We’re checking in regularly to see what the endurance community is doing to keep the industry running forward in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. For more ideas, view you can find all the previous highlights archive here.
Today’s creative events are a mashup of longer virtual events – a four 5K series, a 50 hour challenge, and a cross-state 4 month trek.
Run Solo Project Virtual Runs
It’s not a 5K. It’s FOUR 5k’s.
Vendurance Sports is amping up the virtual 5K with a simple tweak: multiplying RaceDay by 4 to create the Run Solo Project Virtual Runs. Why? More running value for the runner, without adding costs to the organizer.
Clear Messaging
While the idea is catching on, there are still a lot of people out there who just don’t know what a Virtual Race IS. Run Solo Project laid it out in three easy-to-understand components.
First: Steps to Completion:
Second: What Do I Get?
Third: No, REALLY. I care about the swag.
Supporting the Running Community with Teams and Built-In Donation
$20 of each $50 registration fee is donated to a running community institution – one of the running stores, running/track clubs, or school cross country teams that they partnered with.
Each participant selects their “Team” during registration – those are the running stores, clubs, and schools listed above, and donations to each are made accordingly.
Weekend Warrior 50 Hour Challenge
50 Hours to Complete 50 Miles
The Weekend Warrior 50 Hour Challenge is a weekend event from Upstate Ultras that lets the runner chart their own course. It gives participants 50 hours (from 5:00pm on Friday to 7:00pm on Sunday) to finish 50 miles – however they want to get there. Each runner can choose any weekend in May to complete the challenge.
Event Appropriate Swag
No average t-shirt for this one – instead, the race offers swag with your average trail ultrarunner in mind, including a Trail Buff, Sticker, and Sunglasses. All swag, along with a unique, handmade medal for anyone completing 50 miles, will be shipped to participants.
The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee 1000K
The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee is taking the above weekend challenge…and supercharging it to give runners something to do allllll summer. The team behind the Barkley Fall Classic, Barkley Marathons (and more), otherwise known as Laz & Durb, (with technical expertise from Bad Mike) has put together a truly unique virtual challenge – running 1000K from May 1st through August 31st.
The 1000K challenge isn’t just a random number – it’s an actual mapped course across Tennessee, beginning from the Mississippit River levee near Anthonyville, Arkansas up to the high trestle branch off of Buckeye Hollow Road, way up in the Appalachian Mountains. Runners can follow along on the map to see their progress throughout the summer, with the race sharing pictures, stories about history, geology, and points of interest that runners virtually pass.
All registrants will get a t-shirt; finishers will get a medal. For the most ambitious, there is also an out-and-back 2,000K option that comes with its own medal.
Feeding Tennessee
Donations to Feeding America are integrated into the registration process to raise additional funds for Tennesseans struggling with hunger. This simple, lightweight donation structure is paying off – to date, more than $25,000 has been raised for the cause.
Tell us what YOU’RE doing!
Doing something creative and fun to help your community? Let us know!