We caught up with our legal secretary, Tasha, who recently decided to take on the challenge of running 1,020km in one year.
What was the motivation behind starting the challenge?
I used to run pretty regularly around two years ago, but I got out of the habit. However, with lockdown and more time to spend on exercise, I decided to take it back up. I downloaded MapMyRun, a run-tracking app from Under Armour and saw they had a challenge section with the one challenge available. I was worried about keeping motivation for running, so decided to do it.
I chose the You vs The Year 2020 challenge mainly to motivate me running, but it also seemed quite poignant considering what a year this has been so far!
So, what exactly does the challenge entail?
The challenge runs from 1 January 1st to December 31st, but you can start it at any time in the year. If you start on January 1st, then you need to run an average of 2.8km every single day to hit the target of 1,020km.
I started on 27th May officially, but only decided to make it a charity fundraiser on 11th June. By then, I’d already run 24km, meaning I had 996km to go which meant an average of 5km every day for the rest of the year!
Which charities have you selected to run for?
Firstly, I chose Wirral Hospice St John’s, as I wanted to give back to them following their care of my grandparents, who sadly passed this year. They recently sent me a t-shirt for my fundraising efforts, so that’s definitely helped my motivation.
My second charity is Claire House Children’s Hospice, which is actually our company charity. We try to raise as much as we can in a year for a set charity, so being able to contribute to that is great.
What’s your plan for running to complete the challenge?
At the moment, I’m doing 5km every day of the working week and trying to use weekends to do longer runs. Hopefully by doing that, I can start to chop down some of the total, meaning I can maybe have a few rest days!
Keep up to date with how Tasha is getting on by following our social media channels where we will share her kilometre tally. If you would like to donate, you can sponsor Tasha for either Claire House, or for Wirral Hospice St John’s.
