Yesterday morning myself and a few of me mates shunned losing a daylight saving's hour and ventured down to Hagley Park to shoot the poster Image for The Quarter Pounder event.

It was a lot of fun, and I take my hat off to the guys for getting into the spirit of the thing, and making hilarious fools of themselves in public. The image to the left isn't the poster image, it's one of many I snapped. Action shots are more difficult than I thought! 

All the applications are in now, along with the public liability proposal, site plan, etc etc so now I wait. And you can start thinking of how many mates you could wrangle for the event on the 11th November. It'll be a 1/4 marathon - 10.5km so totally doable for someone who hasn't had a lot of exercise for a while. Get a group together maybe and start going for an easy job once or twice a week!

Well here it is, the name of the next event: The Quarter Pounder - a 10.5km run for blokes. The measurement comes from being quarter of a marathon (42km) hence the 10.5km, and the term 'pounder' kind of speaks for itself. And don't worry, I've checked re copyright issues!

And do note, it's not a 'Quickie' this is a series I intend to produce on probably a yearly basis for men, to promote men's health issues. Quickies will be duathlons and open to guys and gals.

I'll be looking at holding The Quarter Pounder in Hagley Park (but open to other options), and am hooning down on my bike today to work out the best track. Was thinking a short loop so competitors can pass by their supporters for maximum encouragement a couple times rather than sending them off on a large route to fend for themselves. The thing to remember is, this event will hopefully encourage first timers, so I want to provide the best possible environment in which to experience their first event. 

I'm curious to know whether holding an event on a Saturday or Sunday will make any difference. Hagley Park will be heaving with sports fixtures on the Saturday and probably some on Sunday too, so was thinking it could pay to have it on the quieter day. Or maybe I should aim for somewhere completely different, I was thinking Hagley because it's so central and out in the open which gives the event good exposure. These are the things to think about! Onwards :)

The way I usually start producing an event, whether it be sporty, music or comedy related, is with the name. This can take me quite a while, but I have to get it spot on or the whole thing won't feel right. 

Once the name is locked in, I can start all the applications, as they always require the name of the event, and then comes the imagery. I love thinking of cool posters and how best to portray or encapsulate the feel of the event, with the text and art work. I'm by no means a pro at this kind of stuff, but really enjoy the challenge of trying to create it. If I find it's all too much I'll hand it off to someone who actually knows what they're doing, namely Simon or Logan. Those guys are freakin amazing.

So now it's on to the paper work, and I can't wait to shoot the poster image too! 

Hope you're all feeling good and keeping up the exercise.

You've heard of Movember right? It's a an awesome month long campaign, the aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Well Quickie Events are  getting involved with the month of Mo with an event like no other. 

I recently posted on facebook saying how I was surprised how many people instinctively asked me what charity I was giving to for the Quickie in the Forest, because I wasn't donating to anyone. I just wanted to put on a great event and break even if I could. Anyway, so now I'm getting involved with a charity. So? I can do what I want, it's my company! Haha. 

Movember is particularly important to me because last year I worked at a PR company in Auckland called Paul Blomfield PR (awesome bunch of cats) and Movember was my account. I got to experience first hand the incredible work they do, especially all hard work the National Manager Rob Dunne does so I'd like to continue supporting the cause from in Christchurch. One other thing is my bro in law has battled non Hodgkins Lymphoma (successfully) and I myself have recently clawed my way out of some mean as depression - two conditions Movember seeks to smash!

You may be aware of events targeted specifically at women like the Special K Women's Duathlon series, well there isn't anything around focussing on men's fitness/health. So that's what we're going to do as part of Movember - an event where we'll encourage the average Kiwi bloke to get involved. Do it solo, do it with your mates, egg each other on, put a wager on it, I don't care, just get involved. 

I'm still working on specifics but it's looking likely it won't be about distance, but time instead. Probably held in Hagley Park too. And I'll introduce interesting elements like eating a pie (maybe not) or changing a tyre or something manly. First and foremost it's about involvement and getting your body in check. So I'll keep you posted re progress! Thanks for stopping by. 

So now the dust, nay pollen has settled from the weekend, I've begun thinking of where the next Quickie Event could be held. 

It needs to be somewhere where I don't have to worry about road closures or traffic management plans because when you have to deal with one of those, you're looking at shelling out some serious cash. Cash I don't have! Unless I raise entry fees, and I really don't want to do that.

My first location to check out was Halswell Quarry, but I don't think it's going to be big enough. I don't really want to introduce laps into a Quickie Event, but eh, you never know, maybe in the future. For now though I want somewhere awesome, in a nice location, with some exploration for people who enter. Bottle Lake worked well because many entrants either hadn't been there at all or hadn't been there in a long time, so it was a bit of a trip down memory track, so to speak. 

On Saturday I'm going for a ride with a couple of mates up the Port Hills to check out some tracks up there. I'll be keeping an eye out for routes that will be challenging but not so technical your recreational rider will be put off. And of course we'll need a good running track, so will find one of those too. Might be a different set up to Quickie in the Forest, but I assure you, it'll be great! 

So the inaugural Quickie Event - The Icebreaker Quickie in the Forest - has been and gone and I couldn't be happier - with the turn out, the results, the weather, the sponsors, the volunteers, the general good vibes on the day, it was awesome.

Congratulations to all winners of each category, you can see official results on our racesplitter page, it's really cool.

I knew it was going to be a lot of work to organise, but it was totally worth it and I can't wait to do another one. I'll be using facebook quite a bit now to post photos etc and for easy communication to be sure to like Quickie Events and for photos of race day, there's an album I'm adding to over the weekend. A big thanks to  me mate Logan McMillan for snapping away, he was actually in a team with his brother Brad, but got so into taking photos after doing the 6km he didn't bother finishing with the 3km! That's commitment to the art for you. 

And one more time, I'd like to offer a HUGE thank you to all the sponsors who came onboard for this event, your support was very much appreciated, as was all the help from my friends and family who volunteered on the day. 

Right, onwards!