So 2020 arrived and like most serious runners I had a schedule of events mapped out for the year with a few nice gaps for any opportunistic runs that mights appear. Travel at the start of the year meant I had to cancel my first few events but I did nevertheless get to run solo in some great destinations such as Thailand, Tokyo & San Francisco. From February though as we now know things went south pretty quickly and as of now it’s guessed that more than 1 in 4 people globally is in some form of forced lockdown. Here in Singapore we’ve been lucky – restrictions came in early but were pretty relaxed so going out for a run or using the gym hasn’t been an issue. My first planned events in New York and San Francisco got canned though as travel restrictions came into force and pretty soon colleagues around the world were relaying their various states of lockdown.

Fast forward a couple more weeks and the global lockdown is pretty much complete. What better way I thought than to host a virtual run? A quick post on a couple of the Facebook groups and the response was generally positive. And so the first Lockdown Ultra came together. In just a couple of days I had a logo, a Facebook page, some great prizes donated by others from the running community, and a long list of participants. The first run was held the last weekend of March and while several attendees didn’t show we still managed to scrape together around 15 runners.

Now in week three and we’re up to 100 runners across more than 25 countries. Logistically it’s somewhat of a nightmare, but all that aside it’s been a great way to bring people together and enable some form of participation, or competition for all involved.

Most of the dedicated runners taking part have had one of more races postponed or cancelled and more than a few have expressed gratitude for the extra push this has given them after months of hard training. While I hope the current situation doesn’t last too long, for as long as it does I hope the Lockdown Ultra will remain.

You can sign up for the races here

Or drop by the dedicated Facebook page here