🤖 Greetings, human runners.
Race The Machine was created to give runners of all abilities a reason to keep showing up: a challenge that lasts, a target worth chasing and a year shaped by the runs they complete.
At the centre of Race The Machine is RTM 2027—the flagship year-long challenge.
Five classic Core distances. Five shared global Drop Weekends. Personal targets that evolve through the year. One continuing contest between each runner and The Machine.
For 2027, Race The Machine is also introducing X10: a separate monthly challenge built around ritual rather than personal targets.
Choose 5K or 10K. Return to the distance across the year. Complete ten.
X10 carries the Race The Machine belief in sustained participation, worldwide access and earned achievement.
RTM challenges you across the year with personal targets and global Drop moments. X10 challenges whether you keep showing up each month.
🤖 RTM 2027
Ten distances. Personal targets. One year.
RTM is built for runners who want structure, purpose and a personal challenge that develops across the year.
Beginners and experienced runners take part in the same worldwide season—but the challenge is scaled around each runner’s own results.
Your first result establishes your starting level.
From Race 2, The Machine issues a personalised target before every race. Submit another result and it watches, learns and recalculates. Your RTM Score updates and the targets ahead adapt.
You compete with yourself, the runners around you and, ultimately, The Machine.
This is not a one-off race.
This is a system.
How Far Do You Run in RTM?
RTM 2027 consists of five flexible Core distances and five global Drop Weekends.
⚫ Core Distances
1 Mile · 5K · 10K · 10 Miles · Half Marathon
Core distances are open throughout 2027. Complete them independently or use results from official races that matter to you.
You also receive two strategic re-run opportunities, allowing you to run selected Core distances again when the moment is right.
🔴 Drop Weekends
4K · 6.66K · 5 Miles · 50 Minutes — How Far Can You Go? · 15K
Drop Weekends take place during five fixed long weekends in January, March, May, July and September.
Each Drop gives runners worldwide the same distinctive challenge during the same weekend.
Drops are public RTM race moments and are open to everyone. Inside the full RTM system, they also connect to your personal targets, RTM Score and official season completion.
Complete any seven of the ten official RTM distances to Beat The Machine.
Choose an earned T-shirt entry and completing seven also unlocks the official Beat The Machine 2027 organic cotton finisher’s T-shirt.
The T-shirt is not sent merely for entering.
It is earned.
Choose Your Battleground
RTM does not prescribe a route or demand that you travel to a start line.
Choose what works for you:
Local streets: Dodge dog leads, delivery vans and rogue SUVs. 🚗
The park: Watch for squirrels and unexplained interpretive dance routines. 🌳
Track: Enjoy the efficiency of repeatedly arriving where you started. 🔄
Treadmill: The technologically advanced hamster wheel of running. 🖥️
Another race or event: One performance, two purposes. Even The Machine respects that efficiency. ⌚
Roads, trails, treadmills and tracks all count.
No fixed route.
No mass start.
No medal merely for entering.
Just your year, your performances and The Machine watching.
Introducing X10
Choose 5K or 10K. Ten times. One year.
X10 is a monthly ritual created by Race The Machine.
It shares RTM’s worldwide, run-anywhere spirit—but X10 is not governed by The Machine.
There are no pace targets. No adaptive performance challenge.
The challenge is simpler:
Can you keep showing up?
Choose the 5K or 10K Edition and complete your distance during the official X10 Weekend each month.
You have twelve official monthly opportunities, one Freedom Run if life gets in the way and ten runs required to complete the year.
Walk it. Jog it. Race it. Run with friends or complete it alone.
X10 is not about one heroic performance. It is about returning to the distance, building a ritual and reaching one significant milestone across 2027.
Choose an earned T-shirt entry and complete ten to unlock the official X10 finisher’s T-shirt.
RTM processes performance. X10 records persistence.
Which Challenge Is for Me?
Choose RTM if you want different distances, personal targets, adaptive progression and a season that responds to your performances.
Choose X10 if you want one dependable monthly ritual built around either 5K or 10K.
Or enter both: use RTM to chase performance and X10 to protect the habit.
RTM and X10 are separate challenges.
Current RTM subscribers do not need to re-enter RTM for 2027. Keep your subscription active and your membership will continue into the new season.
X10 is a separate, one-off entry and must be entered independently.
🌱 A Different Kind of Running Event
Neither RTM nor X10 requires a special journey to the start line, a prescribed course or large-scale physical event infrastructure.
Complete your runs close to home, oh holiday, at parkrun, on a treadmill or as part of races you already plan to enter.
There are no medals distributed simply because someone paid an entry fee.
Where an earned T-shirt entry is selected, the finisher’s T-shirt must still be unlocked by completing the challenge.
Our earned finisher’s T-shirts are made from organic cotton and shipped worldwide once earned.
🤖 The Origin Story
At the dawn of 2021, amid the Great Pandemic, Race The Machine emerged from the digital primordial soup.
Created by runner and running-club founder Michael Loudon, the original idea was straightforward: give each runner a meaningful target and ask them to beat it.
From that idea came The Machine—an enigmatic opponent capable of turning a worldwide field of runners into individual, personal races.
Since then, RTM has developed into a complete year-long system of personal targets, distinctive distances and shared global race moments.
Now X10 introduces something different: a monthly ritual in which showing up matters more than defeating the clock.
Two challenges. Two different forms of motivation.
One continuing instruction:
Keep chasing.
What Runners Say 💬
“Entirely flexible and therefore easy to stick with, but a great motivator across the year.”
— Lynn Hill, Bedford
“Race The Machine is a fantastic event and very well run. The technical T-shirt I also bought is great quality.”
— Stuart Milton, Balloch
“It’s a great idea and far superior to other events out there.”
— Maria Merridan, Corby Glen
“Thanks to this challenge, I had the confidence to tackle the world’s biggest marathon.”
— John Todd, Derby
Questions?
Need guidance, have a question or simply want to debate whether humanity has finally accumulated enough shiny medals?
Email hello@racethemachine.co.uk.
The Machine will be watching.
X10 will be waiting.
#KeepChasing
Hi there
Please explain how I submit my results . Also is there a particular time/ month that I have to do a distance or is it anytime throughout the year?
Thank you in advance
Bex x
Hello human no.24. You can upload a result at any time between Jan 1st and Dec 31st here: Submit a Result
So what is the difference between RTM and RTM core?
Hello Human,
Premium – 12 curated distances – adaptive targets – 1 year – world-wide entry – finishers t-shirt – 4 strategic extra attempts.
Core – 12 curated distances – adaptive targets – 1 year – world-wide entry.