This Thanksgiving, local running events company Easy Day Sports has decided to add some flair to the traditional turkey trot by creating The Great Pie Run. While there won’t be an in-person race, runners or walkers can sign up to participate virtually and receive an “I Run for Pie” hoodie sweatshirt, a finisher’s medal, and you guessed it… an entire pumpkin pie.
“With all of our events forced to go virtual this year, we’ve had some time to brainstorm,” said Jamie Monroe, owner of Easy Day Sports. “I read an article about a Costco in Kennewick, WA that sold 14,658 pumpkin pies over three days and thought, who doesn’t love pie… let’s give some away with a Thanksgiving run!”
As an event company during COVID-19, Easy Day Sports has had to get creative because they were forced to transition all 10 of the live events they put on annually to virtual in 2020. Since running events are currently classified as gatherings, there is no foreseeable future to when in-person running events will be back. As the event company for the Crown City Classic (Coronado’s 4th of July Run), they are hopeful that their live running events will be back in summer 2021.
To adjust to the pandemic, Easy Day Sports converted their conference room into a shipping station and has mailed out over 12,000 runner tees and medals for various events and clients this past fall. They also hired a software developer to design a virtual running results leaderboard that verifies times through the popular mobile app Strava, so runners can still race against each other virtually over the same distance. Easy Day Sports is also the company behind the Coronado 130 Challenge – a virtual fitness initiative put on by the city of Coronado where residents committed to completing 130 miles before Coronado’s 130th anniversary on December 11th.
“For us, the Pie Run is a chance to test an event concept to see if it may be worth holding a similar in-person event next year. It has also been a great chance for us to raise funds this Thanksgiving for Community Through Hope – the South Bay’s only Foodbank,” said Jamie. Easy Day Sports is also having some fun with it, hoping they are giving you pumpkin to run about so you can squash your fitness goals or at least burn some calories.
You can register for either a Virtual 5K or a 2418 calorie challenge at http://greatpierun.com for $35. Easy Day Sports will be handing out pies and sweatshirts from their office at 124 Orange Avenue on Wednesday Nov 25th and Thursday Nov 26th from 8:30am-10:30am.
