23rd Veteran Brings Runners Together Virtually on Grandma’s Marathon Weekend

The Facebook group #RunTheVirus had over 1400 runners from around the world come together and complete their races on Saturday morning.

DULUTH, Minn. – Normally, the Northland is packed with runners participating in Grandma’s Marathon races. But this year, it was much quieter due to them being canceled. But one group made the virtual races a little more fun.

23rd Veteran is a local nonprofit that helps take military members and veterans out of isolation. They decided to start a group called #RunTheVirus, and the Facebook group has grown to over 1400 people from around the world.

“We saw that there was a lot of disappointment in the running communities. They no longer have their races to look forward to, their training schedules to continue, so we felt like we could help with this disappointment,” executive director of 23rd Veteran Mike Waldron said.

On Saturday, the group had their Run the Virus event. Starting at 10:00 a.m., 23rd Veteran had a Facebook live stream with music and guest speakers, to keep the runners motivated through their race.

“Any race that you’re signed up for, you can run that together with us in this 5 hour videocast. We’re going to keep you entertained, educated and engaged for five hours during your run,” Waldron said.

“Think about the fact that we are able to run, it’s a gift, that we are healthy. I just hope that you guys are really thankful that you can put one foot in front of the other and do it,” Olympic runner Carrie Tollefson said.

Runners would go out and complete their race, take a picture and post it to Facebook with the #RunTheVirus. Then it popped up in the livestream to join the hundreds that also completed their runs.

“You’re going to have a lot of comments, a lot of reactions on it and your photo is going across the screen of everybody watching so they can see you participating with them,” Waldron said.

The runners have gotten to know one another over the past few months and have created close bonds, strengthening the running community.

“It’s almost like you’re chatting with your brothers and sisters, it’s gotten us that close, that quickly,” team captain Jason Hoffmann said.

“The support is there and they want to do well because they know that they have their teammates supporting them and watching them and I think it gives you a little extra when you go out for your run,” team co-captain Jon Raddish added.

And 23rd Veteran hopes that this event proved the mission of their organization in helping runners not feel alone, and accomplishing their goals of running a marathon.

“Even though you’re not going to have the people there physically cheering for you, which is the thing that I probably miss the most about racing. But we’re doing our best. Without being there physically in person, we’re doing the next best thing and it’s brought a lot of people together,” Hoffmann said.

“The goal is to ensure that we don’t feel like we’re alone. That’s what we don’t want to happen during our virtual races. People are still out running on their own and we want them to know that there’s a community running with us,” Waldron added.

23rd Veteran is still raising money for their programs. To learn more, visit their website.