International Running Flag of Friendship

I have this little South African flag that I carried with me during the Odyssey Ultra at the beginning of January. You can see it has a few battle scars from that race.

I’ve been thinking about a big flag with small flags from various countries on it for some time now and decided I can just as well start it with this little flag. I then decided as this flag went through a race with me why not cover a big flag with small flags that were carried through races?

My idea is to create the International Running flag of Friendship. This would be a white flag covered with small flags that were carried in races by anyone that would like to get their name on the flag like this:

The idea is to create a flag that look something like the example below.

I will still work out all the details but basically I will send the flag on its way around the world from South Africa to runners who would like to carry their country, state or province flag in a race and then attach it to the big flag signing their name beneath it. You will then send it to the next running friend to do the same. When full, the flag will be returned to me (hopefully) :) and I will then carry the International Running Flag of Friendship in a race of my choice to honor our friendship.

At the moment this is still just an idea, but I have a few plans to for the project. I’m thinking about a blog of its own to keep track and upload photos of the flag on its journey, a Facebook page, EPA and maybe some other places to keep everyone up to date. I will think about and post the rules and details over the next few weeks. In the mean time, please give me your feedback and thoughts about the idea.


After reading the first few comments I just want to add this: See red text above...you will carry a small flag and attach that to the big flag. You will not carry the big flag. I will carry the big flag once it is full and returned to me.

A happy week of running to you all!