When running is a collective sport
Long considered the quintessential individual sport, is running evolving to become more team-based? At any rate, athletes around the world now have access to more group running initiatives than ever before, in part thanks to technology.
Charity races have always been popular among amateur athletes, but certain recent examples have reached unprecedented scale. The Wings for Life World Run, for example, attracted some 35,000 runners in its first edition last year, and even more will likely join the second edition on May 3. Participation costs €40 per runner, and all proceeds go to Wings for Life, a non-profit group dedicated to finding a cure for spinal cord injury.
Ambassadors for the event include leading athletes such as three-time world champion hurdle sprinter Colin Jackson and former skiers Luc Alphand and Sandra Laoura.
But what sets the race apart is that it is a "world run," meaning that participants will leave the starting line simultaneously in 35 locations around the world. In the US, the starting gun will go off at 7:00am in Sunrise, Florida and 4:00am in Santa Clarita, California. Runners will depart in Brasilia, Brazil and in Dubai at exactly the same moment (8:00am and 3:00pm local time, respectively). This year, to make the experience even more collective, participants have the option of signing up in groups or joining an existing team.
Strength in numbers
A few weeks earlier, on April 19, athletes around the globe will put on their running shoes for Unicef Heroes Day, another charity race with a global component.
But instead of defining a selection of race locations, organizers allow participants to run a 10K wherever they choose. Runners are encouraged to sign up in teams and run together to keep motivation high. As the event will rely on GPS tracking to measure performances and determine the winners, each runner must run while connected to a dedicated app on their smartphone or other GPS-enabled device. All of the proceeds will go towards Unicef's vaccination campaigns.
Another community-focused initiative driven by technology, the Checkpoints Race encourages participants to form teams across different continents. During the training phase from May to September, runners will record their training runs and their team's performance in given challenges through a dedicated app. The 50 teams with the best overall scores will gain entry into the final race in Alpe d'Huez, in the French Alps.
However, the initiative is still in the fundraising stage on Indiegogo, where it has yet to reach 5% of its funding goal. Perhaps runners aren't quite ready for such a social experience after all?
