Virtual Moonlight Run has a new twist

By Dale Woodard on February 5, 2021.

For the second straight year, the Moonlight Run is going virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the 2021 version features a new twist, one of the lunar sort.
“Something we’ve added because of the virtual format is we thought it might be fun to do some longer distances, that people could accumulate mileage over the nine-day period,” said Moonlight Run race director Shawn Pinder.
This particular distance is out of this world.
“One of our committee members came up with relating those distances to the moon,” said Pinder.
“So we’re doing a 38.44km or a 76.88km distance for that one-week period. How that relates to the distance to the moon is it’s .01 per cent of the distance to the moon, the 38.44km, or the moon and back.”
But whether you’re figuratively running to the moon and back or tackling the tradition course, this year’s Moonlight Run slated for March 20-28 will be another online endeavour in order to comply with pandemic protocol.
“We did a range of times so people would have time to get it done and fit it in,” said Pinder, who almost snuck in last year’s Moonlight Run before COVID hit with full force.
“We ended up having to do a virtual event last year as well. The event was one week after the world shut down. Obviously, we had hoped to be able to do it in person this year, but with the current situation it’s still not possible. So we’re doing the 6km and 10km distances as part of that.”
Pinder will be posting the typical routes they would do in case people want to run the traditional course.
“But people can do a 6km or 10km route wherever they are and that will quality for this year,” said Pinder.
“They can run those distance multiple times and then we’re going to have the logging system set up on the website and they’ll be able to track how many kilometres they’ve gotten done to work toward that total.”
In year’s past, Pinder said the Moonlight Run would hand out age group medals.
“But this year we’re going to be doing finisher medals for everybody. Even the overall finishers with the virtual event and people being able to do their course, I feel it kind of loses its appeal. You’re going to have some people who will do the actual course, which includes a hill and other people will be doing an entirely flat course. It’s not really a good comparison. So we’re going to go with the finisher medals for everybody this year, which I think will be well-received.”
Last year’s reaction to a virtual Moonnlight Run were mixed, said Pinder.
“There were some people who were super-happy to still be able to do something in relation to the Moonlight Run, but there were others who were disappointed because they weren’t going to be able to do an in-person event.
“The situation last year, we had already ordered shirts and medals and we really felt strongly we had to do something and virtual was the only option.
“That’s the case now. We really wanted to do something to still give people an event they can participate in or work towards.
“But when we were originally talking about it in the fall, it became more and more clear that the only way we could actually go ahead with planning toward something and know that we’re going to have a definite target, it was going to have to be virtual.”
Pinder said he hopes to have 500 participants for this year’s run and as of mid-week had a little over 260.
“Honestly, I’m quite happy with that,” he said.
“It’ll be quite a bit smaller than what we typically have in person, but everybody is looking for different things at the moment. Some people are wanting to participate in events they would normally have done and for other people if they can’t participate in them as they always have then it’s not as much of an interest. I’ve had several emails from people saying they’re so happy we’re doing something and they really want to do an event.”
Interested participants can sign up at http://www.moonlightrun.com.
“Typically we would offer paper registration as well, but we’re trying to be as responsible as possible in the current situation,” said Pinder.
“Online is the best and they can do it right from their home.”

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