This is a little report on what I was up to in December 2020. I joined an Advent Running Challenge organized by „Adventní Běhání“ (www.adventnibehani.cz). Maybe my experience will inspire more motivated runners in and around Vienna to join us next December!
What:
„Adventní Běhání“ is a charity event organized by a group of Czech runners (led by Babeta) with the goal of motivating people to get up from the sofa and go running daily instead of (or in addition to) eating lots of Christmas candy. The real goal, though, is to help raise money for a cause. The money that is collected is then donated to children who need it due to an illness or a disability.
How:
The rules are quite simple. You run every day (1st – 25th December) for a minimum of 30 minutes (it doesn’t matter how quickly or how far you get). You upload your activity to Strava and your kilometres are automatically synchronized with www.adventnibehani.cz. For each kilomether you run, the charity sponsors (a selection of Czech companies) pay 1 Czech koruna (1 EUR = 26 CZK) towards the cause. Note: it is not a requirement to live in the Czech Republic. If you’re already wondering whether it’s a problem if you miss a day or two, it isn’t. Actually, some runners then choose to „buy themselves out“ and pay for the missed kilometres out of their own pocket. Many participants also decide to pay the total sum of their collected kilometres in addition to the money that is already being paid for them (this year my mum and I ran together and it made for a nice Christmas present to donate the equivalent of our mutual kilometres to the cause). I’m happy we both managed to go for 25 days straight!
Hard facts:
- 2020 was the sixth year running
- participants in December 2020: 2,985
- kilometres run: 263,533.68 (for 36,926 activities)
- children supported: three.
- You can observe your overall ranking and how you compare to other runners daily in the running chart („adventní žebříček“). Your advent calendar is also filling up after each day – see attached picture.
What I learned:
Running every day requires perfect time planning skills. On days when I knew there was no way I was going to be able to run after work, I had to get organized and hit the road before breakfast (which I rarely do, and am certainly not usually excited to run on dark, rainy winter mornings…). As a long-distance runner, I also learned that it is totally fine to also include such short runs into my weekly training. I left the longer routes for the weekend. Also, because I definitely wasn’t too excited to go running every day, it helped laying out my running outfit the day before somewhere I can see it the next day.
Useful contacts:
Web: https://adventnibehani.cz/
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdventniBehani/
Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/adventnibehani/
Advent e-shop: https://adventnibehani.cz/index.php/shop/ (a minimum of 50 CZK (ca 2 EUR) goes toward the cause)
Main organizer (Babeta) – blog: https://babetaruns.com/
I had a lot of fun last December and will definitely join in 2021 again. Maybe I’ll improve my km total and get over 200km!
Katerina, Team RuN Sport