Ever thought of running a marathon, but the race date or location didn't jibe?<p>Do nagging injuries prevent you from ever getting to the starting line?<p>Are you feeling great TODAY, and would love to run a marathon TODAY?<p>Then DO IT. Be a random runner!<p>Tell randomrunners.com about your need for speed, the distance and route, and we'll tell running enthusiasts far and wide about your impromptu race. You can set up a marathon as quick as one hour (depending on the area).<p>Meet new people, stay in shape, and finally check "run a marathon" off your life's to do list!
Running a marathon is hard - really hard. Most people need month to train for a marathon and only run maybe 70% of the distance during training. A designated city marathon offers a lot of benefits that you don't get when running alone:<p><pre><code> - Blocked streets, no need to wait for traffic lights etc.
- They are at a specific date in the future which helps
you by setting a deadline to get in shape
- Spectators to cheer you on
- No matter how fast/slow you are, there are hundreds of
people around you, running at the same speed
</code></pre>
I don't know about you, but even people who run regularly are physically not able to run a marathon tomorrow or next week. So how many people are in your area who are able to run a marathon and are just as fast as you are?<p>OTOH: What about a site to set up "running groups". You specify a track/expected time and how often and when the group is running (monthly, twice a week etc.). This way you give people a way to organize groups, let them communicate if they are unable to show up, talk outside of a running context etc.<p>You might want to look into similar sites. Off the top of my head I know of runmap.net and mapmyrun.com but there are probably a lot more like this.
I don't know about marathons since I'm not much of a runner. But I have thought for a while that a spontaneous "meetup" site for normally solo sports would be a great idea.<p>e.g., say I like kayaking but normally prefer to do it alone. Today I'd really like to do it with someone else maybe for company or because I want backup on a tricky part of the river but none of my friends like kayaks. Go online and find 2-3 people in the area who are free and want to do it.<p>There are times I'd pay for something like this.
That's the ad hoc pitch for the idea I got about 30 minutes ago in the shower. I registered a couple of domain names and now I'd like to get some input from the HN clan.<p>Could this work? If so, what are the minimum amount of features I'll need for launch?