International Man of …

running! well, I am not running internationally, but I am joining an international group to help inspire OTHERS to run (as well as continue to motivate myself to keep running)!

Last week I received a tweet from my pal Dan in Glasgow, Scotland. He’s an Osteopath there, and works with us commoners as well as some top end athletes. On twitter, he can be followed here: @GlasgowOsteo. His tweet asked if I had heard about the 5x50Challenge, as they were looking for Regional Ambassadors to help with their program. I thought that it was worth looking into (not every day I get asked to do this sort of thing!), and look into it I did. After a few emails back and forth with the organizers, I learned that I am not qualified to be an Ambassador. They take this quite seriously, and Ambassadors need to be certified fitness instructors for legal reasons. My experience, enthusiasm, and $5000 payoff and boyish charm kicked in, and I was able to be rated as a “Fiver”. This means that I have a responsibility to recruit others to join the challenge as well as help manage groups and such. You’ll see me tweeting using the #5x50Challenge hashtag and mentioning @5x50Challenge.

I am pretty pumped. Per their ‘about’ page:

What is The 5×50 Challenge?

A charity challenge encouraging people to run, walk, jog or cycle 5k every day for 50 days with the aim of changing habits for a lifetime. The challenge begins on the 9th September 2012 and finishes on the 28th October at the end of British Summer Time.

What is our goal?

This challenge started with a vision to make sport part of everyone’s daily life. Not everyone will run a marathon, however anyone can complete the 5×50 challenge and experience the physical and psychological benefits that come from taking part.

 

So that’s the basic teaser. I will be mentioning more about is as we get closer, and I would really like it if we could get a bunch of us from the States to help out with this cause. The registration starts at around $7 US. Not bad, really! Ok, more about this later. Feel free to read ahead by visiting the 5x50Challenge web site.