What Is "Run Blue"?

The Global Water Marathon, "Run Blue", started on 22 March 2022.

The Run Blue water marathon is organized by and held with the support of the Thirst Foundation by the global activist and marathon runner Mina Guli in the most extreme places on the planet. A marathon will be run in all countries of the world (200 marathons) in 12 months with the involvement of more than 200 million people and will complete at the opening of the UN 2023 Water Conference on World Water Day 22 March 2023.

The Run Blue Water Marathon will host 6 global running and walking events throughout the year, including World Water Run, World Wetlands Run, World Climate Run, Sweat4Soap, Zero Waste Run, and World River Run. These races are aimed at raising the global community's awareness of water related issues and, most importantly, inspiring action on water.

The main goal of the marathon is to promote the goals and objectives of the International Decade for Action "Water for Sustainable Development, 2018-2028", to attract the attention of the world community to the growing water issue, to motivate for action, to mobilise efforts to achieve real changes on the ground. The marathon also focuses on climate change, demonstrating the strong link between climate and the water cycle and the need to bring these two global agendas together.

The marathon aims to have 200 companies commit to taking individual action on water as part of the UN Water Conference 2023.

An important goal of the marathon is to draw attention to the UN International Conference on the Midterm Comprehensive Review of the implementation of the objectives of the International Decade for Action "Water for Sustainable Development", 2018-2028 (UN 2023 Water Conference), which will be held on March 22-24, 2023 in New York.

As part of this Global Water Marathon a Central Asian Water Marathon will be organized and conducted in May-June 2022 from the Aral Sea to the Fedchenko Glacier in Tajikistan. The Central Asian Marathon will focus on water management and environmental, as well as related social and economic problems of the region, including the Aral Sea crisis, melting glaciers, the impact of climate change on the population, etc. The results of the Central Asian Marathon will be presented at the 2nd Dushanbe Water Decade Conference which is expected to be a milestone event towards the UN 2023 Water Conference.