A few weeks ago I did a post all about completing the Couch to 5K challenge which I had been running with my mam. We wanted to keep up our running and so far so good! We then fancied a new challenge after a week after we decided to give a Great Run Solo challenge a go!
I hadn’t heard of the Great Run Solo Challenge until I came across it on social media. My mam has completed 2 Great North Runs over the years (my dad has also ran it several times) and when I was younger I ran the Junior Great North Run a few times. Obviously being from Newcastle the Great North Run is always a huge event every year! I do eventually want to do the Great North Run myself but it’s really close to my birthday, sometimes even on it, so it’s hard to commit depending on birthday celebrations!
So I was really pleased to be able to take part in a virtual one! You can choose whether to take part in a week or monthly challenge with a range of distances from 7K to 280K. There are also junior events. To enter your ‘entry fee’ is a minimum £10 donation (you can choose to up it) which all goes to the NHS Charities Together COVID-19 Urgent Appeal.
The event was set up as something for people to take part in during lockdown in a safe socially distanced way with all of the usual Great Runs that take place across the country having to be cancelled.
To complete the challenge you have to record your runs and then submit screenshots to show you ran the required distance for your challenge. You can do runs across the week you don’t have to complete the distance in one runYou the receive a medal in the post with a specific design for the Great Run Solo and ribbon colour based on your distance.
We chose to do the week 7 mile challenge, as we thought it was the best to achieve with us taking part towards the end of lockdown we wanted to make sure we could complete it before going back to work. Also with doing couch to 5K we were running an average 9 miles a week so we just wanted to do this for fun. I really loved taking part in this challenge it was so fun and a great way to feel like your taking part in something especially during these times.
I would highly recommend anyone to take part as you can do it at your own pace and it’s great to keep fit and healthy while knowing you’ve donated to a really important cause! I look forward to taking part in more Great Runs in the future.
Useful links: https://www.greatrun.org/virtual-running #GreatRunSolo
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