Could You Complete Strava’s Ridiculously Tough Running Charity Challenge?

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If you’ve run a half marathon or marathon, you may have reached the last mile and felt a surge of adrenaline and speeded up before your fatigued muscles slowed you right back down again. That’s totally understandable – both races require you to cover serious distances – but with the right training and pacing you could end your race on a flyer, posting your fastest split as you cross the finish line.

If you greeted that idea with a determined nod rather than a dismissive noise and shake of the head, you are just the kind of person who should be signing up for GPS tracking app Strava’s new charity challenge, The Last Mile.

Sign up and accomplish that feat before 30th June and, as long as you logged it on Strava and tagged it as a race, you’ll have earned a $10 donation to a sports charity. In the UK The Running Charity will benefit, which in turn will help the at-risk and homeless young people the charity works with. Runners in the United States, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Brazil and Japan can also take part, with Strava pledging up to a maximum of $50,000 to good causes.

It will be interesting to see if the full amount will be donated. According to Strava, of the 40 million users around the world, only 1% to 3% post their fastest mile at the end of a half or full marathon.

But while that shows it’s a tall order, Strava will help where it can with a free 30-day trial of Summit, its collection of paid-for services. Especially helpful for completing this challenge will be the training plans and pace analysis in the Training pack, as well as the race analysis if you’re already signed up for a marathon and your training involves a preparatory half marathon. The insights from the Analysis pack may help improve your running too.

First things first, though. To get involved, you’ll need to download the Strava app and set up a free account, if you haven’t already. Then visit the challenge page and add your name. After that, it’s time to start working on your negative splits.

Jake was formely an intern for Coach and now contributes workouts from some of London’s top trainers. As well as training in the gym and running, he’s competed in the eight-hours-long overnight event Europe's Toughest Mudder twice and the 24-hours-long World's Toughest Mudder once.