The WCP International Race Weekend

I was on a Sunday morning run and I got to thinking about half marathons.  I don’t know which one of you it was that planted this idea in my head, but I was sure that I was not a fan of the idea at all in the summer.  I’ve had far too many people ask me if I plan on doing a half marathon for the idea to go away though.  It seems that just because I’m not to shabby at running a 5k race people think I should be able to do about five times that amount no problem.

All this lead me to thinking about what I like about races and what I don’t like about them.  Here is the short list.

What I Like About Races:

• Actual competition
• Cool SWAG (Race bib, t-shirt, etc…)
• Pride in completing
• Meeting new people (thought this only really happened at Run For Your Lives)
• Training for the race
• Looking forward to the upcoming date

What I Don’t Like About Races:

• Porta potties
• Waiting
• Driving to the venue
• They decide my start time
• Some people can’t do races because they are only on the weekend, or in the morning or whatever

So what does all this have to do with the title, well I was reading The Fitness Cheerleader’s blog when I read this:

I love training for races. I love having that goal. I love the bragging rights of “I’m training for XYZ race”.

And I guess my other musings were still stewing around in my head and I thought, yeah I like training for races and having a goal, but who is really in charge of races?  Why do I have to go somewhere and pay to run to have a motivation? Why couldn’t I host my own race?  Hosting a race costs money though, to have people there and be sure they have water and food available and parking and a well marked course and timers and staff.

But I run all the time at home with just me and a stop watch, and I know a bunch of my readers do to.  Why can’t we all just race ‘together’ at home?

Winter is coming here in Canada, and I’m doing this idea specifically to aim to run a half marathon, so while I just got up and ran 5k one day last summer, I know I cannot do that with a half! And so I propose to you:

The WCP International Race Weekend

April 26-28 2013

Choose a distance that challenges you 5k, 10k, half marathon, Sign up on the Facebook event page OR on a new and separate page of my blog that will be up in the next couple of days. Train for the race, and when you do your race run anytime on that weekend, send me (more likely post to facebook) a picture of your stopwatch for an official time (clearly we are working on the honour system) if you are the competitive type, if you don’t want to post a time, but just that you completed a certain distance, then just get a picture of you all sweaty and state how far you went!  This is a maximum participation kind of thing.

What’s in it for you?

• You get to be in a race with other people, without paying any fees or traveling
• A custom race bib provided by me (you’ll have to print it though)
• Friendly Competition
• Satisfaction of completing a challenging distance

So who’s with me?  I’ll even sign up first, the Facebook event has been created!

If You are a blogger and are going to take part, I’d love if you promote this whole idea, I think it could turn out to be something that is pretty cool!