IAMS, Strava Offer $10,000 to Their First Dog Marathon Champion

Dogs log the miles every runner skips counting, and starting September 1, those miles finally count toward something.

The IAMS brand and Strava are launching the "IAMS Dog Run Marathon."

It's a virtual challenge that asks participants to complete 26.2 miles with their dog between September 1 and September 30.

Strava's Pet Tag feature does the tracking, and a daily cap of 5K keeps the distance safe for any dog.

IAMS is making an effort to own a habit that its customers already have.

The two brands have run a dog challenge every month since January 2026, and the marathon tests whether the same people keep showing up.

The challenge opens just ahead of the fall's biggest marathons, when training mileage is already climbing.

Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall front the campaign with their own dogs, Milo and Winnie.

She won Olympic long jump gold in Paris, while he won Paralympic gold in the 400m T62.

Their following comes from the training footage most athletes never post, which is the same material this campaign asks everyone else to log.

"It's the early morning workouts, the recovery runs, the days when motivation is low and you're showing up anyway," the Woodhalls said in a press release.

"Our dogs Milo and Winnie are part of many of those moments with us, so we love that the IAMS Dog Run Marathon is giving dogs a chance to be part of the experience instead of watching from the sidelines."

Mindy Barry, CMO for Mars Pet Nutrition North America, used the launch to sell IAMS High Protein as a performance product.

With the event celebrating the dogs that show up for every mile, IAMS High Protein accompanies them and "fuels their energy and recovery."

She added that the recipe fuels a dog's energy and recovery, which puts a single food SKU at the center of a push that otherwise only sells an app feature.

Tying one product line to a month of tracked activity converts a promotional strategy into something IAMS can measure against actual purchases.

What Finishers Take Home

Participants who join through the Strava app can also claim a rebate of up to $10.99 on a qualifying bag of IAMS High Protein dog food.

One randomly selected grand-prize winner gets their dog named IAMS' first official four-legged marathon champion.

The prize includes a $10,000 training bonus and a custom medal.

The winning dog also gets a chance to have its face on a running shirt worn by the Woodhalls.

Another 26 randomly selected finishers win a VIP prize package of IAMS running gear and bags of food.

The program also feeds Mars' Better Cities for Pets initiative, which uses movement data to argue for pet-friendly design in cities.

Every prize here is redeemable inside an app, which makes the whole thing a piece of experiential marketing with no venue to rent or an event to mount.

Strava's 200 Million User Audience

Strava says it has more than 200 million users across more than 185 countries, an audience IAMS could never assemble on its own.

And this audience is already primed to bring their pets along.

Strava sells its challenge gallery as media, and this approach places a food brand directly inside a user's workout log.

The brands' January 2026 kickoff challenge, which asked people to log a single 5K with their dog, pulled in more than 91,000 participants.

And this number came with no gold medalists and no $10,000 prize attached, which tells IAMS that there's real interest and demand for the challenges.

Three takeaways stand out for marketers:

• Attach the campaign to consumer behavior: Dog owners were tagging pet activities on Strava before IAMS showed up; the brand just gave that practice a prize structure.
• Use a hard safety limit as a trust signal: Capping daily mileage at 5K tells pet parents the brand thought about the dog's well-being before engagement numbers.
• Let athletes carry a sports-focused campaign: Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall are training for their own races this fall, so the marathon reads as something they'd do anyway.

A rebate gets someone to buy a bag of food once, while a month of logged miles gets IAMS a full training season of data and attention.

Our Take: Who's Still Logging Miles After the Ninth Challenge?

This IAMS x Strava marathon is the ninth in a row, and this streak is the campaign's real asset.

A brand chasing engagement wants people logging as many miles as possible, and IAMS chose to cut that off at 5K a day for the dog's sake.

We think the safety cap also says more about the campaign than the $10,000 does.

Nine months of monthly challenges either built a routine people keep or nine separate crowds who each showed up once, and Mars has the data to know which.

Campaigns of this magnitude often require creative partners who can extend one idea across film, retail, experiential, and culture without losing coherence.

Explore these top agencies experienced in large, multi-touchpoint launches, helping brands keep ambition high while execution stays grounded.