The Lakeland Lapland Virtual Festiv

Anyone else doing this? It’s basically run 145.4 miles (234K) between 10 and 22 December, anyhow you like, mimicking running from the capital of Lapland to where the heck Santa Claus ‘actually’ lives.... or something :). See here https://www.google.com/amp/s/lakelan...mber-2020/amp/

It’s organised by the Montane Lakeland 50 and 100 guys and is raising funds for charity. I’m not wholly convinced by running ‘virtual’ events - I know a few ultra distance runners that have rattled off several long distance virtual races, all at the same time and been sent bongs for completing them all even though the mileage counted for the longest event also counted for some of the shorter ones

That said I did the virtual Lakeland 100 in July, which stood in for the actual event (the actual race was cancelled) and really enjoyed that. It also gave all my running to that point in the year some sort of validation which was nice. I looked to do it proper too, not just matching the 105 miles required over 7 days but also all of the ascent too. All ran from home in the hills local to home and with me varying the routes each day.

Anyway back to the Lapland which starts tomorrow - 13 days to run 145 so it won’t be stupidly hard but will be hard and no doubt stupid. I’m planning on running in the hills each day, come rain or shine, whereas I’m sure others will do it in the living room on a treadmill while watching tv. Either way it should be a grand run in towards a good Christmas pig out and rest, and all hopefully raising funds for charity

I've seen a load of virtual challenges advertised on facebook etc... one was a "Scottish virtual mile", which (would you believe) was a mile to be ran/walked/crawled, anywhere in the UK, including treadmil

£15 to enter.

Not suggesting that the above event is in any way trying to rip people off to that extent... but the virtual events don't do it for me.

Although i have been a big fan of the time-trial/staggered start/maprun based races which have served as fell races over the past few months. Generally because they are attempts at making the best out of the situation and providing something as close to competition as possible.