After last year’s race, the organizers of the Nordea Riga Marathon set themselves an ambitious target of attracting more than 10,000 runners to take part in this year’s race. However, it’s hard to attract new runners if just about all of the willing participants already take part in the marathon. Even so, this year for the first time in its 20 year history, the Nordea Riga Marathon not only reached, but exceeded the 10,000 runner barrier. On the morning of 23 May, more than 11,500 running enthusiasts lined up on 11. novembra krastmala for the start of this year’s race. And this was no coincidence. It was a result that the team organizing the marathon, NECom had tirelessly worked to achieve every day since last year’s event.

Together with DDB’s creative minds, they dreamed up the idea, “One Run. One Feeling!” communicating the feelings stirred up by this fantastic event in all those who know what it feels like to be a fan of ice hockey, to take part in the Song Festival or experience the emotion of attending a concert given by your favourite group. The most interesting thing is that the Nordea Riga Marathon evokes the same feeling! Only in the context of a public run. This year, the marathon organizers also actively promoted the race on social networks including facebook.com and twitter.com, where the latest news about the marathon was posted on a daily basis.

However, this was not enough. The unique feeling generated by the Nordea Riga Marathon had to be made not only sporting, but also entertaining to attract less sports-minded people. Therefore, as part of the campaign, we decided to found the Latvian Association for Running Backwards. The adventurer, Raitis Reverss not only willingly agreed to become a founder member of this association, but also declared his intention to run the mini marathon backwards. A video documenting Raitis Reverss’ passion for running backwards and preparations for the marathon was viewed by almost 15,000 viewers. And his progress was also followed with interest by the Latvian media.

And the folks from DDB, inspired by Raitis Reverss, announced their participation in the Nordea Riga Marathon as DDB Averss. Three of us managed proved our endurance by completing the half marathon distance of 21 km, while three other colleagues joined the field of 7,500 runners that took part in the mini marathon. Click here to see the results of the Marathon. 354 days remain until the next Nordea Riga Marathon. Let’s take a breath and get ready!