HTGR's Second Annual Run

Hello HTGR Runners!

I hope you are all having a great week leading up to run day on Saturday. This email includes all needed information for this Saturday’s event. Please take a few minutes to run through it as it should answer all of your questions!

Location

Our meeting spot will be on the back patio of the Happy Fish bar at 330 Elgin Street, Ottawa, ON, K2P 1M6. Plenty of street parking is available in the area for those who are driving in! You can find the back patio of the Happy Fish if you walk behind the Happy Goat coffee shop. The door to the patio will be open and you can just walk right on up! This is where the after run activities will take place as well.

Launch Times

The launch times will be staggered for each distance category. We hope that this will allow most people to finish in a roughly similar time frame to hang out together after the run! We ask runners to try and show up 15-30 minutes before their distance if possible to address any questions they have / go over the route.

21.1k (half marathon) - 10:30am departure from Happy Fish. Roughly a 5-10 minute walk to the starting spot. Take off at roughly 10:40am.

10k - 11:00am departure from Happy Fish. Roughly a 5-10 minute walk to the starting spot. Take off at roughly 11:10am.

5 and 1k - 11:30am departure from Happy Fish. Roughly a 5-10 minute walk to the starting spot. Take off at roughly 11:40am.

For anyone in the 5 and 10k groups who would like to start earlier, they are welcome to do so. However, they may finish before our photographer arrives.

Run Tracking

We will be using strava to track all run times. For those of you who are not familiar with the app, as long as you have a smartphone you will be able to create an account. For those of you with a smartwatch, I recommend using it alongside the mobile phone application. I have attached a link here to show you how to download Strava .

Once you get set up on the app, all you have to do is join this group: HTGR Run Group and your run will be tracked with the group!

Routes

All routes have been finalized and linked below on strava. I will personally be going out Friday night / Saturday morning to set up flags and markers at each kilometre check point. We will also be hosting a Zoom call on Friday night at 5:45 pm for those interested in going over their unique route! You can join the call using this link: HTGR pre-run route review

21.1k - https://www.strava.com/routes/3013261376293574042

10k - https://www.strava.com/routes/3013268714349616574

5k - https://www.strava.com/routes/3013270187982544616

1k - For those of you doing the 1k walk I will discuss the route with you on the day of.

Water Stations

We will have two water stations along the route. The first will be at 7k and the second will be at 14k of the 21.1k loop. We will give out full bottles of water + gatorade so those interested in keeping a bottle while they run can! We will also have snacks and food back at Happy Fish to help regain some of those calories burned!

Post Run BBQ / Festivities

After the run, we will be hosting a barbecue for all those interested at the Happy Fish Bar on the back patio. Feel free to invite any non-running guests to this part of the event! We will be covering the costs of food for all runners, though there will be a cash donation box for anyone interested in participating in the barbecue who has not previously donated to the cause!

Alcoholic beverages will be available for anyone interested, served by the staff of the Happy Fish bar. A portion of drink sales will be donated from the Happy Fish sales to HTGR’s cause! Though we encourage you to have a great time, we also want to remind you that this event is for a registered charity, so we ask that you consume responsibly!

Housekeeping

All items you do not want to run with can be left at the Happy Fish safely - but we ask that if you can, leave your valuables that you won’t run with at home or in the car!

We will have a photographer at the finish line from 11:30am - 1:30pm to get pictures of all your beautiful and sweaty faces when you are done with your runs! We will share all of these photos with participants afterwards. If you would prefer to not have your photo shared, please send us an email response and we will keep it out of our portfolio we send out after!

The weather looks like perfect running conditions on Saturday! We are hoping this holds up for the patio afterwards. With that being said, if there is any issues with weather we will move festivities inside the Happy Fish!

Where are all of the funds raised going?

This is the most important question we are asked about the charity. We know you work hard for your money, and appreciate that you are willing to donate what you feel comfortable with to our cause! Currently, HTGR is working with our second grantee full time. All funds raised will go to covering the costs of his physiotherapy and psychotherapy.

I will be touching on our grantee’s story more on run day. But for those of you curious, you can learn more about his story here: https://www.tiktok.com/@peacock_brandon/video/7088483420380187909

Thank you all so much for your support! We look forward to seeing you all Hit the Ground Running on Saturday morning!

See you soon!

Brandon