Virtual National Trails - The Cotswold Way

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MEDALS UPDATE
We received the medals today (22nd) and will have them posted out by tomorrow
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Virtually run, hike or walk the Cotswold Way with us during August.

Our latest event in the Virtual National Trails series reaches the the Cotswold Way which runs just over a 100 miles from the could-hardly-be-more-English market town of Chipping Campden down to the Roman city of Bath.

It's a journey through rolling pastures, woodlands of beech and picture-postcard villages constructed from local stone.

How does it work

All walks, runs and hikes count towards your total during the entire month.  You can join in any time before the close of the 15th August and backdate any activities from the 1st of the month.

Register your miles either manually or with Strava (a free Strava account is all you need) and we'll plot your progress on our live map.

We're starting from the trail head in Chipping Campden and there are three routes on offer - pick a challenge to suit you (make your choice in the entry form)

•     100km (c.62 miles - 3.2km or 2 miles per day) - Dursley
•     160km (c.100 miles - 5.2km or 3.2 miles per day) - the full trail to Bath
•     320km (c.200 miles - 10.4km or 6.4 miles per day) - the round trip of Chipping Campden to Bath and back again

Changing Goal Distances

We allow you to switch routes up until the closing date of the event on the 15th August, so if you're finding you're crushing your challenge and want to push harder, or time constraints mean you can't put in the miles you'd hoped - no problem!

To do this, go to My Account -> Tickets and Entries.  Click the 'entry form' tab under the ticket for the event and make your changes to your form.

Pacing Assistance
Your map includes a pace rabbit - it'll set off at the exact speed needed to complete your challenge at midnight on August 31st so try to stay ahead of it!  The map will also tell you how far ahead or behind pace you are and how many km/mi per day you need to complete from that point onwards.

A DONATION TO THE TRAIL IS INCLUDED

Our National Trails are priceless resources take a huge amount of maintenance, which relies on an army of volunteers and never-ending battles for scarce budgets.

We donate £1.15 from each entry to the National Trails to help support their upkeep and make sure they are available for us and future generations.  That may sound like an odd number - but there's a £1 contribution made per entry directly, plus, as a 1% for the Planet Member, we additionally donate a minimum of 1% of our entire business revenue.

Awards

It's important to us that we support local businesses and reduce the environmental impact of our events as far as possible.

Complete your challenge and we'll send you a bespoke, wooden medal to commemorate your achievement.  We choose wood because we can source sustainable materials whereas a metal medal is made from base metals with no scrap resale value so these ultimately end up in landfill.

We will also send you a real postcard through the mail featuring a stunning shot from the trail with your challenge achievements on the back, and you can download a certificate for the fridge door from the UltraBritain site post-event.

We're proud to be supported by our local sports store - Apex Sports - who are offering all entrants a very generous 15% off all non-sale items (we will send you a discount code with your joining instructions).

You can recoup the price of this event with the savings from a single pair of shoes!
Important : Apex are currently only shipping to UK addresses

We're also proud to partner with Trees Not Tees who plant native trees in their managed forests in Scotland to offset CO2.  If you don't want a medal posted out to you, you can exchange it for your very own tree!

Trees Not Tees will email you a certificate of ownership, a photo of your sapling tree and even the exact location in what3words format.  You can even go and visit! This is a fantastic way of doing something positive for the environment and we'll add your tree to the event map and also to your own copse within our virtual forest.

You will need to complete your challenge to receive a medal.  If you have opted for a tree, one will be planted for you whether or not you complete the challenge.

Awards will be posted out around the 8th September to allow time for everyone to log their final miles.

Logging Your Miles

It's very simple to record miles either manually, or automatically if you use Strava.

With Strava

•     You need a free Strava account
•     Below the map on this page find the orange 'connect with Strava' button
•     Click that and you'll be taken to Strava to approve the connection
•     That's it!

Note that - we request read-only access to your Strava account which means that we cannot write to your page and we can only read public activities from public accounts.  Ensure your activities are recorded as one of 'hike', 'walk', 'run' or 'virtualrun'.  It may take up to an hour to collect your data from Strava and update the leaderboard.

Logging Manually

•     Log in to your Ultrabritain account and return to this page
•     Above the map you will find a blue 'Your Activities' button
•     Click that and a popup will show all activities we've recorded for you to date and let you log more
•     Recording is simply a matter of clicking the date on a calendar and entering the distance in either km or miles

You will have up until the 7th September to log miles accrued between the 1st and 31st of August.



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