One of my daughters introduced me to the idea of virtual running and this medal is the result of my first 5K!
It’s only recently that I’ve stumbled on these type of ‘races’ but what a great idea, especially as a way for me and my 2 daughters to ‘run’ together even though we all live in different countries! The way it works is we choose a distance and medal to aim for then all agree a day and time to run it ‘together’. Once we’ve submitted evidence to show we’ve completed the challenge (which I did by sending a pic of my garmin) we receive the medals.
Your virtual race can be run (or walked) from any location you choose. You can run, jog, or walk on the road, on the trail, on the treadmill, at the gym or on the track (or even at another race). You get to run your own race, at your own pace, and time it yourself. And your medal will be shipped directly to you. With many virtual racing sites, some of the proceeds go to charity. With my mojito run 20% of the proceeds from my medal purchase of £12 went to the nominated charity Home Start, which offers practical and emotional support to families with young children.
All you have to do is enter a race and provide evidence that you have done it. That’s it! So you could get a group of friends or family together, choose your challenge and then get on with completing it, either all at an agreed date and time if that works or everyone can complete it independently.
I did my mojito 5K with Virtual Running UK and submitted proof that I’d done it via a photo of my garmin watch face detailing my workout which I uploaded to their website. So you can send proof in the form of a screen shot from your phone of Strava, Garmin or any other tracking app route. Or send a photo from your phone from a fitbit, running watch or even google maps.
How do the company know you’ve actually done it? They don’t of course but why would you blag it? The only one you’d be deceiving would be yourself.
I’ve just completed my second one:
(20% of my entry fee went to Ellie’s Friends, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of adults (16+) living with cancer, all around the UK).
At the moment my daughter and I are doing the Beauty and the Beast Virtual Race together with Yes.Fit. (I say ‘together’ but she’s finished hers :-D).
This is how my dashboard looks:
The setting for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was inspired by the beautiful villages in the Alsace region of France so I get a progress map of how far I’ve run 🙂
And here’s where I record my running:
And this shows you how far I’ve got!
I love the emails I receive when I’ve passed a mile marker; points I’ve just ‘run by’. This mile marker was near mile 24.0.
This was my progress pic for today…
and my mile marker – I’m ‘virtually’ near the village of Colmar!
Looking forward to this arriving…
Virtual running sites seem to be springing up all the time now. I guess the only downside I can see is that the prices can get a bit punchy sometimes. But it might be fun to get together with friends and do 1-2 a year?
Take a look at these sites and see how gorgeous the medals are! You can often buy T shirts too.
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Based in US, will ship internationally
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Based in US, will ship internationally
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Based in UK, will ship internationally
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Based in US, will ship internationally.
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