New Year Run Challenge
About this race
The New Year Run Challenge is an annual event held at Fleet Feet Mechanicsburg on New Year's Day. The goal of the event is to raise money for charity and to challenge our community to start the year off with a run. This event is considered a challenge, as it is not timed, and we focus on challenging yourself. The challenge is held from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on January 1. We challenge you to see how many miles you can run! We will use our classic 2.2 mile loop for the first 3 hours, and switch to a loop around DiFillipo park for the final 3 hours. You can run or walk any distance! Proceeds from our challenge are given to Communities Rising.
Course Map Can Be Found Here for the 2.2 mile loop - First 3 Hours
Course Map for the DiFillipo Loop - Final 3 Hours
Course will be open until 3 p.m. At halfway (noon) we will have a champagne pop at the store! This event is not officially timed, rather we allow participants to submit their distance run on a board at the end of the run. The goal is to raise money for charity, challenge yourself to start the New Year off with a good run, and to have fun!
Through this event and our generous community, we have been able to provide more than 800 pairs of shoes and socks to children in Southern India in addition to school supplies and food that Communities Rising organizes. These children are also given the opportunity to participate in a running program to train for a 5K race.
There will be no race day registration and event participation is limited.
Free Event Shirt for the first 140 participants
Participants are welcome to pick up their t-shirt and race number before the run at Fleet Feet Mechanicsburg.
Pick up times:
December 30 from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m.
December 31 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Pick your distance
Running
New Year Run Challenge
Typical race-day weather
Based on 7 years of Open-Meteo archive data for this event's race dates in Mechanicsburg, plus the 3 days either side.
The sun rises at 7:30 AM and sets at 4:52 PM local time (EST) in Mechanicsburg on January 1, 2027 — 9h 22m of daylight.
Course
No course map published yet.
The organizer hasn't released a route for this event, and we don't publish guesses. If you're the organizer, send us a GPX file and we'll draw the profile.
Reviews
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Results — New Year Run Challenge
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🏃 Plan Your Next Race in Mechanicsburg
Find upcoming events by distance:
- Mechanicsburg 5K Races 7 races
- Mechanicsburg Running Calendar 2026 10 races
Where this page comes from. Race details were last updated on . We re-check listings regularly and again in the week before race day.
- Entries, prices, waves and inclusions — the event's official registration page
- Temperature and humidity — Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0)
- Elevation and terrain relief — Copernicus DEM GLO-90, ESA (CC BY 4.0)
- Comparisons and counts — Race Discovery calendar, 10 Mechanicsburg events
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