FM Winter 2025 - Flipbook - Page 6
Frank’s Big Tour of
England
The FMBE side of the
story
Supporting
My Big Tour of England took 62 days this summer – every day of July
and August 2024. It was the second largest multiday ultramarathon
ever undertaken in the UK, clocking 1971 miles and there were
plenty of terrain changes too, with an accumulated elevation of
39,480m. If there was a mountain in my way, I went over it. It was
also, by a significant distance, the hardest running challenge based
in Britain every undertaken by a veteran, 40 years and above. At 54
years of age, I qualified for that quite easily.
The journey would be urban to country throughout, taking in every
county of England, and every one of our 42 cathedral cities, whilst
also criss-crossing with our national parks’ trails and landscapes.
Spoiler alert – I completed the journey, whilst also completing all 5
of my pre-event pillars of intent.
My Big Tour of England set out with these 5
pillars of intent.
1. To support Brathay Trust via fundraising and awareness.
2. To support deprived young people, as and when requested with
a guided pathway of opportunity into the brand events industry.
3. To deliver an urban country journey and show how that helps
wellbeing.
4. To promote the FMBE sector as a vibrant industry and job
opportunities creator nationwide.
5. To tell a complete story of England
This is the story of pillar number 4, what I
achieved and how I achieved it.
Wall of Support
Teamhaven
The Teamhaven app was wonderfully
adapted by their team to make our
self-management so much easier.
The app that supports so many field sales,
merchandisers and marketers by making
every call more dynamic and efficient made
life so much easier, especially in the first 2
weeks of the tour.
The app helped us to record actions, make
a diary and upload photos. It prompted me
with a checklist of every pre and post run
routine from phone and tracker charging to
shoe choice and kit checks.
I made things like footcare and event
scheduling look relatively easy on this tour,
things that don’t come naturally to me, and
4
Winter 2025
a good part of the event success was down
to returning to routine every evening no
matter what the day had thrown at me.
The app locked ‘to dos’ like bottle cleaning
and compression wearing into my brain so
that I would eventually find I didn’t need it.
But in setting the tone, Teamhaven was
vital.
It was therefore a special moment to have
Steve and Georgie Grimes support us on the
route itself as I ran through Corsham Court
in Wiltshire.
Steve and Georgie proved that data folk can
be colourful characters, embracing the
splendid summer’s day with delicious
cordial and homebaked biscuits. A very
pleasing blended bottle of rum also
sneaked its way onto the Big TOE van
courtesy of Steve!
