Charge!

For our Mum Runner’s March virtual running challenge we are encouraging you to charge!

Charge you ask?

Yes, charge!

This month we will be supporting The March Charge by the Cancer Council (hence our challenge name) as well as incorporating our own ‘charging’ elements into the challenge. Our challenge this month will be based around achieving personal bests over the recorded distances on Strava (400m, 1km, 1/2 mile, 1mile, 5km, 10km, half marathon and so on) as well as on Strava segments. If you don’t use Strava or are a treadmill runner then unfortunately you will be limited in this month’s challenge, so I would encourage you all to sign up for Strava (its free and we always support LOW or ZERO COST events) and hit the pavement.

So how will the challenge work exactly?

When you upload an activity to Strava you may be awarded an achievement if you run along a Strava segment or achieve a PB/PR (personal best or personal record) over a certain distance. We are going to assign a points value to each of these achievements and the person at the end of the month with the highest points wins. Sounds simple enough right?

So lets take a look at the achievements.

1. Crown – awarded to the “King or Queen of the Mountain” – ie the person who runs through a segment with the fastest recorded time.
2. Trophy – awarded to the second to tenth fastest runners over a segment
3. Medals – these are personal medals and are awarded from PR (gold medal), 2nd fastest time (silver medal) and 3rd fastest time (bronze medal) over a segment.

Whilst crowns and trophies are awesome and should be celebrated, they are also tough to achieve as you may be competing with some seriously fast runners in your area and this challenge is about YOU vs YOU so we are going to ignore those this month and just focus on the medals.

A gold medal for Strava Segments will be worth 3 points, a silver medal 2 points and a bronze medal 1 point.

You can also earn medals over certain distances, regardless of where you run. These are not segments but are your personal efforts. For a gold medal in your personal efforts we will be awarding 6 points, a silver medal 4 points and a bronze medal 2 points.

Let’s take a look at some example runs on strava.

On the run below I picked up medals on 6 strava segments. I got 2 golds medals (2 x 3 = 6 points), 2 silver medals (2 x 2 = 4 points) and 2 bronze medals (2 x 1 = 2 points), so for this run I earned 12 points towards the challenge.

Example Medals on Strava Segments

Now lets look at a run where I picked some medals on efforts (I had to go back into my history for this haha). These medals are worth more as they are usually much harder to obtain. I received two gold medals for 10k and 1k efforts (2 x 6 points = 12 points), three silver medals for 5k, 1 mile and 1/2 mile efforts (3 x 4 points = 12 points) and one bronze medal for 2 mile effort ( 1 x 2 points = 2 points) for a total of 26 points. The last achievement was a segment gold medal and so it would be worth an additional 3 points to my total.

Example Medals on Personal Efforts

How does the March Charge from the Cancer Council come into it?

As previously mentioned we will be supporting the March Charge from the Cancer Council. We will be donating $1 from each of our registrations to this cause. It is FREE to sign up for the March Charge and when you sign up, you set a km goal for the month. Part of our challenge will be hitting your km goal. If (I’d prefer to say when because I have the utmost faith in all of you!) you achieve your km goal for the month you will get 10 points towards your challenge total. Remember its You vs You this month so set something that will hold you accountable and challenge you, rather than something you can meet within the first week to score easy points. You are not required to fundraise for the March Charge if you don’t wish to – that is completely up to you.

You can signup for the March Charge here.

Please make sure you join the Mum Runner’s team.

There is also a fitness ranking on the March Charge website if you are competitive in that way. I’m currently sitting at 7th out of 1294 (honestly!).

Screenshot or it didn’t happen right?!

If you really do not want to sign up for the March Charge, then that’s ok, you can still set your goal kms and get points for doing so – we will just manage this manually.

Rules

1. All running is done at your own risk. We will not be responsible for any injuries etc you may get while running.
2. You must do a minimum of 2km for your activity to count, so if there is a segment you want to run, you cannot just go out and sprint that segment and have it count. By all means aim for a PR when you arrive at the segment but your run must be at least 2km in length (of course a longer run is perfectly acceptable).
3. The winners will be the 3 runners with the most points at the end of our challenge. Points are earned by ‘charging’ through Strava segments, personal efforts and achieving your km goal for the month.
4. Prize money will be determined once all entries have been received. Remember we are donating $1 from each entry to charity this month so it may be less than usual.
5. You should record you points tally in run title. Please call it something like “charge X points” where X is the number of points you achieved.
6. You must RUN through the segments and personal efforts. You cannot ride, skate, scoot, drive etc etc through them.

FAQS

1. I still don’t understand Strava segments and medals, can you explain more? Visit this strava help article which explains them in more detail.
2. How can I find Strava segments so I know where to charge? Strava segments can be found by logging in to your Strava account using your internet browser (not the phone app). Along the top menu there is an “explore” button. Under this menu there is a “segment search” and “segment explore” button. You can then search for segments on the map.
3. There’s not many segments where I live, what can I do? Create more! Strava gives you the ability to create a segment using any of your runs. You can highlight the area of your run – maybe a hill, an awesome stretch of road etc, and turn it into a segment.
4. I’ve run my local strava segments to death and I don’t think I can run any faster along the segments in my area, what can I do? Go further afield. Explore a new area and pick up some new segments. Just note the first time you run a segment it wont record it as a PR. You need to run it again (and go faster) to get the PR.
5. How do I pay? Payment can be made by paypal or bank transfer as per usual.
6. How are prizes given out? Prizes are either cash or Rebel gift cards. If cash, then we do a bank transfer or paypal transaction to you. If you want a gift card these will be mailed to you.