Icelandic Roots Fitness Challenge 2022

Fitness, Family, Fun, Community

Icelandic Roots is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the third annual Fitness Challenge. This will be an eight-week event running from June 11th (the weekend before the June 17th Icelandic National Day) to August 6th (the weekend after the Deuce of August and Íslendingadagurinn).

Travel to Iceland virtually in 2022. Even if you are fortunate enough to be visiting Iceland this year, our missions are a great way to see and learn more about this beautiful country. The Lonely Planet named the Westfjords one of the top ten travel destinations in the world for 2022. Snæfellsnes is often called ‘Iceland in Miniature’ because of the variety of natural features: volcanic craters, waterfalls, glaciers, hot springs, and basalt cliffs.

Using the My Virtual Mission platform, this is a virtual challenge. Participants will have the choice between two routes:

The Westfjords/Vestfirðir - The Vestfirðir route is 698.4 miles (1,124 kilometers), starting in Eiríksstaðir, Iceland and finishing in Hólmavík, Iceland.

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula -The Snæfellsnes route is 82.8 miles (133.2 kilometers) and goes from Búðir, Iceland, to Stykkishólmur, Iceland.

Anyone can join—young, old, neighbors, friends, and family. This is open to the public; you do not need to be Icelandic or a member of Icelandic Roots to participate. As you progress around the route, virtual postcards will be emailed to you at various points of interest with a photograph and information about people, places, or events that occurred nearby. In addition, you can check out your virtual surroundings at any point using Google Street View. So, start forming your team to trek around Iceland.

You do not need to be an athlete to participate!

All your daily activities can be counted towards your distance. Here are some examples:

The cost of each mission is $25 USD. There is also a link to donate additional funds to support Icelandic Roots’ charitable activities, including the Snorri program, Icelandic scholarship and local heritage grants, supporting and hosting cultural and educational events, and much more. To celebrate our eight years of Icelandic Roots, we will hold a random drawing of prizes for eight lucky participants at the end of the challenge.

How to register:

Step 1. Choose your mission.

The Westfjords/Vestfirðir of Iceland - This mission travels Vestfjarðaleiðin (The Westfjords Way), a new driving route around Vestfirðir and Dalir, in addition to a few extra detours for a total of 698.4 miles (1124 kilometers). Your team would need to average 12.5 mi/ 20 km per day to complete the mission.

Here is the registration link for this mission:

https://www.myvirtualmission.com/missions/149483/icelandic-roots-westfjords-route

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula - This mission travels around the western part of the peninsula and is 82.8 miles/133.2 kilometers. Your team would need to average 1.5 mi/ 2 km per day to complete the mission.

Here is the registration link for this mission:

https://www.myvirtualmission.com/missions/148743/icelandic-roots-snaefellsness-route

Step 2. Set up your team.

Send an email to 22Challenge@icelandicroots.com with your team name and the names of all your team members. You may skip this step if you are doing the mission solo and do not wish to have a team name.

Note: Once the team reaches the finish line, the mission is over. So, choose your team size wisely. You may also sign up to do the other mission if you want to continue the fitness challenge.

Step 3. On June 11th, start your mission.

Remember, you do not need to go to the gym to participate.

You can find out how many miles/kilometers your day-to-day activities are equal to by using the activity conversion chart on the My Virtual Mission website at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1esGyCBnzSQtdAWMQl722lOBWJf1GQL8l/view

and applying them to your mission.

There are two ways to enter your exercise distances into your mission page. First, manually enter via either the website or the My Virtual Mission smartphone app. Second, your exercise can be automatically entered by syncing with your favorite fitness app such as Fitbit, Strava, Map My Run/Ride/Walk/Fitness. Either way, your progress will be updated to show your current position along the mission path and you'll get to see just how far you've gone and how far you have left to go.

There are many benefits to joining the Icelandic Roots Fitness Challenge 2022: Support Icelandic Roots, build/maintain your fitness level and have fun with your family and friends while enjoying a virtual tour of Iceland.