205 Marathons

Welcome to the run!
205 Marathons Virtual Challenge | May 17th to Aug 27th, 2021

I am so happy you have stumbled along to this site, describing a unique and experimental event that is being planned for the summer of 2021! The above route maps out a course of 205 marathons that stretch across Canada from Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island to St. John's, NL. See who has signed up so far and what routes are left!

The plan: Starting on May 17th, 2021, two marathons will be run each day until Canada has been crossed, from the West to the East. Each leg of the route will be run by either an individual, or small group of runners/athletes who will be raising money for one (or more!) of the five represented charities. Click here to view the route selections (individual maps exist for Vancouver Island, the mainland, and Newfoundland). This map will be your guide as to which route you are running and where.

• ACCESSIBILITY NOTE: If you cannot run any of the routes, that's okay! You can still choose a leg to run and run it on whatever date suites you. The goal is to bring our communities together, and this may mean not being able to create a perfect, sequential route.

The purpose: This run is a way of bringing us together during a time when many of us have been feeling isolated or alone. Together, we will be crossing areas of the country that are incredibly diverse both culturally and geographically. Together, we will be combining our passions by raising money for a variety of causes that exist within our country. Although many of us will never physically meet, we can unite in this run with a shared sense of purpose.

How you can help: In order for this journey to be a success, I'll need your help! If you are interested in participating, please click on the "sign up" tab at the top right. If you do not wish to participate, feel free to browse the charity pages of those who have already signed up, and perhaps donate to one you are passionate about!

Registration instructions

Since you've scrolled this far down the Race Roster page, I assume you are interested in participating! This event is a bit unconventional which makes registration slightly complicated in order for everything to work, but I have trust in us figuring it out together. To make things as straightforward as possible, here are some step-by-step instructions (guidelines, really) on how to go about the registration process:

1. Decide when and where you might like to run. This event is first come, first served, so not all routes will be available when you go to sign up. Routes can be viewed in great detail at https://www.plotaroute.com/routecollection/5160?units=km, and for ease of communication are referred to as "Route 1-2" instead of "Route 1", so that the route that is being referred to is absolutely clear. I planned these routes over a period of a few months, and tried my hardest to pick places to run based on (1) what looks safe, (2) seems like it might be enjoyable to run, and (3) creates a sequential path across Canada. This means that I tried to avoid major highways and not create totally monotonous marathons that may cause more pain than pleasure. However, I have never seen any of these routes in my life and Canada is a huge country filled with unpredictable weather. Therefore, these routes are to be treated as suggestions rather than solid paths, and can absolutely be modified to suite the runner. Available routes can be easily seen on the Weebly website at https://205marathons.weebly.com/sign-up.html and only available routes will be listed from a drop-down menu when you go to register. Marathons are occurring at a rate of 2 per day, which means one marathon going on in the morning and the other in the afternoon (designated as AM/PM).
2. Okay, so after some browsing, and thinking, maybe it's time to sign up! You have a few choices on how you would like to do your marathon. You can sign up to run a marathon solo, OR you and your friends (your running group?) can sign up to do a marathon together (which means all of you are running a marathon), OR you and a friend can each run a half marathon as a relay, OR you and three friends can each run a quarter marathon as a relay (I'll let you do the math). If you are registering as a team, the team captain must register first and pick a route.
   1. If you choose solo marathon: Signing up is straightforward! Go to "Virtual registration", then "Marathon", and complete the registration for yourself without creating a team.
   2. If you want to do a group marathon: A little less simple. As with a solo marathon, click on "Virtual registration", then "Marathon", but only one person chooses a route in the registration. This is super important! The team captain will create a team, as well as pick a route from the drop-down menu. The team captain will then have to provide a password to the other members who want to join the team. The rest of the team will then register for a marathon, choosing the the their team name from the drop-down menu and providing the password. DO NOT pick a route from the drop-down menu.
   3. If you want to do either of the relays: Go to "Virtual registration", then pick one of the marathon relays. The team captain will create a team and password to join the team, and only the team captain will pick a route! Team members, DO NOT pick a route from the drop down menu! The one your team captain has chosen will not be available for you to pick. Choose your team name from the dropdown menu and write down the password provided to you.
3. It's time to donate and pay! This is pretty straightforward, but you might be wondering where your money is going. The $20 registration fee covers your personal insurance for participating in the event, and any remaining dollars are divided equally amongst the charities (woohoo!). Upon registration, you are also required to pick a charity to fundraise for. There are five awesome charities lined up, so feel free to read about them and think about which one you might be most passionate to raise money for. Let's support our fellow Canadians (and have an amazing running journey doing it)!
4. You're all registered! Amazing! Rest up and have fun training for your full/half/quarter marathon! All you have to do now is run, raise some money if you can, and reach out to me with social media posts, if you'd like!

Important things to note

As I mentioned above, I have drawn out all of these routes without ever having seen almost all of them in person. This is obviously a safety concern, so I want to emphasize the following points:

1. Please research your route in advance. You should ultimately be the main expert on where you are running.
2. Feel free to modify the route if any part of it feels unsafe. Yes, an idea of a sequential journey across Canada is romantic, but safety always comes first.
3. If the weather seems like it may create dangerous conditions for the day you are running, you may delay your run or even run early by 2 days (there is a five day buffer zone with your insurance so that you have flexibility regarding the timing of your run). Same as above - safety first!
4. No food, water, or any other perks will be provided for your run like a typical race setting. Consider this analogous to a solo effort and run with the supplies you know you will need to run safely.
5. We are still living in the time of COVID19 - follow the guidelines of Health Canada when you are planning your run.

All of this is also outlined at the bottom of the waiver you need to sign, so I ask you to please read it carefully! Our priorities are (1) safety, (2) fun, (3) actually trying to run fairly sequentially across Canada.