A virtual race or challenge is where you can sign up to complete a distance and compete any time, any place, whenever is convenient for you. It can be your local park, woodland, beach, in your back garden, at home, visiting a friend, during your work lunch break or on holiday. It's completely up to you. A virtual race, is where you walk or run the chosen distance in one go. A virtual Challenge, is where you walk or run the chosen distance over a number of days within the timeframe across the month.

Yes, we would love to have you as part of the Paw Runner community. So if you see a challenge you want to partake in, we look forward to welcoming you, whether it's borrowng a dog, strapping your toy dog to you hip or running on your own!

All you have to do is click on the challenges page, choose a challenge as part of your fitness goal that you would like to complete, then add it to your basket and check out. Once you have successfully checked out, you and your dog are officially entered into the challenge. Woo hoo! Good luck!

Each challenge starts on the 1st of the month and runs until the last day of the month. Depending on the challenge or Race, this might vary for each one. When you are choosing your activity it will tell you your start date and end date. If you smash the challenge in well under that timeframe, that is amazing!!

You receive a Paw Runner medal that has a different design each month, along with a reward for your dog. The type of dog reward may change on a monthly basis. When you sign up for your challenge it will tell you what dog reward you will receive.

We recommend that you sign up to STRAVA, which is a free fitness tracker platform. You can then join the official 'Paw Runner Club' where all your activity will be tracked. All you then have to do us send us a link to your page and we will do the rest. If you use another fitness tracker app or watch, all you have do is send us a screenshot of your monthly activity report via email to thepawrunner@outlook.com.

That's not a problem, at all. We appreciate that some people don't have these facilities, so all we ask is that you make a note of your activity over the month and send it to us by the required submission deadline. You can do this either by creating an excel spreadsheet to track your activity or good old fashioned pen and paper. All you have to do is then take a picture or email it to thepawrunner@outlook.com

We admire your determination to get started and smash your goals! Any activity done before the start date and after the finish date of the challenge or race can't be counted towards that particular challenge.

That's not a problem, we are just pleased you could join us! It's better to be late than never!! We are more than happy for you to back date and include any miles you have completed from the 1st of the month. Just remember to include them in your evidence when the month is up.

We are afraid the challenge is non-transferable from one month to the next, due to the nature of the event. We set deadline dates to help motivate you and give you a goal. We know from our experience as running leaders, that if you are not given a completion date to aim for, you lose motivation and can sometimes end up giving up, and we really don't want that when you have come so far! However, we appreciate life can get in the way sometimes, so if its looking as if you won’t be able to reach your target, you do have the option to reduce the number of miles on your challenge, subject to challenge availability. Please send us an email to thepawrunner@outlook.com by 20th of the month at the latest and we can check availability for you.

If your dog(s) are struggling with the challenge, you must stop their participation immediatley as it could have a negative impact on their mental and physical health. We recommend that you speak to your vet if you are worried about your dog. Most dogs love activity and lots of it, but they are all unique and individual like we are, so some dogs may hate running, and it can be seen as abuse to force them into doing something they hate doing. If you want to carry on without your dog, that's absolutely fine. You will still receive your medal at doggy reward once you have completed your challenge or race.

Of course you can! The Paw Runner is on a worldwide mission to encourage you and your dogs to get fit, healthy and happy, no matter where in the world you are from. We look forward to welcoming you to The Paw Runner movement!