As a second year…(or last 1/2 of 1st)

It is HIGH time I tell you about a little (ok, BIG) group of brilliance I stumbled upon over the Summer of 2015…

The Hogwarts Running Club is a virtual running club created by fans to help promote healthy activities (walking, running, cycling), feed the fandom need (with awesome race medals) and most importantly, raise money for various deserving charities “in an effort to change the muggle world one mile at a time”.

The first race and medal of 2016 (photo courtesy HRC)

I was excited to discover the world of virtual running AND find a fandom themed organization (that will surely keep me motivated). Training for a 5K last year was about the only thing that really got me moving. After the 5K was over, I found that I really liked the training process but couldn’t get myself into any of the local, face to face, clubs. I won’t lie gyms and large crowds of runners intimidate me.

Virtual running, also known as a virtual race, is an event that can be run at any location at any time at any pace. You can walk, use the treadmill, run outside or you can participate in another “real-world” race. It’s completely up to you! You can run your race at your own pace wherever and whenever you like. Is the distance too long? No problem! You can break the distance up over multiple days to make it more manageable. ~HRC

Needless to say at this point, this was just something I had to get in on. Little did I know that I was stepping into the most beautifully, inspiring and encouraging place I had ever known (on the path to fitness anyways, but I’ll get to that in a little bit)…

I started off at the HRC Facebook page and from there began the process of finding the right house. You can Google and find over a dozen “sort me into a house” quizzes, and I did, but I found no consistency with my results. Eventually I searched a bit deeper and found

pottermoreanalysis on Tumblr

Of course I was very familiar with the 4 houses but I wanted a deeper examination of them and I found it here…After reading through them all, I found that the Sorting Hat placed me in

I’ll let you read the description for yourselves 🙂

photo courtesy of HRC

Now that I found my house, I had to go join it!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/HRCHufflepuffCommonRoom/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/HRCGryffindorCommonRoom/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/HRCSlytherinCommonRoom/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/HRCRavenclawCommonRoom/

I was greeted with (virtual) open arms and encouragement to jump in and get started no matter my current fitness level.

HRC partners with a charity for each and every race event that you commit to. In addition to the charity, each member of the club is encouraged to keep up with their daily/weekly miles using Charity Miles

Charity Miles is an app that combines a list of different charities to walk/run/cycle in honor of AND a list of corporations that sponsor EACH AND EVERY MILE.

It is here that the new category SO MUCH GOOD comes into place. Not only is that now the club wide #hashtag , it truly is our motto.

As I mentioned above, this is the most incredible group of people I have ever met (virtually or otherwise). The Hufflepuff common room is where the love, encouragement and support started but it is genuinely a club wide movement. The charities for each event are carefully chosen and designed to help bring us all together in a world that very much needs love, light and above all HOPE. Daily my housemates are posting encouragement, victories (large or small) and also sharing the load (if I can borrow from another fandom for a sec) for those who need thoughts/prayer and positive vibes. Daily the Great Hall is buzzing with the sounds of fellowship and people lifting one another up.

Even though there are club/individual goals like Perfect Prefect and the House Cup, the club isn’t about your fitness level. It is about taking care of each other and that starts with taking care of ourselves.

I am not perfect when it comes to logging miles BUT knowing that each and every time I do, I am raising money for organizations in need and partnering with other people doing the same thing is good for my soul.

If you are looking for that kind of something right now, HRC is it!