#everymilematters

This morning I woke to the news that Alan Rickman (perhaps best known as Professor Snape from the Harry Potter series) died after battling cancer only days after David Bowie passed away from the same disease.

If this had happened last week I probably would have thought “oh gosh that is sad” and then went along my merry way.  Oh how much can change in one week!

You see I’d been searching online for virtual running races, where you can earn a medal for running a certain distance, but you get to run that distance when and where  it suits you, as opposed to having to travel to an event on a certain day along with hundreds (if not thousands) of other people.

During my investigations I stumbled upon the Hogwarts Running Club ..

Hogwarts Running Club (HRC) organizes virtual runs inspired by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter designed to promote walking/running, provide unique and awesome medals, and, most importantly, raise money for deserving charities in an effort to change the muggle world one mile at a time.

There are no membership lists, no dues and no fees. We are simply a community of Potterheads who are interested in getting fit, collecting some awesome HP bling, and changing the muggle-world one mile at a time. You become a “member” of the Hogwarts Running Club simply by “liking” us on Facebook.

Now, I wouldn’t call myself a huge Harry Potter fan – yes I’ve seen all the movies and I’ve read some of the books BUT they had cute themed medals and an online Facebook forum and I do enjoy a good forum! 😉

Anyway I’ll go more in depth on how the Running Club works in another blog post but to cut a long story short I self sorted myself into Hufflepuff because;

I thought the name was cute (it reminds me of how I huff and puff while I run) and
I like the house colors

Yes yes, I’m aware that the sorting hat doesn’t work like that – I said I wasn’t a HUGE fan, I didn’t say I didn’t know the difference between a muggle and a dementor – but I digress ..

Hogwarts Running Club along with their virtual races holds a yearly house cup competition and one of the ways your team earns points is by using the Charity Mile app to log your running/walking (or other training).

Charity Miles is in fact, the reason I am blogging today.

How Charity Miles Works

When Charity Miles first launched, its developers created an initial pool of US$1 million to donate to charities as people used the app. Once that pool of money ran out (and it has), the developers said they would find corporate sponsors to continue making donations on the user’s behalf (and they have).

Running and walking earns 25 cents per mile, while bicycling earns 10 cents per mile. As the end-user, you don’t have to do anything at all to make sure that money reaches your charity. Charity Miles handles that part.  (Source PCMag)

The day David Bowie passed away logged 10 miles to support Stand up for Cancer & The Saint Judes Children’s Research Hospital, it was my small way of saying “F you Cancer”.

Yes I know that these are American organisations BUT honestly does it matter what where the cure is found?  I mean I would have logged those miles anyway so I may as well make a tiny bit of difference.

Today you can just imagine the sadness in the Great Hall and the determination to go out and log miles for cancer research.

You see my miles, plus all of their miles .. they all add up

A bonus is that the Charity Miles app has an indoor function so, it allows you to what we (Run Clubbers) call #hacktheapp which basically means you aren’t restricted to just running or walking to gain mileage.  The other day Issy and I danced around the lounge to earn some miles because as long as you are moving (and have the phone on you), it will register and convert that movement into miles.  How cool is that?!?!  I can see how those of you who have Fitbits get addicted, so I’m glad I never got myself one.

For me the bonus is that I can keep my running and “everything else” separate.  I stop and start my Garmin when I run but I allow to Charity Miles app to log the warm up and warm down and I use it when I go out for my walks which is quite handy when I’m exploring new routes that I may run as I know how far I’ve traveled AND it’s for whatever cause I decide to support that particular day.

And yes I often like to pretend I am Oprah! 😉

Today all of my miles will be going towards the Cancer Research Charities.  #wandsup

Till next time