Virginia man wins Strava challenge, gets free Chipotle for a year
Would you run on a 200m track for a month for a year of Chipotle?
A Virginia runner has won free Chipotle bowls for a year after winning the Chipotle Strava segment challenge for January. Joshua Bauer of Haymarket, Va., ran the 280-metre segment in downtown Washington D.C., a staggering 1,345 times.
Bauer completed 385 km on the 0.28 km segment with 1,345 attempts, which means he did roughly 44 segments/attempts per day and averaged 12.3 kilometres of running north-south daily.
Strava and Chipotle created a Strava segment challenge for January in six American cities, focusing on one particular roughly 300-metre-long segment next to a Chipotle restaurant in each city. The person who completed that segment the most times to become the local legend would win the top prize–free Lifestyle Bowls for a year.
The challenge came down to the wire in the U.S. capital, as three men were vying for the top prize of free Chipotle Lifestyle Bowls for one year. Blake Reinke, a 30-year-old aerospace engineer, finished second to Bauer with 1,292 efforts over the 31 days and 361.76 km completed. According to an interview with the Washington Post, Reinke and Bauer would often cross paths on the short segment.
New Chipotle and Strava challenge offers a year’s worth of free bowls
“It was funny, because everyone was taking the competition seriously,” Reinke told the Post. “No one really made eye contact. We just trailed each other after each stoplight, and then we all started following each other on Strava, and commenting and liking each other’s posts.”
The Washington D.C., Chipotle segment was the most popular of the six cities chosen for the challenge, which doesn’t say much for the extracurricular activities available in the nation’s capital in January. Even though the segment was slightly downhill, it had a stoplight in the middle, so on each attempt, runners faced the possibility of being forced to pause their watch and wait for the light to change.
Bauer will not get to eat at Chipotle every day; according to the contest details, the prize will be awarded as Chipotle Rewards, providing credit for 52 Lifestyle Bowl entrées.
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