You get to track yourself against the Centurion running events

You may be like me where once the sun stops I stop. I just stop running in the cold wet months leading into Christmas. I then get nice and plump, and then I emerge rolling into the New Year with my sights on the North Downs Way 50 some 5-months away.

From around Jan 1, I dust off my running trainers, I set-up a training plan, and then head out into the streets to plod out a few miles every few days. And of course it can be hard to motivate myself. My target event is 5-months away and the thought of hard-packed trails, all-day sun, and running vests and shorts is a far cry from the cold and dark days of January.

So enter, the Centurion Running One Virtual Slam event. It’s a low pressure (if you want it to be) event that encourages you to get out and get the miles in. I’ve found it to be an excellent motivator.

How the event works

  • It runs (gettit?) from Christmas Day to March 5
  • You enter online (10% of revenue goes to charity)
  • You set a distance (this can be changed up or down later on)
  • You link your Strava and or manually add distances to your tracker
  • You get out and run
  • You see your progress mapped against others
  • Towards the end there’s an extra ‘One-Up’ event (focused on vertical gain)
  • At the end you get a medal or tree planted (and you’re a tonne fitter for your efforts)

For 2025, I entered the 300 mile bracket, but changed it to 200 once my training plan started to settle based on my fitness and available time. You can change as many times as you need to.

Your activities get auto added and you can track yourself towards your goal, you can also manually add distances and time as well

For extra motivation, invite a friend

This year my young son joined me on the adventure. And whilst we didn’t actually run once, he did get out walking and riding his bike (there’s a category for bikes, scooting, and even cani-cross too). He loved it, and it certainly helped me top up the miles. I also loved the extra quality time with just him out on our regular “medal walks”. So, enlist a friend and double the motivation to get out there.

And for even more motivation, they also offer a webinar training series to get the most from your training.

This year’s event has just ended, and whilst I’m looking forward to my medal to add to the collection, I can definitely say having the goal of 200 miles has helped me get out more often.

Hope this helps.