Trees Not Tees x Camino

Our story with TreesNotTees goes back to the Water Cooler over four years ago.

We met legend Russ Oliver - serial Entrepreneur for Good projects and all-time gorgeous human and he said 'Do you know Jim Mann?' At the time we 'did but we didn't - sure you have experienced that phenomenon - once explained of course you knew who Jim is - an abolsute rockstar in the endurance world - multiple winter Bob Graham/Dragons Back record holder. Well it turned out that Jim had gone in to the syrup making business. If we went down that rabbit-hole we would be lost forever.

So fast forward to 2020 and we are getting the first Camino event ready in the maelstrom of the pandemic and we are chatting to our forever friends ReRun. We are new and so we are flirting with the idea of merchandise - some tees. Charlotte says have you heard of TreesNotTees - they exist to give your runners an opportunity to 'Not choose another tee shirt'. This seemed like a wonderful idea.

There are some great podcasts out there where Jim explains that he is not against running tees. If you are running your first ever ultramarathon (which many of our Camino community find us that way) or have trained for years for an iconic running event and when you finish you can own a tee to remind you of that event then he is all for it. Where it doesn't work is when the majority of us are running the same half or marathon and the organisers are incentivised by the race organisers and their sponsors to shift another tee. In that situation having an option to 'Tick here to have a tree planted instead of your T-shirt' really is a beautiful option.

Last week we hosted our Epping Forest 50Km.

The main feature of this event is that you get to spend so much of the event on green trails and ultimately enveloped in the glorious canopy of the dense tree forest.

It just feels right that an organisation that have the right mission/values for tree planting are a great partner for Camino and this particular event.

Image taken by Chiara who completed her first Ultramarathon with Camino Ultra x

So we don't produce tees at all. We don't produce any merchandise but a 'cloth based badge' that allows you to repair an item of your running clothing and keep it in circulation longer.

What we do is to plant a tree with TreesNotTees for every finisher.

We are a small events company - so the numbers aren't vast. However we are proud that there were 97 trees planted because runners chose to complete the Epping event with us.

THANK YOU ELEANOR x

We were grateful to meet the TreesNotTees team when we went to the Impact Marathons event in Isle of Mull this year and we took part in planting the first trees on the estate where many of your trees were planted this time.

So we know what is involved, we know the extent to the local knowledge that is required to plant the right type of tree and to manage the estate so that invasive plants are dealt with.

Camino are also passionate about the mission behind The Green Runners too. We are really early days in our own journey but we have spent time reflecting upon the 'stay local' success of our London Ultra events and also the start of our own Kit Share programme.

We 100% benefit from the support of our Camino community. We are too small to do all of these things alone. If you are passionate about any of these things and want to help do this with us then please do contact us info@caminoultra.com

Together beautiful things can happen x Thank you Caminos x