Staying Motivated With #RunChatHunt

Now that the fall season is winding down and the ideal weather for runners has nearly passed, it can be tough to stay motivated to get outdoors. Add to that the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and all the treats and goodies that come with it and it's easy to lose that last bit of leftover base fitness you've been clinging to since the conclusion of the fall marathon season. Sure, there are plenty of local holiday-themed 5Ks worthy of your morning mileage, but it's easy to fall out of a regular running routine.

Enter social media and scavenger hunts. A scavenger hunt run such as #RunChatHunt is a fun way to get in some easy mileage without growing bored or skipping your planned exercise altogether. #RunChatHunt is free to play and the rules are simple - download a list of holiday and running related things find. Then take your phone on a run and snap pictures of the items on the list, finish your run, and post the pictures to Twitter. You can find all the items in a single run or split them
between multiple activities over the course of the month. When the scavenger hunt closes on New Years Day, you are entered into a drawing for a boatload of prizes, with one entry per item you've found.

With the increase in popularity of Twitter and Instagram, scavenger hunt runs are becoming more common. The holiday #RunChatHunt has been around for a few years now, and organizer #RunChat also hosts a hunt annually in June. Last December The Ginger Runner held a similar contest, and Finger Lakes Running & Triathlon Co, our local running store, has hosted one during the summertime. 

So grab your camera, go hit the trails or roads, and have some fun. Because isn't that what running is all about? Happy hunting!