The inaugural Virtual Challenge has been a tremendous success. Over the course of one week, all fully participating primary schools have managed to walk/run well in excess of the distance from one end of the country to another. This is a huge achievement and the children and parents should be extremely proud. A huge thank you goes to all the schools that took part. The more schools that undertake these challenges and, dare I say, compete, the more exciting it is for the children.

The fact that Burbage Junior school managed to complete over 4,000km is incredible. They have dominated the kilometres walked from Day 1. They have done Leicestershire proud and, without a doubt, are prepared to take on any school anywhere in the country in any absolute distance challenge.

One key metric is that of the average distance walked per pupil at the school. This manifests itself in the ‘Equalised Distance Travelled’. It is here that a special mention must go to Peppard Primary and Shiplake Primary School. Peppard Primary has been monumental from Day 1. They have never relinquished their position at the top of this leaderboard and have forever cemented their position as the pound for pound endurance champions. Shiplake Primary pushed them all the way to the end and, in fact, was less then 200km behind Burbage in the absolute distance stakes despite having under half the pupils. Peppard, Shiplake and Crazies Hill were head and shoulders the strongest participants on a per pupil basis in this Challenge.

Congratulations and thank you to all the pupils, parents, teachers and other members of staff that participated. Use the next week to recuperate and prepare for a sterner test with the 3,509km London to Cairo Duathlon, starting Monday 4th May.

Total Distance Walked Per School (km)

Average Distance Walked Per Pupil (km)

Equalised Distance Travelled (km)

The ‘Equalised Distance Travelled’ allows the progress made to be compared across schools of varying sizes. The distances achieved are normalised against a notional school of 100 pupils. A school with 50 pupils will have it’s distance doubled, a school with 100 pupils will see no change, and a school with 200 pupils will have it’s distance halved. The calculation is shown below: