Hey internet!

Around two weeks ago I started a club on Strava called “The RStats Strava Club”, with no real idea in mind, I just wanted to virtually gather runners from the R community, the one that I already know, and the one I didn’t know yet. It was fun to see that after one week this group gathered more than 150 members ????. (For those of you who don’t know, Strava is a social media platform around running, biking, and swimming.)

Anyway, I had no real agenda in mind when I opened it, but then as the size grew I was thinking that it would be nice to have something organized by the Club. And, that it would be nice to make this event serve a good cause. Hence, I came up with the idea of organizing and online “Run for RLadies” online event!

How it works

• Using this google form, you can select one or several runner(s) to “sponsor”: every runner has an expected distance they will run.
• On the weekend of the 3 and 4 of October, the registered runners will go for a run, matching the amount of kilometers they have declared they will do.
• Once this run is done, you’ll receive a mail (probably on the Monday after that), with the distance that each runner has accomplished.
• You will match 1 $/€ by kilometer run for the runner you’ve selected, by doing a donation to R-Ladies through their website (there is a little button on the bottom right of the website https://rladies.org/).

FAQ

• Q: I’m a runner, and I want to be a part of it!

• A: Of course, please join 🙂 Feel free to reach out either on the RStats Strava Club (https://www.strava.com/clubs/rstats), by sending me an email, or DM on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_ColinFay). Note that you can definitely register as a runner without having a Strava account.

• Q: What happens if a runner that said they’d do 20km end up doing 40km?

• A: This event will work on trust: if a runner says they’ll do 20km, I trust them to do so. And of course, even if they do more, you will definitely be free to do a donation of the amount of your choice.

• Q: Can I select multiple runners?

• A: Of course!

• Q: What happens if I change my mind/can’t do a donation after all?

• A: As said before, this event is built on trust, and there will be absolutely no check to see if someone registered here is actually making a donation. You’re totally free to register to sponsor and don’t do the donation. You’re free to give less, free to give more. I just hope that if you are registering here to sponsor someone to do a 20k, you are ok with giving 20$/€ when the time comes.

• Q: Why this event?

• A: In the past, every time I’ve talked about the fact that it’s possible to do a donation online to initiatives like RLadies or the R Foundation, most people seems to like the idea, they just don’t know that was possible. I believe that most of us are ok with the idea of making a donation for RLadies—it’s just that we don’t think about doing it.

• Q: Why are you collecting emails?

• A: I’m collecting emails to send the results when the runs are completed. This will be the only time I’ll use the mail collected here.

• Q: Is this event affiliated to RLadies or Strava?

• A: Nop, this is an initiative by me, but I reached out to RLadies to get there agreement to launch that.

Q: I have another question! A: Feel free to reach out to me. That will probably work best through Twitter, or via mail contact(at)colinfay(dot)me

And again, the form is at https://forms.gle/CMzaiACVbNT7opok7!