HOUSE COMPETITIONS: Strava challenge results are in

RGS students and families threw themselves into an ambitious fitness challenge to determine which House could run, cycle and walk the furthest. EMMA BONE tots up the results and speaks to some of the highest achievers

THE House Strava challenge was a brand new, never-done-before House competition open to students, staff, parents and families. Which house could run, cycle and walk the furthest distance from January 12 until February half term? Well, the results are in!

Each house made a significant contribution to the total miles covered. For the running and walking competition, De Grey achieved 2,389 km, which is the equivalent distance from Ripon to Athens. Hutton reached 2,042 km, School achieved 1,895 km and Porteus came in at 1,223 km - making De Grey the House winner in running and walking.

For the cycling competition Hutton achieved 5,262 km, which is the equivalent distance from Ripon to New York. De Grey achieved 3,501 km, Porteus reached 1,774 km and School came in at 1011km - making Hutton the winning House in cycling.

Heads of House - Edward Mewes, Ben Rickard, Diyosa Mathew and Oscar Lees – have highlighted those who excelled in the challenges and those who achieved particularly high miles for their individual House.

For Porteus House, some of the main contributors include:

Freddie Dunn who cycled and ran and Mrs Lyons who mainly ran. Freddie managed to run 72.7 km over the course of the challenge.

Mrs Lyons did something quite unusual for the challenge and participated in RED which stands for Realistic Exercise Daily. She has run 76.5 miles since the start of 2020 and has achieved 124.5 miles in total in all disciplines this year so far. Mrs Lyons has really enjoyed taking part in the challenge and said she has taken advantage of the flexibility of home teaching to get out more. “Having more time for running and exercising helps keep me sane,” she says. She also said she has particularly enjoyed going out for walks on a lunchtime which usually couldn’t be done if we were at school.

For School House some of the main contributors were:

Sam Wright who cycled and Olivia Edmondson who ran. I also took took part and was selected as one of the main contributors to the challenge. I walked and ran for the challenge and managed to achieve 164.88 km over the course of the challenge. 

I really enjoyed taking part in the challenge as I managed to increase my fitness levels and achieve a 5k run personal best.

Olivia ran a total of 56.18 km over the course of the challenge and Sam managed to cycle a total of 863 km. He commented that he enjoyed the challenge as it was fun to do something during this mundane lockdown.

Some of De Grey’s main contributors include:

Mrs Gallagher who mainly ran over the course of the challenge. She achieved a staggering distance of 172.22 km. The Binks family were also among the top performers and collectively managed to achieve an astonishing 1,346.25 km. This distance was mainly achieved by cycling with some running too. Isabella said: “I am really competitive so was definitely up for the challenge. I enjoyed going on long walks with my family to get out the house. I also liked running 5Ks and seeing my time improve. I don’t normally run much but it was a great alternative to my netball training which was limited to being on Zoom.”

She explained that her parents love cycling and are also super-competitive so were determined to get as many miles in as possible. They said: “We loved the challenge and it was a fun way to share what we already do as we are an extremely active family.”

The last main contributor to the challenge for De Grey was Anik Imeson who ran 252.79 km over the course of the challenge.

For Hutton house some of the main contributors were:

The Burton family who mainly ran and walked for the challenge. They individually ran around 30 km each week on average and went on a walk every day. Archie Bordewich ran 171.24 km and cycled 314.06 km over the course of the challenge.

Archie has been training for a triathlon so has been doing a lot of running and cycling due to pools being closed. However, this didn’t stop him from achieving high miles. Archie commented that he has enjoyed getting out now it’s lighter. He’s also been cycling a lot on a turbo trainer ready for triathlon season.

The Mewes family also excelled and managed to cycle 3463.26 km over the course of the challenge. All of these individuals helped Hutton to win the cycling competition.

Lockdown was a difficult time for everyone. This challenge helped people get through it by giving everyone something fun to do and gave people the opportunity to challenge themselves. Everyone who participated achieved their goals and helped each individual House to achieve high miles by participating in sporting activities.

Well done to everyone who took part in the challenge.