Is your running group ready for a Jantastic New Year?

Last year more than 21,000 people logged over 350,000 runs with Jantastic – here is how your running group can get involved to give your members a new challenge or as a way of supporting your work to reach new people.

Jantastic is a unique and exciting digital challenge that gives individuals, running groups and clubs the structure and motivation to achieve their performance, training or fitness goals. In 2015, the goal for Jantastic is to see 100,000 people signing up to kick-start their New Year running campaigns, covering a total of 5 million miles of activity. Registration is now open and there are lots of reasons for your running group to get involved!

The 2015 Jantastic Challenge is now open with the challenge itself beginning on 5 January 2015. For more information or to sign up, visit www.jantastic.me.

Give your members a new challenge

Runners can sign up as part of a running group and so take on a challenge that sees them going head-to-head with others in their running group.  Whether as a way of keeping members motivated with training, building team spirit or as a new subject to share a joke about between (or even during!) sessions, this is something that will appeal to many running group members. It will help them track their training and stay accountable to their running goals.

Those of you who use Strava can even keep your Jantastic profile up-to-date simply by linking it to your Strava account.

If your runners cross-train they can also take advantage of the fact that for the first time, Jantastic participants will be able to set fitness targets in running, cycling and swimming (or a combination of the three). This means it may not even be the running aspect of their training they look to use Jantastic to stay motivated with. It could be the ideal way for keeping runners cross-training due to injury or illness.

Bringing new people into your club, or running group

Jantastic can also be used as a way of reaching out to those many people who will use January to set fitness related New Year’s Resolutions. If you are looking to get a beginners' group going, Jantastic has previously proved popular with many beginners as a way of staying motivated and seeing their fitness progress. New runners set personal targets and try and stick to them throughout the spring.

You can use Jantastic as another resource to help you offer beginners and newcomers a full package of support that will encourage them to get involved and see their running develop.

Head to the Jantastic website at www.jantastic.me to find out more about how to set up your running group team and how to invite your people to join you.

Several new partners have come on board to help make Jantastic 2015 an even bigger and better experience for those taking part and to help increase the numbers getting involved.  Confirmed partners to date include, Macmillan Cancer Support, Strava, Virgin Money Giving, England Athletics, Triathlon England and Tribesports.