The Event
Fidelity International was the official sponsor of the 2008 Crisis Square Mile Run, Crisis’ flagship fundraising event in the heart of the City attracting around 2,000
runners each year.
The Crisis Square Mile Run is a high spirited charity race event in support of Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people. Runners of all abilities can take a step for Crisis in a unique London fundraising event. The Crisis Square Mile Run weaves a 3.7 mile (6 km) route through Central London. The route includes a selection of iconic London locations including the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and the Tower of London, promising a memorable experience for participants.
The charity race was celebrating its 16th birthday in 2008. Further details of the event can be found from this video.
This year’s event was held on 12th June 2008.
My Event
So, this was another Fidelity run! They had given up on the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge that I had done on three previous occasions and become the sponsors of this charity instead. It would be a nice change!
We finished work early to get the train to London. We had gathered quite a crowd from our office this time around - more than any other year!
The start was in Paternoster Square near St Paul's Cathedral in London and it is here we joined all of the other runners that were taking part.
The race was started by none other than the Major of London himself, Ken Livingstone! I was lucky enough to start near the front with a few of my work colleagues. The route took in many of London's landmarks and followed the River Thames for much of the journey. However, the route contained lots of steps up to many of the bridges and there were a few bottlenecks where the route was very narrow resulting in the run becoming a walk.
The final section of the route went across the Millenium Bridge and I was very pleased to be the first one from our office over the line! Although this is a fun run, there were obviously a few rivalries to settle!
Unfortunately, I do not remember my time exactly but I seem to recall it was around 25 minutes or so.
This was a fun event to take part in. If you want to run this to get a personal best time, then forget it! As mentioned, the route in some places was very narrow. Some of my colleagues who started further back were worse affected in these areas. However, if you want a friendly and fun event to take part in, I can definitely recommend this one!
As had become tradition for my Fidelity runs, beer followed for the rest of the evening and a journey back on the last train!