Flashback to COGH & long distance virtual challenges

[CBDB]

Found this beautiful wooden medal in my mailbox last night, reminding me that I am left with only one long distance challenge at the moment (End to End RunLEJOG).

So I’ll have to have a think, what next. I really like the virtual real mashups, and COGH added a special HU social element to it! We definitely should see if we can do something similar every year or so, if the team is up for it. It was great!

The COGH medal is now my 5th medal, all earned in the last 6 months! Really happy with them! 3 long distance challenges, EMF 5k, FoR 10k.

So for a next long distance virtual challenge I’m thinking of going with Conqueror again, as their app made the experience so great. Running Hadrian’s Walk with them made me really want to run it for real. So I’m looking for a similar experience again, and my top contenders are Conqueror’s Romantic Road (connecting with my German heritage again 431 km) ; Iceland’s Ring Road (1300 km 😳); Mt Everest (62 km). 🤔 🤨 😁🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️

Conqueror also does team challenges but haven’t tried this yet.

Hmmm, decisions, decisions, decisions.

Any beautiful other ideas for long distance virtual challenges out there?

[Grannyhugs Graduate10]

Ooh medal looks lovely, I missed weeks of posts in April and May so missed this. I do have 2 T-shirts though. I love the sound of Iceland’s ring road, what a beautiful country it is. Maybe in a few years the world will be in a better place and I can revisit Iceland. I did a virtual NC500 last year as I was leaving the Scottish Highlands after 33 years, it was fun but I made it up, no medal, maybe there is one though. Happy running 🤗

[CBDB Graduate10 in reply to Grannyhugs]

NC500 would have been another favourite of mine! I love Scotland and have lived in Scotland for 10 years before having to move down south (😔). Cycling that route was one of my plans I never did, so maybe running it might be a thing to s as I’m for. It is in the list of future challenges on Conqueror that one can ‘vote’ for. It also has a future West Highland Way, which I walked for real for 3 days a decade ago. Nice!

[Grannyhugs Graduate10 in reply to CBDB]

WHW still on my to-do list. Love the north west highlands so scenic. 🤗

[Hidden]

I gifted myself 3 VirtueelNL medals in the meanwhile: 1 when I ran my first 5K, 1 when I ran my first 60 minutes and 1 when I ran my first 10K. Besides that I have 2 Conqueror medals, 1 for the Kilimanjaro and 1 for the English Channel (still has to reach my mailbox) and I am now running Giza.

My plan is to first tick off the shorter distances of Conqueror (shorter as in below 100 km) a bit to have them out of the way and get a bit of more bling in my bling-box. And afterwards I am going to just do every Conqueror challenge one after the other starting from the one after Kilimanjaro and going up.

I really like those Conqueror challenges too. You get a bit of interesting information, you plant a couple of trees, etc. And once you are past the shorter distances, it isn't all that expensive to enjoy yourself for weeks or months on end.

[CBDB Graduate10 in reply to Hidden]

Yeah, I think the Conqueror challenges are great. I also saw that they have some new ones planned which really tickle my fancy: West Highland Way and North route around Scotland. I so like the ones to which I have a physical, symbolic connection or which represent a potential future holiday visit.

[Hidden in reply to CBDB]

That's why I took the Kilimanjaro as my first. In my job I work on East Africa amongst which Tanzania. So I feel a bit of a connection to Tanzania through my job and thus: Kilimanjaro. But not many connections besides that to the challenges. So I just grab whichever I see, haha.