The Maravan

2 pieces of news today.

I’ve placed the order for medals this morning with Zerowaste and am waiting for proofs of the new design. I’m very excited to work with Zerowaste for our medals, as it does let us wait until nearer the event before we have to finalise numbers. Even so, there’s only so much risk I can take, so although I’ve ordered 120 medals, which is about 10% more than I have entries right now, I’m anticipating a bit of an uptick as event day approaches, but if you enter after all 120 spaces are gone, I can’t guarantee you any medals.

We event organisers need to accept that this is the new normal as far as us small events are concerned, and this means that we can’t necessarily come up with huge outlay (several hundred pounds for medals) 12-16 weeks before the event as is the case with the well-known local medal distributors, who have their medals manufactured in China and ship them across the world.

Next thing for me to worry about is the fun activity of finding goodies at knock-down prices…!

As regards Lincoln, all is going smoothly, although they’ve asked me to send a revised risk assessment including mitigation for towpath congestion. Those of you who ran day 2 of the Marabank will remember that I had to add such mitigation to the risk assessment anyway following what we’ll call “community consultation”, and basically I’ve just had to confirm that you won’t have right of way on the towpath, and I won’t block it with a table or signage – pretty normal stuff to be fair.

Still entries for all events, get them while they’re hot…

Afternoon folks.

I’m in a meeting this evening about the ABP half marathon organised by our friends at Tape2Tape next weekend, so thoughts as always turn towards our own fun and games in November.

We’ve got just over 30 people joining us for the Maravan at the moment, which is a decent number, but ideally I’d like more. I will have to order medals soon – if I’m going to need to order some – but I’m going to have to base the order on the number of entries on the books at that time. So if you want to be 100% certain of getting a decent medal, you need to enter sooner rather than later.

We’re really keen to have some more teams join us as well. Right now there’s a really strong change for any team in the race to win their category, and it’s the most fun part of the weekend for me, so the more the merrier would be ideal.

Remember, also, that we’ve got a half marathon both days this year, so there’s fun for everyone for the whole weekend.

https://maravan.co.uk/the-maravan

Even though things might seem quiet on the surface, like the ducks on the Foss Dyke we’re paddling as fast as our little legs will carry us. 

Our annual land use licence for the Canal and River Trust assumes 100 runners will take part in the Marabank weekend, and they charge us accordingly, well in advance, for that many people, so we’re delighted to have handed over a significant chunk of money – a good few quid per person – to the Canal and Rivers Trust just now to pay for our licence.

Land use has been confirmed for a while, but we wanted to get the paperwork out of the way now.

So there are definitely no more than 100 places for the whole weekend in March available. Ironically, we got quite close by the start of the event this year, so I wouldn’t hang around if I were you.

Those of you who are running around caravans in November, everything’s booked now apart from medals and supplies, but I still have to pay for timing and toilets as well, and I want to be able to get some of that sorted as soon as possible, so if you’re thinking of entering, please help us out by getting entries in sooner rather than later. We’ve got 75 places per day for the runs, and we’ll open up to 24 teams this year, we’d like to see as many people as possible taking part, it’s an amazing event – if you know it well, please share it with your friends and if you’re entering, think to bring a team of friends to run alongside…? 

Places are still available for all events if you want to join us. 

If, like us, you’ve been rejected by London for the umpteenth time, but are still really excited by the idea of running a marathon, all is not lost.

We’re delighted to tell you that we still have loads of ballot-free places in November in Cleethorpes for the 26.2 mile Maravan, or in March in Lincoln for the 7 hour long Marabank.

We’ve got medals, and feeding stations, and we can even put a foil blanket on you when you finish if you want the full experience. Plus, it’s much easier to get a seat in the pub afterwards and the local hotels haven’t yet worked out how to scalp everyone for the weekend.

And you can have friends run alongside in other races and win a medal as well. It’s awesome!

Come and join us, we know you’ll love it.

More info can be found all over the website, or if you want to get stuck right in and enter the link is here

https://www.evententry.co.uk/events/vigilantes-maravan-cic

 

We’ve been running around in the background sorting out the relevant paperwork for everything, all the permissions are in place and insurance has been sorted for the Maravan Weekend, on 23 and 24 November 2024.

It’s 10 years since the first running of the event, and it’s gone from an idea in someone’s head after a few drinks at Thunder Run to a well-loved and well established fun local event known to the people of Northern Lincolnshire and beyond by a single word.

We’re like Madonna or Pele in that regard!

This year we’re giving half marathon runners that chance to double up as well, with a half on *both* days as well as a full marathon, and the team relay, and as a result we’ve upped the entry limit on the permit to 300 people over the weekend.

We’ll probably be going with Zerowaste again for medals, but we’ve still got confirmations and deposits to pay, so it’d be super if you’re planning on entering if you could get in early, as if we’re going big I need to be able to confirm some important stuff now.

Entries via Event Entry.

Saturday

Sunday

There was a slight technical hitch with Saturday’s results because Darren hadn’t set up the category distances before the event. This was resolved for Sunday, so Sunday’s results were available immediately after the race.

Saturday should now also be correct. Please let us know if not. Lap times are a bit approximate, though. If there’s anything glaringly wrong, please get in touch.

I have the raw data files for these two events if anyone needs a copy for any reason.

I’ve initiated contact with the CRT with a view to returning at the same time next year, but until then, we’ve got a slightly different variety of fun and games in Cleethorpes in November and we’d love to see you there…

We’re very grateful to Mike Wells, who has run a recce of the course this morning.

Lincolnshire’s a bit wet at the minute, and down on the fields in the flatlands there’s a lot of standing water.

Canals are useful things, though, and the banks of this canal are quite high.

Wet underfoot, but bearing up well, as these photos would attest.

The bottom two photos are the area where we were planning on having the aid station – a little bit squelchier, but nothing we can’t work with.

If it were me running, I’d wear road shoes, although probably not the ones I’ve still got sitting in a box in my wardrobe.

Thanks Mike, see you Saturday.

Final instructions can be found here.

They’re working quickly there at Zerowaste medals!

They’ve sent me a proposed medal design, which I love! There’s a bit of artistic licence there – you can see the cathedral from the course, of course – it was the tallest structure the world had ever seen for a few hundred years – but it’s not that close!

The remit was “Lincoln” and “canal”, though, and I think it captures that perfectly.