Norfolk Macmillan Mighty Hike #1 2024 - live on the day galleries are a thingy

here's the finish funnel sight - what a relief !

I didn't blog that much with news  since the covid break, beacuse after that it was really the responsibility of the event organisers to tell participants where to get their free downloads - (www.mightyhike.photo) and to be honest - they did - because when you're paying for a service - you want to get your value for money out of it. And as they had the emails for all the participants - then they could and they did. That sort of suited me fine, but I'm also aware I wasn't telling people about new events and things they really ought to be interested in... so here we are 2024 and getting back on with things. SO - get yourself entered into a Mighty Hike - even if you think you're a runner really - as a way to facilitate a short break somewhere and see some lovely countryside - this is the way to do it - https://www.macmillan.org.uk/mighty-hikes/choose-a-hike

Norfolk is nice (what you can't see is all the twitchers looking for a purple Crane - it's because they're all wearing camoflage)

Saturday at 7:30 am saw the start of the seasons Mighty Hike series for Macmillan. For the past three or so years this charity hike series has been the top of the charts for justgiving fundraising events. As a victim of it's own success we're now covering 15 events this year - up from the original 8, (who said free photos help with promotion and customer loyalty ?) but also a zillion and one other major and minor charities are all deciding that they can get in on the fundraising action of hikes along nice trails.

travelling light - battery, laptop, camera kit, power cables, food, chair and camera

Quite a lot are promoting places and entries into a general walk - like the Ultra Trail series, and there will be lots of charities there taking part and being represented. Others are putting them on but are not attracting the numbers for the organisers to cover the large fixed costs that need covering to put the event up into the "excellent" experience category. The macmillan ones certainly fall into this with large marquee tents at finishes, excellent catering, stops and food, and frankly the cleanest toilets ever seen in event history. As one of the regular "crew" at these events I'm slowly getting to know the team that "do the toilets" - which are a great bunch, and always have a good chat (unless I'm doing the tip toe dance and dash between finishers), but it's incredible what a difference to the event this standard of infrastructure can make to everyone's days. 

shiny tentage with great food options

Also - not all the rival events have free photo downloads. On the day. Ok I'll say that more clearly - none of the other events have them. Some of the cynical participants thought the endless messaging at the start to say show your numbers were a scam to rinse them of more money (like disney), and were overjoyed to find out that they were free and all part of the event. It makes a massive difference in participant loyalty, engagement and according to justgiving - if they use them on their profile - they raise on average 13% more - which if you at least enable everyone to do it and give them the material to do it - when they are raising £750k of a single weekend - then that 13% goes a long way - we like to think we help them pay for our services.

the rather nice event vibe at the finish area on the saturday

Saturdays event went smoothly enough - with 39,000 odd images all uploaded and done by the time the last walker crossed the marathon finish line. Thanks to the event organisers installing a Starlink web connection (no I'm not telling you the password!). Sunday - less smooth when it turned out that the search facility on the gallery had mistakenly been disabled by the gallery providers during an overnight *upgrade (not an upgrade). They're in New York, so a tense few hours waiting for them to wake up on a sunday, smell the coffee and get with the beat Baloo. They did and so thankfully at 4:30pm everything kicked back into easy search and download... but it was a tense few hours. A disarmingly relaxed "that's all fixed for you apologies for the inconvenience" was all I got back, which culturally rubs me up the wrong way and certainly didn't feel like an apology for spoiling a few thousands peoples moment of getting their photos - but sunday night is when the real online action starts - and we had that - so all was ok... and then just the 4hr drive back to the office with the data...

was a lovely sunset, but that north sea breeze does cut down the air temperature...

a lovely view ready for the start of the shingle. Lasted about an hour with the boat there.

not knocking these guys also turning up for work, but it's not the view we were thinking of at the time - an dyes they parked it there and went fishing...

The north sea comes with warnings. My warning is don't sit in the sun facing the off shore breeze for hours on end without a very very warm coat and factor 50 suntan lotion...

This is the bling you're thinking of

The medal awaits the returning hiker, and a sturdy glass of "no-prosecco" alchohol free refreshment

they went thataway..

early practice arms - you're only at Sherringham !

It's like baywatch, but in green

voila the finish !

synchro fours entry to olympic finishing

no surrender, even if they are thumbs up

swim practice begins

bring me sunshine... all the while...

great to BEE here...

TAXIIIIIII !!!!!! nope.

it was a bit weee and a bit woah

They filmed Dads army near here you know. Including the surrender scenes as reimagined here

jump to the ryhthm, jump jump jump to the rhythm...

So that was the weekend. Top tip  - be prepared for the onshore cold north sea winds. Even if it's sunny and hot out of the wind... you will get sunburnt, wind burnt and salted.

Next weekend is the famous REP Arundel Triathlon - 5:45 am start and sold out - https://rawenergypursuits.co.uk/ but come along to spectate anyway... the traffic is super easy that time in the morning. (note to self to check A27 overnight opening).

so until next time, I expect to see you at the Snowdonia mighty hike, all ready and set for a great weekends walk...

Keep training and enjoy the nice weather

Anthony