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The Harriers Running Club of Victoria, BC has launched a Strava and Garmin Connect-friendly challenge for runners. How many parks can you run from May 19 to September 22, 2025?
“Parks are literally everywhere,” said Sean Mitchell, one of the organizers. “We were totally surprised last year when we beta tested this challenge, and it’s a super-cool park-logging tool. We had people doing hundreds of parks, sometimes not even knowing that they had passed through parklands.”
Starting May 19, runners (and walkers and hikers) upload their run from Strava, Garmin Connect or a similar app, and the Park Challenge tool grabs every park entered automatically.
The two primary challenges
There are two primary challenges: who can run (or travel by foot) in the most parks by sheer volume (repeating parks is permitted), and who can visit the largest variety of parks; the greatest volume of unique parks. The location of the parks can be anywhere in the world. Competitors automatically challenge both categories.
“Basically, this is an amazing opportunity to build summer volume with a twist.”
Prize packages will be awarded at the end of the summer to the winners of each challenge.
Simultaneously, the contest will raise money for The Land Conservancy of British Columbia.
Mini challenges
Weekly prizes will be awarded to contestants who complete mini-challenges, such as taking the most creative photos of a park, most elevation gain in a single park, and there are mystery challenges, announced on Mondays. The competition runs for 18 weeks, so there are 18 mini challenges.
“Mondays, we announce the weekly challenge, Sundays, we announce the mini-challenge winners.”
“Created in 2024, our club members beta-tested it all summer. It was so much fun, we thought we should share it with the world.”
For those travelling this summer, any designated park will count towards the challenge, including national, provincial, state and municipal parks, along with regional district parks and UNESCO and National Historic Sites.
“All parks count. If there is doubt about a park on a run, the organizing committee will take all submissions. We err in favour of counting park-like settings as parks in favour of the challengers.”
“It’s about volume.”
Qualifying ventures must be at least 3km in distance or 30 minutes of moving time. While it is not about speed, this is great for runners, who need base-aerobic training time on feet during summer. Typically, parks offer softer surfaces, are traffic-free free and are generally great training grounds.
Tracking is simple with Harriers Running Club’s new website and app, which allows Strava or Garmin Connect users to upload their run data. A how-to live webinar is happening on May 14 at 7:00 PM PST to demonstrate how simple the logging of parks is. [PST = Los Angeles, Vancouver time zones].
Those interested can register for the Summer Parks Challenge at RaceRoster.com. Entry is $40 CDN all-in, no taxes, no admin fees ($29 USD).
