The February Fitness Challenge (FFC) is an annual postal fitness swimming event held during the month of February. The purpose of this event is to promote fitness through swimming, by encouraging individuals to swim regularly and track their results during a one month period.
Established in 1992 by the Crawfish Masters Swim Team of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the February Fitness Challenge (FFC) was presented the inaugural United States Masters Swimming Fitness Award in 1997.
In 1999, “Fitness Frog” moved to a new home in the soggy hills of Oregon. The Tualatin Hills Barracudas now maintain the February swimming tradition by hosting this international long distance postal event. The Barracudas were presented with the 2000 United States Masters Swimming Fitness Award for this outstanding event.
After an absence in 2021, The February Fitness Challenge returned in 2022. The Challenge has always focused on promoting health and physical fitness, but also adds a fun competitive edge. Swimmers set a goal to swim as much yardage as possible during the month of February, with the ultimate challenge of swimming 100,000 yards or more. There are some that have taken that goal to the extreme! There are swimmers that have swum more than 600,000 yards in one month.
The 2022 Challenge was solely online, and had an interactive platform in which swimmers entered their results daily and compared them to other swimmers based on age or gender groups. Swimmers kept up with daily rankings, like who swam the most on a certain date in February. The interactive platform helped swimmers stay on track with their goals. The interactive calendar was also very useful, it was an easy tool to track yardage and it was fun to be able to compare progress with other swimmers on the real-time leaderboard as the month went on. Swimmers also collected badges as they swam more yards, swam five days in a row, swam on National Pizza Day or other holidays, among many others. At the end of the event, a link to the final results booklet and a personal Certificate of Achievement was emailed to all participants. There is swag too! Shirts, hoodies and ball caps are available for purchase.
Challenge yourself to try to swim 100,000 yards during February! Get fit and have fun at the same time. Join the February Fitness Challenge mascot, the frog, and jump into the pool with us in February 2023! Challenge yourself, your friends, and your team to see how far you can swim and improve your fitness abilities. We look forward to having you join the Tualatin Hills Barracudas in this great event. Any questions? Please email februaryfitness@barracudas.org.
Check out the results from 2022, as well as past February Fitness Challenge events:
https://februaryfitnesschallenge.azurewebsites.net