Harbour Wallbanger Beach Race – The medals are in!

The Harbour Wallbanger Beach Race (Sunday 9th July) medals have arrived at Thanet Roadrunners HQ!  

 

We will be revealing an image on Thanet Roadrunners Instagram page over the next few days. 

 

We’ve spent a bit more than usual on the medals this year, thanks to some unexpected support from Southern Water (see below).  The medals are recycled glass, with a snap-off holder, which enables them to be used a small place mats after the race. It’s always a risk using a new company for medals but we’ve been keen to keep things in the UK this year.

 

In October 2021 Thanet Roadrunners Harbour Wallbanger Beach Race was almost cancelled after a waste water discharge affecting Thanet beaches. As you can imagine this caused the race director Max Hubbard an immense amount of stress and special measures had to be taken by runners, and other beach users.

This year we approached Southern Water, pointing out the previous incident and asking whether they would be prepared to support the event and be accountable by providing staff to answer public questions about steps they are taking to prevent similar incidents in the future. 

 

To our surprise, they said YES.  Southern Water’s support for this event will enable us to provide runners with a fantastic recycled glass medal, cast in the UK and raise as much money as possible for our race charity the lifesaving Kent Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance.  

 

The magnitude of work required to improve our water system will take years.  Southern Water will have staff on hand to explain the work they are conducting, outline steps the public can take to reduce pollution and to give details of financial support available to some families.  

Southern Water also supports a Thanet beach litter picking group.  Along with Plastic Free Thanet, we hope they will be conducting a beach litter pick at the time of the race.

Southern Water will be bringing along a range of specialists and would like to demonstrate some of their major improvement programmes, as well as taking difficult questions face to face from the public and affected beach users.

 

This has been a really difficult decision for the committee, but the opportunity to give a substantial amount to a life saving Kent charity, seeking some recompense for previous actions and enabling the public to hold Southern Water to account face to face (which did surprise us) caused us to make this difficult decision.  

 

Ultimately the race donation to Kent Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance could save a life.

 

The race is open to anyone over the age of 15 years and although we’ve increased the places this year, only 100 places remain.  If you would like to run on Sunday 9th July, you can enter here.