Every Run Counts: New website and app aims to make the country fitter and improve people's mental health
Ambassador Steve Edwards told Running Tales the concept will also support local running clubs
A new platform which aims to reward people’s every day activities is hoping to make the nation “fitter, healthier and improve their mental health”.
Every Run Counts is the brainchild of Jeff Hunt, and is being championed by ambassadors including king of the marathon, Steve Edwards.
Based around a simple app and website, the project hopes to encourage and reward people to walk, jog and run their way to a healthier and happier life.
Along the way they will get the chance to play virtual games with race entries on the line for winners, track their way around the UK’s coastline as part of an online challenge, and even donate to charity.
Steve, dubbed ‘The Man Inside the Machine’ for his efforts to become the first person to run 1,000 official marathons in an average time of under three hours 30 per race, said: “We are really hoping we can help people go on a journey to become more active, and through that become fitter, healthier and improve their mental health at the same time.”
He told Running Tales he was introduced to the concept behind Every Run Counts about a year ago and immediately thought it was a fantastic idea.
“Jeff Hunt introduced me to his concept,” he said. “This has been born out of his own struggles with mental health.
“He actually suffered a breakdown. Unfortunately, it meant he had to finish his career in finance.
“But he wanted to come up with something that would improve the nation’s mental and physical health.”
Operating under the slogan ‘It’s all good,” Every Run Counts is entirely free.
Once people have signed up, it tracks every activity they do from a race to a training run to a walk to the shops. In return for their activity, people receive a variety of rewards.
“All your activity is mapped against virtual journeys,” Steve said. “These start at Land’s End and work there way around the UK until you get to John O’Groats, which is about 3,000 miles.
“It’s quite a good parallel to see how far you can go with just your daily activity. We are hoping that will be one of the motivational points of the platform.”
On top of this, Every Run Counts awards people with a virtual currency called RunCoin.
This can be used to play prize games to win things like free entries to events, and there are plans for people to also be able to donate their RunCoin to one of a number of charity partners.
Steve said: “The purpose is to build up your RunCoin balance, and with that you can enter prize games to win entries to various races or events all over that country.
“Many of the events aren’t necessarily races, but are more inclusive - it could be the sort of event where you decide on the day how far you run.
“In a few weeks time, we will be allowing people to donate RunCoin to our charity partners.
“We will monetise it and make that donation to charity. We hope that will encourage and inspire people to get more active, as by virtue of doing so they can donate to charity without any financial loss to themselves, or having to go round with sponsor forms or getting money off other people.”
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Every Run Counts includes a comprehensive list of events across the UK, while Steve said his role is also about supporting running clubs.
“We want to partner with them to offer them support,” he said.
“A lot of clubs we’ve spoken to have indicated that membership levels are down, sometimes it is difficult to get members to renew or volunteering can be an issue.
“And even with club organised events, a lot have had to be cancelled because they are not getting the numbers any more.
“There is a lot we can do to support clubs.”
He said Every Run Counts hopes to help people to gain consistency with their daily activities: “It is not about getting into running, then realising after three months that they hate it as they’ve probably tried to achieve too much in an early term.
“We want people to think about it in terms of ‘activity is good for me’. It doesn’t matter how far or how fast or how slow, it’s all good.
“That is the most important thing.”
You can find Every Run Counts at:
Online: www.everyruncounts.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EveryRunCounts
Instagram: instagram.com/everyruncountsuk
Twitter: twitter.com/EveryRunCounts_
Steve Edwards on Running Tales: ‘The Man Inside The Machine’
Running Tales spoke to Steve Edwards about his attempt to reach 1,000 marathons back in July 2020.
You can listen to that episode on the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
We have a new episode with Steve, updating his story, which will run in the next month so keep an eye out on www.runningtales.podbean.com for that.