The Kentucky Horse Park’s renowned steeplechase course, usually reserved for elite equines, will become the exercise playground of fitness enthusiasts from across the region in June, for an event that local organizers hope will put Lexington on the map as a place that embraces active lifestyles.
On June 13, the first Great American Fitness Challenge, organized by the Lexingtonbased marketing group BrainBox Intelligent Marketing, will bring together fitness participants at all levels, from novice fun-runners to trained athletes, to celebrate a day of enjoyable exercise and healthy competition.
“We are calling it a fitness experience, not just a fitness event,” said Richard Ford, president and CEO of BrainBox. “We have blended together one of the most unique races you are ever going to hear about.”
Ford, who served as COO for Host Communications prior to launching BrainBox in
1999, has decades of experience in planning and marketing fi tness and athletics events. Among the company’s successes is the Great American Rivalry series, created in 2004 along with the company’s sister brand iHigh Inc., which celebrates more than 100 of the most competitive rival games in high school football across the country every year.
During the last decade, BrainBox also has organized fitness challenge experiences at high school gym classes nationwide on behalf of the U.S. Navy and its elite unit, the Navy SEALs, in an effort to address the general lack of fitness
among today’s young people.
BrainBox organized a series of events to give high school students a taste of what real
fitness was like, administering the Navy’s basic physical fitness tests in a fun and encouraging atmosphere with the help of some inspiring military role models.
“Our slogan was, ‘Can you hang with a SEAL for an hour?’” Ford said. “Our goal wasn’t to recruit. It was aimed at the physical fitness message, and an awareness for what the Navy SEALs do as a way of life.”
The events were a success, Ford said, reaching 70,000 students over six years, from Los Angeles to Dallas to Chicago. But fi tness isn’t just for those who are gunning to match up with the nation’s military elite, and it isn’t just a youth issue, so Ford and BrainBox started to consider ways to carry the fitness message further.
Too often, people think of fitness as a short-sighted health concern that they need to address, but it can — and should — mean a lot more, Ford said. The goal of the Great American Fitness Challenge is to present fitness as an entertaining and adrenalin-pumping way of life, a source of personal pride and accomplishment and a community celebration of athletic performance at every level by every person.
The day’s activities will include a 5K fun run, a 15K race, and both an open and elite division for a three-mile obstacle course on the Horse Park’s steeplechase course, complete with actual horse jumps and daunting exercise stations to be conquered before crossing the fi nish line.
All finishers in the 5K, the 15K and the obstacle course competition will be awarded
hefty medals for their accomplishments, with gold, silver and bronze versions presented to the top finishers in each event. Corporate teams and other groups of 10 or more can also
sign up to compete for the Great American Fitness Challenge Trophy, with each group’s top five scores tallied to determine the winner.