The New York City Marathon may be happening virtually this year, and runners from all over, including those from various Achilles International chapters across the world, are taking the situation in stride and planning their virtual marathons.
According to Achilles, runners in Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Norway, Russia, and Canada will be participating to help race money for their chapters. And the Achilles Mongolia is going all out.
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Around 100 runners will get together in the National Garden Park in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar to run a 7K looped course on October 24 (October 23 in the U.S.).
At the start of the pandemic, Mongolia implemented strict lockdown guidelines in the country. Because of these efforts, Mongolia has had 328 total cases and zero deaths, but it made training difficult for the group.
“We used a free app from Nike to keep training together and logging our runs,” Tumurkhuu Davaakhuu, co-founder and board chair of Achilles Mongolia, told Runner’s World. “We did everything we could except for meeting together, and people worked year-round, so we didn’t want to let them down.”
Initially, the group, which was founded in 2014, was hoping to do a small event with runners and guides, but when Achilles International and New York Road Runners heard about the run, they jumped in and gave their race a proper feel.
Now, the race is being live streamed on the Facebook pages of Achilles International, the New York City Marathon, and Achilles Mongolia starting at 8:45 p.m. ET (8:45 a.m. local time on October 24).
“A lot of disabled people don’t really have much hope or excitement here because of years of isolation and health issues, mental and physical,” Davaakhuu said. “Something like this gets them out of their comfort zone and offers them a chance to see role models who have gone outside of Mongolia and have been able to run in the world’s biggest marathon. It’s a spark of hope to see someone economically and socially the same status as they are. Maybe they can do it, too.”
The run will include hand cyclists, blade runners, visually-impaired runners, runners with cognitive disabilities, and guide runners all running along the river on a bike path in the park. They will be running in cold temperatures that are expected to be around 22 degrees Fahrenheit when the race starts.
Achilles Mongolia is completely run by volunteers, and it operates entirely on donations, which are crucial to give their runners experiences like local races and international marathons. Every year, the group sends a group of runners to New York to run the NYC Marathon—they sent 23 athletes in 2019.
They have set up a GoFundMe page for the virtual event, which you can donate to here.
“What we’re doing has been largely put on by our great volunteers,” Davaakhuu said. “The idea of philanthropy and charitable giving is not a practical priority for the majority of the population making $400 a month. So, locally, we’ve never been able to raise significant amounts to pay for our athletes’ travel costs. That’s why we’re looking to raise money and hoping to at least break even if we’re lucky.”
In addition to financial donations, Davaakhuu also said that they are always looking for volunteers—and you don’t need to live in Mongolia to be a volunteer. They are always looking for assistance with communications, social media, and program development. To get in touch with the group, Davaakhuu said you can contact them through their Facebook page.
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Drew covers a variety of subjects for Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand. His work has previously been published in Men’s Health.
