I am very happy to have participated in this virtual challenge. With no races to train for, this challenge motivated me to get up and out the door every morning.

The California Coast 500 Virtual Challenge offered three race challenges - to run 100, 250, 400 or 500 virtual miles this summer from LA’s Santa Monica Pier to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge along California’s idyllic Highway One. The time frame was 3 months (June 8 to September 7) to complete the challenge. I signed up for 250 miles which is about 84 miles each month.

The California Coast 500 Virtual Challenge was a fun and great virtual race. Let me tell you why:

✅ Weekly emails from the race organizers. Each email came with digital badges and mini challenges to win prizes (i.e. log 24 total miles from Monday 6/29 to Sunday 7/5 or log 50 miles during Week 9 of the California Coast 500). I didn’t win but it was still fun to enter to win a prize.

✅ Motivation from my BibRave Pro friends! I am in awe of those that selected to run 500 miles and finished way before I did.

✅ Thanks to the team at PWR Lab, there was an interactive map to keep track of the mileage. It was fun seeing how far along everyone was on the route.

I loved the constant communication from the race organizers. Anything we needed to know about the race was included in the weekly emails.

Thank for the great opportunity because I loved it!