Team Mileage & Team Improvement Challenges
OFFICIAL CHALLENGERULES
Participation in The Running Project's Team Mileage Challenge and Team Improvement Challenge is subject to the rules below, designed to create a fair, transparent, and competitive environment for all participants.
1. Prize Eligibility
To be eligible to receive a cash prize, a participant must:
- Be an active, eligible member of The Running Project during the applicable season.
- Have a completed Running Project profile, including a profile picture and all required profile information.
- Maintain an active Strava account.
- Join The Running Project Group on Strava.
- Maintain Strava privacy settings that allow an authorized Running Project administrator to view the participant's profile and qualifying activities for verification purposes.
- Comply with these Official Challenge Rules throughout the season.
2. Activity Tracking
Only qualifying running activities uploaded to Strava and viewable by an authorized Running Project administrator will count toward challenge standings and prize eligibility.
Participants are responsible for ensuring their Strava privacy settings allow qualifying activities to be reviewed. Participants do not need to connect their Strava account directly to The Running Project website.
Walking mileage does not count toward either challenge. For purposes of these challenges, a qualifying running activity must generally be completed at an average pace of 16:00 per mile or faster.
Rise Up Sports reserves the right to review activities that appear inconsistent with running, contain unusual GPS data, or otherwise require verification.
3. Honesty & Data Integrity
All participants are expected to compete honestly and transparently. Participants may not intentionally manipulate activity data, including but not limited to:
- Falsifying mileage, pace, time, or elevation.
- Recording another person's activity as their own.
- Recording cycling, driving, walking, or another non-running activity as a run.
- Intentionally altering GPS or activity data to gain an advantage.
- Duplicating activities or submitting the same mileage more than once.
- Knowingly misclassifying an activity to make it eligible.
4. Teams
Teams must consist of a minimum of 2 members and a maximum of 10 members.
Joining a team is subject to approval by that team's designated Team Leader/Captain. A participant may compete for only one team at a time. Team membership must be accurately reflected through The Running Project.
5. Joining During the Season
Participants may join The Running Project or an eligible team after a season has begun. However, activity completed before the participant officially joins the team will not be retroactively credited to that team.
Only qualifying activity occurring on or after the participant's official team-join date will contribute toward team challenge results. Performance or improvement occurring before the participant becomes an eligible member of the team will not be retroactively applied to the team's challenge results.
6. Team Mileage Challenge
The Team Mileage Challenge rewards qualifying teams based on eligible running mileage recorded during the designated challenge period. Only qualifying mileage from eligible team members will be included.
The team satisfying the published criteria for the highest qualifying mileage at the conclusion of the challenge period will be declared the winner, subject to verification.
7. Team Improvement Challenge
The Team Improvement Challenge rewards the team demonstrating the greatest qualifying improvement according to The Running Project's published improvement methodology.
The specific calculation used to determine improvement will be applied consistently to all eligible teams. Final results are subject to verification before a winner is announced.
8. Cash Prize Structure
The total cash prize purse is determined by the number of qualifying paid registrations received for the applicable season. The applicable prize tier will be based on the final number of qualifying registrations as determined by Rise Up Sports.
| Registered Participants | Total Prize Purse | Team Mileage Challenge | Team Improvement Challenge |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | $1,000 | $500 | $500 |
| 100 | $2,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| 150 | $3,000 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| 200 | $4,000 | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| 250 | $5,000 | $2,500 | $2,500 |
| 300+ | $6,000 | $3,000 | $3,000 |
9. Distribution of Team Prizes
Unless otherwise stated before the beginning of the applicable season, a winning team's cash prize will be divided equally among all eligible members of that team.
Only members who satisfy all prize eligibility requirements will be eligible to receive a portion of the prize.
10. Verification of Results
Challenge standings displayed during the season should be considered preliminary. Before awarding a cash prize, Rise Up Sports may review the activities and eligibility of participants on potentially winning teams.
Participants may be asked to provide reasonable information necessary to verify an activity or their eligibility. If an activity cannot reasonably be verified, Rise Up Sports may exclude that activity from the final calculation.
11. Disqualification
Rise Up Sports reserves the right to disqualify an activity, participant, or team for intentional cheating, manipulation of data, material violations of these rules, or conduct that materially compromises the fairness or integrity of a challenge.
Disqualification decisions will be based on available evidence and applied in good faith to protect the integrity of the competition.
12. Ties
If two or more teams finish a challenge with identical qualifying results, the applicable prize will be divided equally among the tied teams unless a published challenge-specific tiebreaker applies.
13. Technical Issues
Rise Up Sports is not responsible for Strava outages, GPS malfunctions, device failures, synchronization problems, inaccurate GPS readings, deleted activities, or other third-party technical issues.
Participants are responsible for ensuring their qualifying activities are properly recorded, uploaded, and viewable.
14. Taxes
Prize recipients are responsible for any federal, state, or local taxes or reporting obligations associated with receiving a cash prize.
Rise Up Sports may request information or documentation reasonably necessary to satisfy applicable tax-reporting requirements.
15. Nature of the Competition
The Team Mileage Challenge and Team Improvement Challenge are performance-based competitions. Winners are determined by the published challenge criteria and not by random drawing, lottery, sweepstakes, or chance.
Purchasing additional memberships or making additional payments does not increase a participant's likelihood of winning.
16. Administration & Final Results
Rise Up Sports will administer the challenges and interpret these Official Rules in good faith. Rise Up Sports may correct calculation errors, remove ineligible activities, verify results, and resolve disputes when necessary to maintain a fair competition.
Final challenge results will not be certified and prizes will not be distributed until the applicable results and participant eligibility have been verified.
By participating in a prize-eligible challenge, participants acknowledge and agree to comply with these Official Challenge Rules.