A 200 Mile International Relay Race?

Bimeda colleagues from around the world complete a virtual Californian relay from their own country!  

Each year, keen runners from Bimeda take part in the Ragnar Race, which is a 200 mile long relay in North America. There are 36 legs of the race, with team members running different legs on rotation. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the physical relay unfortunately couldn't go ahead this year. However, the race organisers adapted quickly and allowed participants to run a virtual relay. To do so, runners went online to select the legs of the race they wanted to complete, and then ran the equivalent distances in their local areas. Afterwards, participants signed into the Ragnar Relay website to log their section of the race as completed. 

Rather than holding the Bimeda team back, this new way of running the race actually served to inspire them, and colleagues from all over the world decided to get involved! Now that the race was 'virtual' there were no geographic barriers to taking part and we saw 30 Bimeda participants from Canada, Brazil, the USA, and Ireland get involved.

And worry not – everyone was sure to maintain a minimum 2 metre distance from people they passed along the way, and all participants ensured that they were complying with local government rules, such as remaining within 2km of their homes for those living in the Republic of Ireland.

The race took an entire weekend to complete and was a huge success. After finishing, the Bimeda team enjoyed a much-deserved beer together via Zoom! Well done to all involved for finding ways to continue to work together even when we must stay apart.