London Shine - Hints, tips and a tweetup!

Shine in London is now less than 2 weeks away!!  A huge thanks to all those tweeters whose arms I managed to twist to join me at this event ;-)

As I took part in Shine in Manchester last year, I decided to put some thoughts down about the event, what I perhaps did wrong and what I might do differently.... and also some general advice for those who have never taken part in a mass participation charity event before!

Firstly, I have a twitter list of people taking part in the London event, so if you're reading this and taking part why not follow the list so you can get to know the others!!  If you're not on the list, please tweet me and I'll add you :-)

For me, the most important thing to remember is that when you're asking your body to carry you 26.2 miles, particularly through the night, you need to provide it with plenty of fuel!!  Don't underestimate how much your energy will drop as the night wears on - 16 miles in when it's getting cold and you're supposed to be sleeping, you'll need some food to keep you going!  Now, I stupidly thought that I could survive on Tutti Fruttis - this is not the case....sweets are great for an instant pick-me-up, but the thing that saved me, just when I thought I was going to curl up on the side of the road, was banana bread (generously handed to me by a friend who was volunteering on the night!).  So, make sure you pack a sandwich or cake or cereal bars, or anything to keep you going.  Water is provided at the pit-stops but you should carry something with you for in between stops.

Now, this may be too much information for some, but after having 3 children I do have this fear of not being near a toilet when I need one!  So, again stupidly, I stopped at the first pit-stop which was only 4 miles in - I didn't really need to go, but hey, I was there....and was still there about 20 minutes later waiting in a queue.  Remember that every time you stop, you cool down and it can be difficult to get your momentum back - my advice, stop only when you absolutely have to!

Last year, I had hoped to meet up with a few tweeters before the event, but having not pre-arranged a tweetup place it was impossible - there were over 5000 people, it just wasn't going to happen ;-) So, this year, I have planned in advance!  Firstly, we are going to meet up in Frankie and Benny's in the O2 sometime between 5:30 and 6pm - absolutely anyone wishing to join us will be very welcome.  If you miss that, I've been advised by CR-UK that a good meeting point would be at the Donation Station which will be situated just outside the main participant collection area.   The general hashtag for the event is #shine2011 and I'll be tweeting on the night using #twittershineteam, so follow that tag if you want to find out where we are :-)

If you've never taken part in a big event like this, be prepared for the sheer numbers of people at the start and that you may find the first couple of miles quite frustrating in terms of walking speed!  If your aim is to put your head down and finish as quickly as possible, definitely head to the front of the crowd before the start.  For those who I persuaded/coerced into this, we're in this as a team and I'd love for us all to be able to walk together - hopefully we can all manage to not lose each other!

So, see you on the night!  Any questions, please tweet me @crukwalton - if I don't know the answer, I can try to find out :-)

Nancy xx