Festive Fitness Challenges to Keep You Motivated over the Holiday Season

Whether it's a fun run, an icy ride or a challenge organized on Strava, there are a number of ways you can stay motivated during the Holiday period, as Howard Calvert explains.

Ah, Christmas. Where chocolates hide round every corner, and keeping an evening free for exercise becomes as difficult as avoiding pumpkin spice in absolutely everything.

It’s easy to let the festivities become all-encompassing, and the first thing to make way for the parties and gatherings is your fitness. Fitting in a half-hour run or turbo session when you have work parties and school nativities to attend is far from straightforward. And that’s before you have to navigate your way round tables overladen with giant poultry, a thousand types of dessert and glasses overflowing with egg nog.

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But with a little motivation, it’s possible to add some (non-pumpkin) spice into your fitness over the festive period.

To help you get started, we’ve set some challenges to complete to keep you moving when the temptation to stay horizontal is strong.

Christmas lights run

We all know a house that has better lights than our own – now it’s time to pay tribute to the mammoth effort and expense those folk put into their Clark Griswold-esque Christmas decorations by running or cycling around the best displays in your neighborhood. Once the sun has set, wind your way round your local streets to locate the best holiday lights you can find. Pictorial evidence on Strava is mandatory.

Last Christmas (I gave it my all)

How many hours of activity did you do last December? A quick way to check is by going to your Training Log and clicking on December 2022. There, you’ll see how many hours you trained in that month. The target is to beat that total this December. It’s what George Michael would have wanted.

Mince pie quest

Brits go crazy for mince pies while the rest of the world looks on thinking, ‘Those look disgusting.’ If you don’t live in the UK, replace ‘mince pie’ with your country’s holiday-based delicacy of choice, be it stollen, panettone, yule log or kolivo, and your quest is to head out on a run or ride to hunt down a slice in a café or shop. It would be considered rude not to consume said snack as an energy boost before heading back home, feeling extra-festive yet slightly nauseous.

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Christmas tree pilgrimage

Which town has the biggest tree? Which city beats all others? Wherever you live, the challenge is simple – find the tallest decorated Christmas tree you can while on an activity and snap a shot, ideally with something else nearby to give it a sense of scale, upload it to Strava and watch the kudos roll in.

The Grinch workout

Not everyone enjoys this time of year, so it’s time to channel your inner Grinch by wearing something green during your activity. Extra points for moaning about the temperature/listening to The Who.

Christmas Day run

A simple one, but perhaps the hardest on the list. Despite the fact that getting out to complete a run or bike ride on Christmas Day is often reserved for the hardiest of souls, a run or ride on 25 December not only sets you up for the feasting but can also help clear your head if you’re feeling frazzled by the onslaught of the extended family and the bickering that comes with it.

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A partridge in a pear tree

Find an actual partridge in an actual pear tree and you can rule Strava for the day. However, for this challenge, finding any bird in any tree will do – the key is to take a picture and upload it with your activity. A pigeon in an oak tree? That counts. An eagle in a fir tree? Chalk it up.

Cold enough for you?

Freezing rain. Icy puddles. Zero-visibility blizzards. However bad it is the other side of the window, to complete this challenge you must venture out in it. Wrap up warm and drag yourself outside in the worst possible conditions, even if it’s just for a lap round the block. You’ll be cold, with numb fingers and frost in your hair, but there’s no feeling quite like being outside when everyone else is in. Be sensible though, and only go out in what you can manage, with the correct warm and waterproof attire for the weather conditions.

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Solstice run

December 22 is solstice this year – the longest night of the year. So to mark the occasion, this challenge simply involves going for a run or ride in the dark. Extra points if anyone can run or ride from sunset to sunrise…

If these challenges aren’t enough for you, there are always more challenging challenges to take on, such as the Rapha Festive 500, where you are tasked with cycling 500km between 24 and 31 December.

Whatever your plans, enjoy your holiday season – hopefully these challenges will help make it a little more active than it might have been otherwise.