Do you think you live in the world's fastest city?
Under Armour has thrown down a challenge to runners, kicking off a three-week long Global City Challenge designed to pinpoint that fastest place and, perhaps, drive a bit of traffic to its fitness website.
It works like this.
Through MapMyRun, a website of the Under Armour-owned MapMyFitness app, runners register in one of 15 participating cities and track their progress. They'll gain points based on the speed of each mile and how many they cover.
Besides Baltimore, U.S. cities include Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Austin and Denver. International sites are Mexico City, London, Paris, Melbourne, Munich and Toronto.
Under Armour described the competition as the "first global showdown of its kind from MapMyFitness, part of Under Armour's growing Connected Fitness platform."
The company bought MapMyFitness in December 2013 and has since pushed further into the world of connected fitness, announcing last month that it was buying two companies that make fitness apps. It is acquiring San Francisco-based MyFitnessPal for $475 million and bought Endomondo, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, for $85 million.
In the Global City Challenge, running shoes, in addition to bragging rights, are at stake. All participants will get a MapMyRun badge. The fastest runner in each city will get a pair of Under Armour SpeedForm Gemini running shoes. And the overall fastest runner will get an all-expenses paid trip to an international race.
The competition, under way now, goes through April 15.
lorraine.mirabella@baltsun.com