Coast to Coast Challenge

With racing just starting to creep back (where looking at you Lubbock 70.3), it’s been hard for a lot of athletes to stay focused and motivated.  What we’ve heard from some athletes is why keep training consistently when there are no opportunities to use your fitness on the horizon?  What has worked really well to help our athletes are challenges — both those just for our team members such as Run BINGO, the Elevation Challenge and virtual races and those for the endurance sports community at large such as The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee , the Run Vermont Virtual Adventure, and the Smashfest Queen Virtual Races.

While individual running events are great, one our absolute favorite virtual races has been the Coast to Coast Challenge.  It’s a virtual bike race from Memorial Day to Labor Day across the country following the route of Interstate 40.  The race starts in Wilmington, North Carolina gives athletes options to complete the full 2500 mile trek or to set their finish line at a set city along the way:

Wilmington, North Caroline to Nashville, Tennessee (625 miles)

Wilmington, North Caroline to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (1250 miles)

Wilmington, North Caroline to Albuquerque, New Mexico (1750 miles)

Wilmington, North Caroline to Barstow, California (2500 miles)

The best part of the Coast to Coast challenge is the team component.  Sonic Endurance has a team of 15 athletes and, as of the writing of this post, we’re sitting in 5th place in the overall standings.  Plus there’s a little friendly competition among our athletes as to who can arrive at their destination first and who can pick up the most elevation over the course of the challenge (even if a lot of that elevation is picked up virtually on Zwift).  If you like to join in the fun, its not too late to join our team (password is hedgehog2020).

So far here are the individual results for our team: