The Final Countdown | Behind the Scenes
There’s no buzz quite like event week. The team behind the scenes have been pulling together the final pieces needed for Sunday, and all is going to plan (phew!).
Our Operations team are responsible for the core event delivery, which means hundreds of radios charging, dozens of deliveries being made around the city, and some peculiar looks when they unpack large animal heads from boxes. Closing many miles of roads (we have to close multiple that are not used to run on as well as the core route) in one of the busiest locations in the world is not easy! After months of meetings about safety, roadworks, signage, and transport, their unrivalled experience means everything is under control.
One of the first #WinterRun things to be visible in Central London is construction of the official bag drop, that requires a giant marquee being built, along with thousands of racks and hooks to cope with items left by 22,000 participants. A large team of experts will begin the process on Saturday morning, working against the clock to build and fill the contents. Other large items such as the mighty start and finish gantries will be delivered very early Sunday morning (or very late Saturday night depending how you look at it) as roads need to be closed before they can be put into place.
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A similar team will work simultaneously to lay out thousands of barriers in key sections of the course, whilst a procession of Portaloo’s will be dropped off in multiple locations. Another large last minute delivery are the all-important finisher medals, weighing half a ton in total they will thankfully individually be a lot lighter around your neck.
Hundreds of volunteers are giving up their time to help, entertain, and support you on Sunday. A team member has been recruiting and updating them over the last few months, then allocating them various roles from Head Polar Bear, to Toilet Director. Many volunteers are returning after during multiple previous editions, and some even like to tick off being the various characters!
After ploughing through and replying to hundreds of emails, our Participant Experience team have been busy preparing for Pack Collection at the HOKA Store in Covent Garden. On Friday and Saturday they will welcome hundreds of our International visitors, and also available to help with other queries. To prepare they work with multiple suppliers to ensure the 21,000 packs already dispatched by post are linked to the correct timing records and help the small number of people who need a replacement pack get that quickly and easily.
When not refreshing the weather forecast, our Communications team have been preparing various content filled emails, updating the website, and helping with your social media queries. Excitingly today a final decision was made on music, including the songs that will start each wave and as you cross the finish. We’ve also had the Après Party timings 100% confirmed, so designs have been updated.
There’s no time to relax after Sunday though, as everything must be checked and prepared for the 2025 event ticketing opening on Monday. They are already discussing medal ideas for this special tenth anniversary edition.
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The event wouldn’t be possible without our vital partners, and several members of the team are working with them to make sure you get an awesome experience, with multiple new aspects being added for 2024 which are in the final stages of prep. They also work with the team at Cancer Research UK to ensure that everything goes smoothly with fundraising, and with a staggering £560,000 raised already, spirits are high.
In addition to our main 10k on Sunday, it’s also the finale of our community project, Westminster Women Winter Weekends. Since the start of the year local residents have had the chance to earn rewards for keeping active during the winter, with hundreds taking part and tracking their activity.
That’s just a taste of the things that go into planning the final stages of the UK’s largest 10k. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing you enjoy yourself, so we hope you have the most incredible time with us at the 2024 Cancer Research UK London Winter Run on Sunday.