despite her waving |
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| Top Family fun run fun |
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| Can you lend me a hand ? |
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| Marshall mayhem |
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| Best runner number I saw all day |
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| all safe at the first roundabout, for a moment at least |
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| top fundraising star ! |
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| All round victory |
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| All good ! |
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| happy sunny days |
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| They looked so confident at the start |
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| illegal non-use of leggings |
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| It can get quite busy on the first turn ! |
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| running on Fire ! |
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| Top Fund Raising |
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| Its a technique called falling down running. But you don't. |
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| Howszat ? Run Out Harold ! |
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| Good point, well made. |
So, with Martin Lewis Smith discovering that he has run out of tools to help people save money, and therefore is going to have to rebrand himself from "Money Saving Expert" to something less confident I guess ?
Meanwhile, my thoughts are with the people of Ukraine, because.
See you at the RBK Spring Day Raceday on Sunday the 27th, and enjoy the nice weather whilst we can !
until next time
Anthony
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