COP26 Virtual Marathon

Tackling climate change is a marathon we are all in together!

In anticipation of next November’s COP26 in Glasgow, Dartington Trust is proposing to host a month-long Virtual Marathon in October 2020. Participants can sign up with their intention to complete 26 miles of running or walking each week from Sunday 4 October to Saturday 31 October and share their intentions, reflections, images, stories, and videos to help make the connection to tackling the challenges of climate change:

• connecting themselves to a more-than-human world
• devoting time to human-powered alternatives to travel
• building a vibrant and resilient community

The COP26 Marathon will bring attention to our address of climate change issues on the road to the Glasgow event next year, to the work that our partners around the world are engaged in to connect athletics and sport with the environment, to initiatives at Dartington Trust around community and individual relationships with the world around us (such as through a new Movement, Mind, and Ecology MA programme), and to the essential work we are all doing together to build a climate-resilient future.

Key to the success of this challenge--and to underscoring the global nature of the challenges we face--is broad participation. To that end, Dartington is partnering with athletes, race directors, and other organisations around the world, including (confirmed) partners in the UK, South Africa, the US as well as (emerging) partners in South America, Japan, Australia, Greenland, Norway, and Catalonia.

Registration will be simple: Participants can sign up on the Dartington website for free with the option to donate to support the work of COP26 (80%) and of Dartington’s work connecting human movement with the environment (20%).

Sharing stories is a key element of community-building through shared experience, and we are exploring options for participants to most easily share their experience -- including invitations to share via hashtags on social media and by reaching out to registered participants with updates, encouragement, and digital completion certificates.