This is the story of success, in times of austerity and cutbacks. A story of larking about in the countryside, cider and cakes.
My name is Andy Palmer. I am a runner and, until recently, a postman. I didn’t like being a postman. I worked nights driving lorries, it was grim going to bed when the sun was coming up and going to work when my long-suffering wife went to bed.
Then a few years ago, I read the autobiography of Richard Branson. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary in Cuba and I had run out of things to read, and it was the only book in the hotel library that wasn’t 50 Shades of Grey in German. It was a revelation (Branson’s book, not 50 Shades). And so White Star Running is the company I created: a running events company, organising races in beautiful parts of Dorset and Wiltshire, from distances of 10km up to marathon distance and beyond.
My first idea was to organise an event in a lovely part of Dorset called Sydling St Nicholas. Sydling is the archetypal Dorset village; in a deep valley, it’s a farming village and not on the Dorset tourist trail. It doesn’t even have a shop. The area is hilly, very hilly. We approached the parish council and Sydling with the idea and, although cautious about our intentions, we convinced them to let us rent the village hall and use the village green as a finish area.
Next, we needed a route. This is where the fun started. Marathons are normally 26.2 miles, but with a trail race this is exceptionally hard to achieve, so we started off declaring “this is marathon distance-ish”. Even the 10k turned out to be 11km. We started work on the maps and I sat down with a bottle of rum and wrote down all the things I …
I realised early on that one runner’s perfect race is another runner’s nightmare, so we tried to create the most “Dorsety” race we could. On the list were great scenery, a sense of humour, great medals, camaraderie, camping, pre- and post-race food.
The Giants Head marathon was born – an exceptionally hilly trail race in and around the Cerne Abbas Giant area of Dorset. The first race in 2013 was a great success, despite problems with people falling over, pregnant cows and naked farmers. It was voted the third best marathon in the UK by Runners World, and we were shortlisted for the Running Awards best marathon, beaten only by the massive city events of London, Manchester and the like.
We then created another event called the Ox, over the border in Wiltshire. It rained and rained and we had to reroute all the races because of flooding. Puddles 100ft long and 4ft deep are not fun. But this too was a great success, despite horrific weather.
In June 2014, we refined the Giants Head Marathon, with our “lovestation” at 20 miles. What started as a joke has become an essential at all our events: it’s basically a normal runners water/aid station, but with cider, cakes, homemade fruit vodka, water melon and our mates from the old Runners World forum, Poole and Blandford parkruns and local running clubs to look after the runners.
We also have free race photos: something that was top of our pet hates list was the fact you had to pay £10 at races for a picture of yourself looking a mess, so we provided good snappers and semi-professional photographers for free, and asked anyone else at the race to share their photos on social media.
In December 2014, we achieved an unexpected accolade. Runners World magazine voted us the best marathon in Britain, beating all the big city ones including London, Bournemouth and Brighton. Not bad for its second year!
We now have runners come from all over the UK and Europe. Our furthest travelled was a woman who flew over from Peru and did the race as part of a European marathon tour. From a personal point of view, all this has been very odd. I was a postman for 26 years and didn’t know the first thing about starting a business. Thankfully, my accountant is a runner, and so is the business consultant at the bank. I have had to learn the joys of spreadsheets, VAT, trademarks, invoicing and trying to cut a deal with people. Trying to do market research and advertising when you are skint is fun, too. Then there’s practical skills such as off-road driving in pouring rain, reading maps in the dark, dealing with angry cows, blokes with shotguns and the difference between a partridge and a pheasant.
The team and I have had the honour of meeting and seeing at close hand how hard the farming community works, a world that is alien to us “townies”. We have come to appreciate how truly beautiful our countryside is and how miserable or glorious the weather can be. The past three years have been hard work but some of the most satisfying of my life. I work with the most amazing team of runners and volunteers and wouldn’t swap this for anything.
Keep running rural
PS: the company name is a long story and isn’t related to the Titanic or Icebergs.
Notable facts and stats
Dressing-up
We were amazed how little an excuse runners and marshals need to dress up.
We’ve had: Romans (lots of them), snowmen, cowboys and cowgirls and a cowpoke or two, Woody Woodpecker, cops and robbers, Brian running the GHM dressed as a nun, multi-coloured pants, Braveheart and a bloke in a Sumo suit.
Kilts are a thing with us
We bought our Kev (chief marshal) a WSR kilt and somehow it ended up with a badger toy sporran. Which surprised a few people when they got a cuddle. Our super sweeper Carolyn, who leaves no runner behind, wears a WSR Black Watch kilt. Mrs WSR wears a cow-print outfit made by Jackie from Festival running.
Proposals, Weddings and Babies
Three proposals
Reinhard proposed to the lovely Claire at the Ox Lovestation, they married in September and produced a bouncing baby boy in December … we claim responsibility for all of this.
Jason proposed (in the world’s longest proposal) at the start of the Giants Head Marathon to the lovely Jo.
David proposed to the absolutely shocked and lovely Mayte at the finish of the Dorset Invader, after we had to suffer some of the worst Spanish pop music ever (only joking).
Aid stations
This is the amount of stuff we used at the Giants Head last year
1,200 litres of water, 9kg jelly babies, 6 kg of jelly beans, 600 gels, 45 litres of Coke, 10 bottles of pink champagne, one bottle of Cranberry Schnapps, two trays of strawberries, 12 giant water melons, four dozen oranges, a crate of bananas, 66 pints of cider, 13 family size packs of pretzels, nine giants packs of crisps, 63 packs of Jaffas, 300 portions of locally made cakes, dozens of portions of which were gluten-free, made by the most lovely Carmen Scales.
People of note
Justin Horrocks did the Invader Half Marathon in a full set of replica Roman armour.
Katrina Kirstï Harris, despite having so many medical conditions she needs a separate sheet on the entry form, completed 13 half marathons (three of which were ours) and is doing her first marathon with us next year.
Les Turner, who finished his longest race in 20 years at the Invader Half. Les has Parkinson’s and is diabetic, so the race was a massive challenge for him. He raised more than £1,500 for Parkinson’s research
Jackie Stretton, who turned up at all our races and finished in the top three of all of them. To show what a great athlete she is, she won the Larmer marathon after running round the 20 for fun the day before.
whitestarrunning.co.uk
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