6 am. The calm before the action. |
Race supremo Philip Southwell surveys the layout. |
7.40 am ... the toilets arrive at Kenilworth. |
8 am. The St John’s Ambulance are in place. |
8.30 am ... the toilets are in action at Warwick. |
Rotarian John Dixon handles any last minute queries. |
8.50 am The police and the marshals get in place. |
8.55 am Joy Southwell awaits the off. |
8.56 am. Kenilworth Rotary President Phil Highley and the Mayor of Warwick prepare for the start. |
9.00 am. They’re off! |
Raynet provide the lead car with radio contact with the finish to let the waiting crowds at the finish know the race progress. |
A police out-rider marshals the run. |
At Leek Wootton the guides are ready with water for the runners at one of three watering stations on the run. |
Marshals stand at every corner cheering the runners on supported along the run by the police. |
Rotarian Graham Tall (right) is at the finish to take photographs for this website as the winner arrives. |
After the finish, many volunteers manage the funnels to cope with the thousands of finishers. Timekeepers keep track of the times of the arrivals and this is correlated with the order of finish in the funnels by a team working on computers to produce the final table of finishing times. Sadly on this occasion, a power outage switched off the computers, but all is not lost. The paper trail can be reconstituted and the final table produced. |
The Guides provide thousands of cups of water for the runners at the finish. |
Roy Shearing hands out medals and T-shirts to every finisher. |
Rotarian Peter Roberts shows the trophies to Richard Smith from one of our sponsors, Opus Land. |
Dave Shilton acts as Master of Ceremonies, entertaining and informing the crowd at the finish. |
The President of Kenilworth Rotary introduces the platform party of Mayor Pat Ryan, and representatives of our two major sponsors, Richard Thornton, a partner with Blythe Liggins Solicitors and Richard Smith of Opus Land. |
Annie Othen of BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio rounds things off by proposing a toast to the Rotary Club of Kenilworth. |
Rotary operates at many levels, local, national and international, by combining the energies of many clubs in big projects like Polio Plus to rid the world of polio and focusing the energies of each individual club to support its local community. The Two Castles Run provides opportunities for local organisations to participate in their own fund-raising activities. Included in this event were two large groups of runners. Over a hundred runners ran to raise funds for the Meningitis Society in memory of Sally Woodhouse from Kenilworth who was just 16 when she died of meningitis. |
‘Runners for Sally’, including her father Jerry Woodhouse (52). |
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Jerry at the start in the crowd of runners. |
Telling us at the end of the hopes for the campaign which he hopes has already raised around £10,000. More pictures and a short video of Sally’s family here. |
The Sikh community of Leamington and District also mustered well over a hundred runners to raise funds for their new Gurdwara Sahib Sikh Temple. They included people of all ages, including 76 year old Mrs Jit Kaur Dhillon. They had raised, on average, around £150 each, a total of the order of £15,000. |
Mrs Jit Kaur Dhillon strides out purposely between Leek Wootton and Kenilworth. |
Mandhar-Sing-Singha, a 60+ veteran reaches the finish. |
The Sikh Community Runners pose for a well-deserved post-run celebration. More photos here. |