Runable: urban health run-project

Hello, I’ Alex, co-founder of Runable project. In Runable we do urban running projects to improve the urban health of the cities we live in. Every year the cities grow bigger and in 20 years more than half of the world population will be in cities. There is a risk that citizens will not have the right conditions to be healthy in the cities unless we become aware and act now.


We gathered a global team of 10 people from 10 different cities in the world. In November we will run the TCS New York City marathon in classic suits. Our aim is to support urban citizens on their first run. This campaign is global - from Kuala Lumpur to Chicago, from Brussels to Capetown. We run in suits to attract the attention to the issues of work/life balance, physical activity, an opportunity of healthy life in cities. 


Runable team gathers representative of US government, IT security specialist, advocate, running events manager, urbanist, lawyer, university lecturer, risk analyst, Europarlament consultant, technician. Everyone works busy hours but manages to find time for training. United States, Belgium, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Germany - these are the countries we come from.


We co-operate with global health and sports organizations, corporate sector, sports brands and media for the communication campaign. All of them support us as possible but their support enough to fill the budget and eventually to reach project goals.

Our goals are:
- to bring 10 000 people to their first run. The counting will be installed through an app on our website
- to succeed with a global awareness campaign running the NYC marathon with 10 Runable ambassadors
- to install air pollution monitors at the running hot-spots in the ambassadors’ cities. In case we collect more donations - we will add your cities as well!


In Runable we train remotely with a great coach in own cities - May-July. During this time we spread the information about the project through our media partners and social networks. In August we travel together with the team to a training camp in Eten, Kenya. We need this trip to train properly for the suit marathon and to show how city workers are able to integrate sports into their working and traveling calendar. From September to October final preparations will be done with special suits in order to perform on the distance.

November will be the very culmination when the project will reach New York and internal goals. At this point we will have all the information and awareness campaigns done, all the challenges run. The only remaining thing will be 10 real-life heroes changing the cities through their 42k run in classic suits through 5 boroughs of New York City.


We need 88 475 USD to support a concrete part of the project. The money will be spent on:
- Kenya camp - 30 220 USD (10 ambassadors and 3 team members) - this money will be directed to develop local growing running city of Eten, Kenya.
- photo and video production - 12 000 USD
- coach support - 5000 USD
- organizational support (6 months) - 32 275 USD
- documentary 8980 USD

All the ambassadors cover trips to NYC by themselves.
For the project work, where possible, we attract volunteers, business partners.
However, there is a sum of money left we need to collect through this platform to help people getting out on a run, install the city air pollution monitors and to raise the awareness through this campaign.

We run, support the new runners, change the cities, and create a movement.