Clue: It doesn’t involve a £450 pair of Adidas “super shoes”…

The London Marathon is always a spectacle. But this year it was on a whole other level.

Sebastian Sawe did something many thought we might never see in a competitive race.

He broke the two-hour barrier, finishing the marathon in an astonishing 1:59:30. To put it into perspective, that roughly works out at running 26.2 miles at an average pace of just over 4 minutes 30 seconds per mile!

And yet, as jaw-dropping as that is, I was equally impressed by the tens of thousands of “regular runners” who took part in the event. I say “regular” with a heavy dose of irony because, in my opinion, anyone who can run 26.2 miles and still muster a smile at the finish line is anything BUT regular!

Apparently, this year’s TCS London Marathon also broke the world record for the largest number of marathon finishers, with a total of 59,830 people making it across the finish line.

Among them were a few familiar faces, including F1’s Sebastian Vettel, who was clearly hoping his speed would translate from one track to another. As it turns out, the 38-year-old is pretty fast on two legs too, breaking the magical three-hour mark on his running debut. Impressive!

Now I would like to say that I count myself among the select few who have conquered running’s most iconic challenge. But I cannot. Because whilst I enjoy running and competing in the occasional local race, I know my limits. And for me, that typically sits around the 10K mark…

Not least because it usually means I can be laced up, stretched, run the race, and be back home within a couple of hours to enjoy the rest of my day!

Of course, no modern marathon story is complete without a nod to the technology. At the end of the London Marathon, to the delight of his sponsors Sawe proudly held up his Adidas Adios Pro 3 trainers as he acknowledged the role they had played in his record-breaking performance.

On seeing this, I had a wry smile. You may remember that I recently purchased a new pair of running trainers myself, only to then swiftly sell them because they felt more like instruments of torture than performance enhancers. I also picked up a knee injury for my troubles.

“Perhaps I need to get a pair of those,” I mused as Mandy and I watched the news coverage of the race that evening.

Then I saw the price… £450!

I’ll let you imagine her reply…

Still, it got me thinking. Because whilst my trainers might not deliver record-breaking speed, there’s something to be said for performance that doesn’t come with an eye-watering price tag.

At least that’s how we like to see things at Trellidor, where speed and quality are simply part of the package and not extras you have to pay a premium for.

As a retailer, when you suffer a break-in, you naturally want the situation resolved as quickly as possible. But when you’re left with a gaping hole in the wall because thieves have smashed in the external shutter, or no way to secure your tobacco and vaping kiosks – or BOTH – the need for a fast turnaround is even more crucial.

Because each day your building is exposed means spending more money for extra security guards to protect your stock. And then there’s the insurance hassle and potential reputational damage that comes with this kind of incident…

The bottom line? The faster you get a replacement shutter, the better.

Thanks to our streamlined manufacturing and installation process, we can often have a replacement shutter in place in as little as 16 hours. Of course, exceptions may apply if you’re based in a particularly remote corner of the country, but as a rule, we move very quickly. Maybe not Sebastian Sawe fast, but close enough to make a real difference.

So whilst I may never break any running milestones, I’m okay with that. Because when it comes to helping our customers recover at speed, we’re doing a good job of setting records of our own.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you secure your business quickly and effectively, do reach out and I’d be happy to talk things through. Or if you’re heading to Retail Risk – London next month, swing by our stand to catch up in person.