A Year Long Marathon
Photo by Stephen Korecky
A marathon, or even a half marathon, is a race distance that many people may have no desire to accomplish. It takes a special kind of person to take an interest in and complete these types of advanced running events. However, the action, and even the dream or idea of, completing one always brings about a sense of accomplishment. Believe it or not, there is a way to instill this sense of accomplishment in your participants without requiring that they run a marathon distance all at once.
I’m talking about a year long marathon. With this type of event you split up those 26.2 miles throughout the year encouraging participants to take part in each of the hosted events and raise funds for your organization in the process. In addition, your events will appeal to those people who are not likely to run a full marathon or half marathon at one time.
Now, before you think I want to you to plan over 5 – 5Ks in one year, let me explain. There are at least two ways that you can design such an event. The first is to focus on run/walks. This doesn’t mean you have to plan each one. You could simply plan the first one to kick off the year.
Next you identify five or six others in your area throughout the year especially targeting those who are not yet specifically organized to support a charity. You can approach the coordinators about partnering with them to raise funds for your organization. There are still plenty of run/walk events out there that do not support a charity, but may be willing to do so.
Once you have your events identified you’ll want to promote them to your participants at your first kick-off event. Let them know that they will earn miles for each event they participate in with the ultimate goal of completing a full marathon (adding the mileage for each event) by the end of the year.
From that point you can decide how to honor those who do. You might want to distribute donated prizes, honor your highest fund raisers or hold a celebration at the end of the year.
The second way you can accomplish a year long marathon is to include different kinds of athletic events throughout the year. This approach may be easier if your organization prefers to host each event themselves.
Some examples of events you might choose to host include a 5K run/walk, a bike ride, a triathlon, a community sports tournament such as volleyball or basketball and a group exercise class. If these events don’t translate to specific miles then you can assign miles to the events yourself. For example, a high intensity group exercise class lasting two hours might translate to 9 to 12 miles considering that most runners would complete 3 miles in about 30 minutes.
All of these events would be under the umbrella of your year long marathon. You can host each of these events in honor of your charity and use registration funds and additional fund raising campaigns for support. At the end of the year you can honor those who completed the marathon via all these events, and those who raised the most money with a celebration and donated prizes.
Have you planned or participated in this type of year long event? If so, let us know about it in the comments.
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