In Praise of our Grand Half Marathon Sponsors and Supporters

We have posted a number of thank you’s and heaped praise and gratitude upon our Grand half marathon runners.

Now it’s the turn of our sponsors who donated money and time to support us, and one unique runner who ran an alternative half marathon, following a similar route to the race itself, because she had been too late to get a place in the main race.

My alternative half marathon

We are honoured that a local MindOut supporter Emma Chick ran her own half marathon alongside the actual race to raise money for us. This is what she said prior to her endeavour…

On Sunday, 25 Feb 2018 at 9:00am I will start to run. I will run 13.13 miles. It will not be part of the half marathon I will do it on my own. I will do it in honour of all the people who feel alone when dealing with mental health distress. I will run, it will hurt, I will be alone and I will finish. I will keep going because it is always worth seeing what is around that next corner. There are many people who you can help by choosing to be alive even if it is a struggle for you. It will be rough and sometimes smooth, a lot of sad and sometimes happy. Pain, pain, pain and rarely Joy.  Allow yourself to feel, and not be numb. Run, listen, scream and sometimes have fun.  Struggle, hurt, embrace. Find strength stand up, run, get red in the face.

Thank you Emma for being passionate about suicide prevention and running your parallel race!

emma chick after running the half marathon
Emma Chick as she prepares to run her alternative half marathon for MindOut
Our sponsors

This year we had an awesome 23 runners and Mindout could not have provided such great post race massage and treats without the generous gifts from our sponsors.

I would like to thank Jing Massage who provided a cash donation plus 2 exceptionally skilled massage therapists Rachel Fairweather and Holly Butcher for Event massage,  helping the sore and seized muscles of our runners back to health. They created a lovely buzz in our tent in the charity village despite freezing temperatures and being able to give something back to our runners was superb. Thank you so much Rachel and Holly!

two masseurs with two runners
Massuers from Jing Massage in Brighton help the runners after the Brighton Half Marathon

We were also able to give every runner a small gift of either a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates thanks to generous donations from local supermarkets:

  • Morrisons on St James St,

  • Sainsbury’s on Lewes Rd,

  • Tesco Express

And a special thank you to Paul Belcher manager of the Coop store in North St Brighton who gave us a significant contribution to buy our runners a gift.

It was heartwarming to see how willing local supermarkets were to support community events and LGBTQ mental health – thank you to each and every one of you.

We could not have done it without you.
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