At RunNat, there is a team of Route Mappers who works hard in ensuring that every Runner has a map to guide him/her when they sign up for the Run. The designated map serves 3 purposes: (1) So that the Runners do not get lost during their Run, (2) So that every Runner indeed covers 5km, and (3) so that Runners don’t run in the same area. Kinda defeat the purpose if all of us are running and praying for the same area, don’t you think?

So we need a lot of maps, and many more Route Mappers to draw up the maps. Last year, for RunNat09, Klang Valley has at least 25 different routes/maps in our aim to cover 1,010km (Praise God that we successfully covered met the target). This year, we believe that God will bring in more Runners so that we can cover more land. Which also means, we need more maps.

If you are interested to help us out and be a Route Mapper, drop us an email or call Keney Martin. We will be glad to hear from you. And if you want to find out more about Route Mapping, here’s sharing with you guys the three simple steps a Route Mapper takes to draw up a map.

1. Review Your Area

• Review your area and identify specific needs of local community.
• List out specific places of need (eg. poor areas), community services (eg. hospitals, temples), power (eg. local govt offices), commerce, etc. to be covered with your prayers.
• The route for each area group should cover a distance of 40km.
• The run in each area will typically be covered by 8 teams of Runners in a relay.

2. Drive through the Route

• Identify route on a map.
• Drive out 40km and work your way back to the Hall, stopping at 5km intervals.
• These intervals will be your Designated Meeting Points (DMPs).
• Select your DMPs to be a visible landmark and a safe place to wait (distance may vary +/- 300m acceptable).
• Identify and photograph landmarks along the route.
• Photograph exact location of DMPs (eg. which side of a building; any particular entrance).
• Plot exact run route, eg. which side of the road you are running on and denote points of crossing the road (where required).

3. Route Selection Considerations

• Remember safety is the priority of the Runners.
• Select routes that are visible, brightly lit and populated.
• Try to plot routes running against the traffic (ie. run facing the direction of oncoming traffic).
• DMP locations should be able to allow the Team Manager to wait in the car safely.
• Avoid quiet, dark and deserted routes.
• Avoid running along or crossing major highways.

So if this is something you are interested in and would like to help us out, drop us an email. We’ll work something out.