You Only Wing When You’Re Winning!
Baggiebird and Albi won’t be in a ‘th-rush’ to get around the Simplyhealth Great Birmingham 10k course – after vowing not to wing the 6.2-mile challenge.
The West Bromwich Albion matchday mascots will adhere to organisers The Great Run Company’s ‘no-fly zone’ policy and complete the route on Sunday, April 30 on foot with the ‘walking wave’.
The feathered friends are ‘trill-ed’ to be among thousands of participants expected to walk, jog, run – or even dance – around this year’s course. Starting on Jennens Road near Millennium Point, the run takes in sights such as Selfridges, Edgbaston Stadium and Cannon Hill Park before a city centre finish in front of thousands of cheering spectators.
Runners will start in ‘music waves’ they can choose when signing up – but places are filling fast. The 90s wave reached capacity in record time and the ‘Now’ and 80s waves are also full. Spaces remain in the 70s, challenger (focus on time) and walking waves.
Baggiebird and Albi will have plenty of Albion pals for company a day after being on Hawthorns duty for the club’s game against Premier League champions Leicester.
Lifelong Baggies fans Tommy Langford, the undefeated British middleweight champion, and ‘Blind Dave’ Heeley, on a year-long mission to raise money for the Albion Foundation, are taking on the event, which will be broadcast live on Channel 5 from 10am-noon.
And they will also be hoping the club’s running team ‘beak’ local rivals Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Solihull Moors and Stourbridge across the finish line to win the Ding Dong Derby Cup!
“Baggiebird and Albi have promised not to take the easy option by flying around the course and are really chirpy about joining those who are walking the route,” said Matt Taylor, Albion’s Marketing Executive and a member of the club’s Ding Dong Derby Cup team.
“It will be a right ‘tweet’ for them if their musical wave features the Birdy Song!”
The Simplyhealth Great Birmingham 10k is seen as the ideal training run for anyone entering the Simplyhealth Great Birmingham Run Half Marathon or inaugural Birmingham International Marathon, both taking place on Sunday, October 15.
Anyone who enters the 10k will receive a £10 discount for either the Great Birmingham Run Half Marathon or Birmingham International Marathon and vice versa.
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