USA 2025 t-shirts now available (EARLY BIRD PRICE)

Over the years sales of Run Geordie Run t-shirts have raised almost £40,000 for good causes in the North East of England. Thanks to the goodwill of local businesses for paying for their production costs, EVERY PENNY from sales has been donated to charities such as St. Benedict's Hospice, The Children's Foundation, The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation and Useful Vision.

I'm excited to report that, thanks to further goodwill, this time from a very kind long time supporter of my running and also Doors and Floors Direct Limited, there is a Run Geordie Run USA 2025 t-shirt now available to pre order. I really can't thank them enough for paying for all production costs.

The four colour design is printed on the same technical fabric as previous Run Geordie Run t-shirts. They are ideal to wear in the gym, out running, on a walk or simply down the pub. They are available in sizes S, M, L, XL and XXL and are priced at £30. However, if they are ordered before 12th November 2024 then there is a special early bird price of £25.

T-shirts will be posted on 25th November 2024. To order yours, please complete the form below.

Run Geordie Run Leaflets proving their worth

The Run Geordie Run leaflet has continued to prove valuable in terms of getting the message out there and attracting donations. From using the last leaflets in 2018, I’d genuinely forgotten just how good a conversation starter they are (or an “ice breaker” as I called it in last week’s email). They are also really useful to leave with people when time for a lengthy conversation isn’t possible. 

I handed a few out leaflets at the match on Saturday. Pictured below are fellow season ticket holders Pam and Karen just before kick off. 

The beauty of the leaflet is the A3 map that is contained inside. It really helps to give the reader a sense of the size and scale of the 3200 mile route across the USA. Karen and her husband Alan are pictured below with the leaflet fully folded out.

Since I started handing out leaflets, I’m very proud to report that £255 has been donated to St. Benedict's Hospice via my JustGiving link. A huge thank you to everyone who has donated and to my main sponsor, Chapman Ventilation, for paying for the production of leaflets.

Run Geordie Run Leaflets Back On The Menu

Regular readers will know how important I feel that my leaflets are for spreading the word and raising awareness. These leaflets offer a concise and powerful way to communicate the purpose of my events, the charitable cause I support, and how people can get involved or donate. In a world where information is often fleeting, having something tangible to hand out ensures that my message sticks with people even after the conversation ends. 

The leaflets provide key details that might otherwise be forgotten, making it easier for people to follow up, support St. Benedict's Hospice, or share the story with others. I’m pleased to report that I now have 1000 Run Geordie Run USA 2025 leaflets in hand (minus a few that I handed out this weekend). I’m really pleased with the final printed result. As you can see from the images below, it’s a tribute-fold leaflet that opens out, revealing an A3 map of the route across the USA. 

A huge thank you goes to main sponsor Chapman Ventilation for paying for the production of the leaflets.

USA 2025 - A black and white send off?

I had contact from one of the Toon Army NYC branch this week. I’ve stayed in touch ever since I met him at the end of the 2011 USA run. It’s early days in terms of planning the send off but I think there will be a good black and white contingent at Coney Island. This will be brilliant from a personal point of view. 

Long term readers may remember that I had the company for the Toon Army NYC branch for the final 13 miles of the run across the USA in 2011. I look forward to being back on the boardwalk with them next year at Coney Island.

Run Geordie Run T-Shirts in the pipeline

I’m often asked when there will be a new Run Geordie Run t-shirt. Sales of various different designs have raised close to £40,000 over the years and it’s always been an excellent way of getting funds into St. Benedict's Hospice (and a host of other charities). I’m pleased to report that I have an initial design and will be reaching out to some local companies for quotes next week. If they come back as favourable (i.e. there is enough margin for a profit for St. Benedict's Hospice) then I’ll be taking up long term supporter, David Gateshill’s kind offer of paying for their production. 

If costs are deemed to high, then David will be paying the money direct to St. Benedict's Hospice anyway. While it’s an absolute win/win for the hospice, it would be nice to use t-shirt sales as a way of growing the charity fund. A huge thank you goes to David for his kind support. The initial draft design is below. 

The USA 2025 t-shirt design is very similar to the 2011 t-shirt that proved to be very popular.

Run Geordie Run Leaflets in the pipeline

The artwork files for the Run Geordie Run USA 2025 tri-fold leaflet have gone to the printer for checking. I’ve also asked one of my kind sponsors if they can settle the invoice. Hopefully, I’ll have 1000 of these important fundraising tools in my possession soon. I’m looking forward to getting back into the old routine of offering a leaflet to everyone I meet. 

It’s no exaggeration to say that the leaflets will dominate all of the contact I have with anybody, anywhere and at any time. They’ve always been so useful, before and during a big run, in being able to get a lot of information to people when I don’t have a lot of time to spend. They are also an important tool to have to hand to police, border control, the US embassy where I’ll be getting a visa next year to name but a few. 

I just did a search through my old tweets and there’s one from the 14th July 2016 that says “Croation border control not too interested in my passport but all over the Run Geordie Run across Europe leaflet.”. I don’t have a picture of that sadly, but I do remember handing one to a kind cafe owner soon after. 

If I see the same successful outcome with leaflets this time as I have done in the past then it’ll be money well spent. They have led to many charitable donations as well as discounts on supplies needed for the particular runs. I seem to recall getting a satellite phone rental in Australia at an extraordinarily good rate.  

One of my favourite images is the staff at my long term sponsor D-Line with the 2018 leaflet. I remember a good few quid being raised when I visited on that particular day.

Final USA 2025 route changes

I spent the majority of Sunday 11th August working on changes to the first 12 days of the route across the USA through New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The main reason for changing the route is to keep the first few days at a relatively low mileage. In theory this would just mean a change to the end point of each day rather than the actual route itself.

By the end of the day, I had managed to plot the route from Coney Island, through Manhattan and into New Jersey. It wasn’t an easy route to plot. However, the task was made easier with help from “my man in NYC”, Steve Pringle. You may remember that Steve came to our rescue in 2011 when the last USA run finished. He answered a call on social media for help to get a lift from the motorhome drop-offf point in upstate New York to our hotel own Manhattan. It turned out that this was the Steve Pringle who was in the year above me at the same school! It really was a poetic ending to that run. I’m very pleased and grateful that Steve is helping out again at the start of the run as I’ve written about before. In the meantime, with his help, I was able to one tune next year’s day1 route. 

Steve was able to advise on quite a few things including a query I had about the south side of the George Washington Bridge (the nearest pedestrian exit out of Manhattan). It turns out the south side is shut for repairs. That’s the side I ran across on day 100 back in 2011 (pictured below). The north side of the bridge is perfectly passable as confirmed by Steve who cycled the route recently. 

Between us we made a further few tweaks to the day 1 route. The first of which was a slightly longer but familiar route through Brooklyn. Running up Ocean Parkway has less traffic and there’s a dedicated cycle/running path. This is the road I ran on in the closing stages of the USA 2011 run. 

I decided to cross over the Brooklyn Bridge this time and run all the way up Broadway to Central Park then Harlem and upper Manhattan before crossing the Hudson River using the George Washington Bridge.  

To keep up the tradition of having Geordies involved at start/finish lines, Steve very kindly offered to run with me from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way to the George Washington Bridge. That’s approximately 10 miles. 

I started and finished the previous runs across the USA and Australia with Geordie company. The runs across also Europe ended with Geordie company. 

Back to the 2025 route and I thought I had a settled day 1 route until Steve confirmed my thoughts on a bridge over the Hackensack river. While, it looks quite passable, there is no official footpath. Steve drove that way to work last Tuesday (going above and beyond the call of duty again!) to confirm. 

So fast forward to Sunday just gone and I tweaked the day 1 route to finish in close proximity to my 2011 route. This means that I’ll be running 26.5 miles on that first day (pictured below). A quite unique New York Marathon. This also means that instead of following a slightly southerly route, I’ll be running the reverse of my 2011 route over the first 11 days. There are some quite brutal climbs up and over various parts of the Appalachians. I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with the on in May next year. 

A huge thank you goes to Steve for his assistance in planning the route out of NYC and for his offer of some running company. As I’m following a previously trodden route now over the first few weeks, I’ve been able to plot some good daily end points. Familiarity of the localities I’ll be running through really has helped to shape the first 321 miles. There are a few changes after that, mainly to avoid a place where the motorhome was attacked in 2011. As you can see from the plan below, I don’t run more than 30 miles each day until day 4. This will really help me ease in to the run. These will be tough miles with plenty of climbing to be done every day. The mind boggling fact that I thought of today was that I won’t reach the USA 2011 day 100 start point until 4 miles into day 3 next year! What a last day that was back in 2011. 60 miles! 

Despite the changes and a more northerly route, the total mileage to Huntington Beach, California remains at 3180. I’ve decided to change the marketing of this run to be a round figure of 3200 miles. I’m sure the total mileage will end up exceeding 3200 anyway, once I take into account slight navigational detours or errors. 

So with the route planning now complete, I'm looking forward to getting on with the many other tasks that are still to be done. I'm also looking forward to running past the sign below again (in the opposite direction) next May.