I Was Almost Ready To Pack It In

November 21, 2024

Hey guys!

It's been a hell of a week.

Our Black Friday kicked off exactly one week ago and over the weekend we ventured down to the Frankston Running Festival.

Let me tell you about it.

As you guys knows, I love events. It's my jam.

For us as an independent Australian brand, to be able to show face, meet people, interact with the running community - well, it's a privilege.

And then on the flipside, for Australian events to give local brands a go, is a great thing. More of it, please!

The alarm went off 4am Sunday.

As we do, everything was packed up and ready to go the day before. So I had a quick rinse, chucked some coffee in a KeepCup and we were out the door and on the road.

Unfortunately as we were half asleep, we decided to blindly follow the GPS and added some very unnecessary travel through the backstreets of the Eastern suburbs before finally arriving.

Now, I'm usually a fairly positive person, and at worst, a realist.

But even I was ready to pack it in and drive home after 15 mins.

We rocked up. It was hot, humid and moist. I was already sweating after a few steps out of the car.

And all of a sudden I was swamped with hundreds of flys. Everyone was. Everyone's backs were just covered in a swarm of flys.

So after a bit of deliberating about where exactly to setup the marquee, we were told that apparently there was a big change of wind coming from across the Bay.

A bloke came past and said 'what you got to hold the tent down?'.

Uh, tent pegs I said.

He laughed and walked off with a bit of 'you're stuffed mate' about it.

This marquee could go flying all the way back to Melbourne.

So we took a position between a post and a tree so that we could tie it down in case any big gusts came through.

We setup the structure of the tent only to realise we were on a slight angle and one of the legs of the structure wasn't even touching the ground *takes deep breath*.

By this point I had basically become one of the flys. I was speaking the language. We were getting absolutely swarmed, while sweating profusely at 5.45am.

All while trying to figure out what on earth we were doing with a marquee that's on a slight hill, uneven, and I had also realised another of the legs was now hitting a 40cm high statue of a duck and couldn't be opened any further.

Pack it up, let's go home.

I really thought that for a few seconds.

Stuff it, we're either going to be blown away here or have one leg of the marquee off the ground, have a duck statue in the tent and nowhere to put the table.

I chose the potentially getting blown away option. Maybe it's a free ride back to Melbourne, who knows.

It also rules out setting up our fancy displays, they'd become a hot air balloon with a slight gust of wind. Just a tent and a table, old school.

We took a punt.

We setup on the grass in-between two footpaths, with nothing to hold us down.

The winds didn't come. The tent provided solitude against my new flying friends in the millions.

From what started as a s*** show, became a really enjoyable event. Around 2,000 runners hit the bay in what was a really spirited community atmosphere.

We'll do it all again next year.

👉 HELP - TRAIL RACE RECOMMENDATIONS

Last week I put the call out for your best trail race recommendations. But I need more recommendations!

So if you've run a great trail event or race, and you would recommend it to others, submit your recommendation here.

I'll share the results here next week!

⚠️ BLACK FRIDAY SALE UPDATE

Our biggest Black Friday sale has been bonkers, and we've been working overtime to ensure that all orders are sent out as quickly as possible.

But there is just one thing.

We're running really low in some of our most popular products.
Sizes in both our Hybrid Pro Running Vest and R700 Running Vest are getting really low, and will likely sell out on the weekend.

So if you're keen to secure one - tap here.

Run well,

Robbie

COMMUNITY

A few community updates & links;

🏃 Join TEAM RUNLY on Strava here.
📝 Our Running Blog, Articles & Tips
👋 New Runner Stories are here.
🔥 Black Friday Sale - up to 50% off!