February challenge options

[ilanarama]

blnchflr's January mileage challenge has been so motivating and so fun that we thought we'd do a February challenge, too. I have a few ideas (based on challenges I've participated in on other forums) and thought I'd throw them out to the group for a vote.

Idea 1: divide into two teams based on January's mileage (or expected miles for February), so that each team's total monthly mileage can be expected to be about the same. For example, if I'm on one team, ell and temve would be on the other, and we'd balance out. Then the teams compete to have the highest weekly and monthly totals.

Idea 2: based on our total expected February miles, we select a geographic route of about that distance. Each week we total the miles and draw an updated track on a map showing how far we've come. For example, waving my hands at January's miles and taking month lengths into account, I would guess we could make 500 miles in February, which would be like traveling the French Way of the Camino de Santiago.

Idea 3: similar to idea 2 but with an open-ended longer route, where we just see how far we can get e.g. crossing the US or Australia or Antarctica. This could also be adapted to an open-ended challenge.

Idea 4: well, you guys liked competing against your own estimates in January, so we can always do that again!

Poll #14893 February challenge

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

View Respondents

Our February running challenge should be:

View Answers

Team competition
1 (14.3%)

Virtual travel to a destination
3 (42.9%)

Virtual travel to see how far we get
2 (28.6%)

Individual goals (same as January)
0 (0.0%)

I have a better idea, which I'll suggest in a comment
1 (14.3%)

Please weigh in before the end of the month!

Comments

[temve]

I am totally in love with the virtual travel idea... and since I like playing the occasional round of GeoGuessr and traipsing vicariously around strange neighbourhoods in strange countries: how about we each pick a random (or non-random - could be a place you've always wanted to explore) place somewhere in the world that Google Street View has mapped, and then plot where each of your runs would have taken us, and post maybe a short description of what our virtual runner selves see, or simply a picture?

As an example, if I started at an utterly bizarrely named campground called Europing on the Mediterranean and plotted a weekly total of ten miles run, I would find myself in the Etruscan necropolis outside Tarquinia (and is that shack a tomb entrance? Intrigued runners want to know...):



Anyway, your mileage may vary *grin* but this might just be something I'd like to do for the month of February :)

[ilanarama]

Oh, don't get me hooked on GeoGuessr again - I wasted WEEKS on that when it first came out!

This is a very cool idea, though I was thinking more in terms of an aggregate rather than individual journeys. That way we could all travel somewhere REALLY far, and it also wouldn't put any extra burden on people to do the map work.

But now I'm thinking maybe we need to have everyone in the group volunteer to run one month's challenge.... ;-)

[temve]

This is a very cool idea, though I was thinking more in terms of an aggregate rather than individual journeys. That way we could all travel somewhere REALLY far, and it also wouldn't put any extra burden on people to do the map work.

That makes perfect sense - also, if we pick something that has published mile markers/distances, such as the Camino Santiago or any major biking route (or for that matter, any river), the map work is negligible as we could literally just find our mileage on the map.

Yay communal runtravelling!