North American Running Challenge at Myspace Starts May 1, 2008

Andover, MN (PRWEB) May 5, 2008

Which state or province in North America can rack up the most running miles? We're about to find out! The Million Mile Challenge has taken residence on Myspace and is ready to put on that very challenge. How does one put on a running challenge that reaches out from Miami, Florida to Anchorage, Alaska? Just ask Dean Rice of the Million Mile Challenge.

"We've been putting on fitness challenges for middle schools and high schools, small and big companies, kids clubs and fitness clubs, so it was time to move into this incredible social network of people" Dean says from his home in Andover, Minnesota. "We've gone through the excitement and growing pains of putting on fitness challenges for 5 years and we're ready to take on something much bigger."

Fitnessrace.com was launched in 2004 with a fortune 500 company that Dean previously worked for. Dean was into biking and was building up his first web site, biketrip.com, when he was challenged to add a distance tracker for the companies May fitness challenge. "That challenge was the ground breaking that transformed my biking web site into fitnessrace.com and cover a host of features tied to walking and running as well as biking. The distance tracking part sounded pretty straight forward but I've been making improvements and adding features ever since."

In 2006 fitnessrace.com was entered in CNN's "Fit Nation" contest, with the goal of seeing who could implement a successful fitness program in their community. Wanting to get the word out on fitnessrace.com Dean partnered with Cirque Productions, an adventure focused media company, to come out from North Carolina and help him put on 2 1/2 weeks of fitness events in the Midwest, film it, compact that down to two minutes and send it to CNN. "A few months later we thought the contest was over and didn't get chosen, then one day I got the call, second place." Dean was ecstatic, and it was a great encouragement to the many folks who've helped him put on the challenge.

In 2007 the idea of integrating the Million Mile Challenge into Myspace seemed like a natural fit for fitnessrace.com and Dean hired Pearse Street Consulting to create a Myspace page for the MMC. "Fuchsia and her team at Pearse Street are just the best, and having done Myspace pages for Eminem, Bigelow Tea and even the Pope convinced me to go with them." The result can be seen and explained in detail at http://www.myspace.com/millionmilechallenge

So what is the North American Running Challenge at Myspace all about? "We've been campaigning for friends and setting up champions during the last month, and each of our current 23 champions have their own MMC Myspace page. At that page you can join that state or province virtual club, which is focused on walking, running or biking. Once you sign up you can begin to log your miles and help your state or province compete with the rest of North America. "The little avatars (pictures) and miles (or kilometers) displayed make the challenge very fun, it's very motivating when you see you're contributing to your state or province."

Companies and schools are also encouraged to sponsor a team of up to 20 runners for the May challenge, another feature of fitnessrace.com. "When a company or school sets up their own team of runners it sends a great message to their community, we're into this fitness thing and want folks to get off the couch and out the door!" Contact dean@fitnessrace.com if your organization wants to sponsor a team in your state or province.

"We're still looking for champions", Dean says, "and hope to fill out all 60 states and provinces early in May to make the fitness challenge a huge success." Direct all your questions to dean(at)fitnessrace.com and make sure to sign up for the challenge by going to http://www.myspace.com/millionmilechallenge

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