2021, like its predecessor, was a year that came with uncertainty and unforeseen circumstances. It has continued to be a struggle to keep promises, stay positive, and keep moving forward, but we at Run The Edge have managed to do this thanks to the amazing community that you all have helped us build. It has been a big year at Run The Edge HQ and we want to share what 2021 looked like from our end!
Our year started out strong with a banner year for our Run The Year® 2021 Challenge and the success of our creative shipping solutions to accommodate the covid policies, remote work, and unprecedented number of participants. Our small team had recruited friends and family members to pack and ship the 2021 swag from their homes and it worked! We want to thank all of our loved ones who pitched in and helped us send out all of the 2021 orders and we want to thank YOU for making our 2021 launch so successful!
Once the dust had settled from the New Year and order was restored, we turned our attention to something we had been working on since the summer of 2020: the FitLife Project. This was the successor to our hugely successful Un-Canceled Project and we couldn’t wait to make it available to our participants. We finally launched the FitLife Project in June of 2021 and it went off with a bang! We are so excited to offer this challenge because it is more dynamic, flexible, and customizable than anything we have released before. We built entirely new features and every member of the team added something special to the Project. Now we have monthly brainstorm sessions to come up with new challenges and are constantly figuring out new ways to make it better! It is still in its early stages, so we know it will continue to improve.
In August of 2021, our RTE family grew and we added a fabulous new member to the team! Brian is our new marketing leader and he has brought his own visions and strategies to our team. With his help, our team is stronger than ever and we are learning new ways to make our marketing better and our challenges more fun! Brian’s humor, customer-focus, and innovation has been an amazing addition to the Run The Edge family and we can’t wait to see what else we accomplish with his help in 2022!
In September, we opened our early registration for Run The Year® 2022 and you all came out with force! We were ecstatic to see how many of you registered early and we are already well on our way to sending you your 2022 swag. As you all know, the shipping and supply lines have become quite an obstacle for all businesses in 2021, but our tireless vendors worked their magic to make sure we received all of our goodies in time!
November saw our very first partnered FitLife theme, which was another big milestone for our newest challenge! We teamed up with ROLL Recovery for the entire month and had an amazing time encouraging people to try new distances and discover the fun side of fitness. We were also able to raise over $5,000 for Active Minds during our (don’t) Hug A Runner (yet) 5k for $5k Challenge, and we want to thank everyone who participated to make that possible.
We were all hoping that 2021 would be better than 2020, and in many ways it was. But there is no denying that it came with its own set of unique challenges and ordeals that no one could have seen coming. We have made it through another year and are looking forward to taking on 2022 with all of you, come what may. Thank you for making this community so special!