Run For Austin Virtual 5K

Sign up today for the Run For Austin Virtual 5K race on Saturday, November 18, 2023. New this year, the race which has been held annually since 2021, aims to bring attention to journalist Austin Tice, as well as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who are currently being held in Syria and Russia respectively.

Austin is a Marine combat veteran, a seventh-generation Texan from Houston, a graduate of Georgetown University, and an award-winning journalist who has been unjustly detained in Syria since 2012. After seeing reports of the refugee crisis unfolding in Syria, Austin picked up his camera and headed straight to the front lines as a freelance reporter. He delivered important dispatches to The Washington Post and McClatchy before he was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus on August 14, 2012. After more than eleven years, he has endured the longest detention of any U.S. journalist to date.

In March of this year, Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal was arrested in Russia while on a reporting trip and accused of espionage, making him the first American journalist detained in Russia on such charges since the Cold War. Evan is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles and grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, in 2014. Before joining the Journal in January 2022 to cover Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, Gershkovich was a reporter for Agence France-Presse, the Moscow Times, and was also a news assistant at the New York Times.

Join hundreds of journalists and press freedom supporters on Saturday, November 18 by lacing up for this virtual 5K.  If you are local to the Washington, D.C. or Houston areas stay tuned for meet-ups and a very special Pancake Breakfast in our nation's capital.  We call on Syria and Russia to release these journalists immediately, and we invite you to join us in our efforts to bring them home!

Race T-Shirts

You must register by November 1 in order to receive a t-shirt.  Shirts can be shipped to a specified address, or you can pick-up your t-shirt in-person at the National Press Club.  T-Shirts can be picked up in person on Thursday, Nov. 16 or Friday Nov. 17 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. only. If you intend to pick-up in-person, please specify that on your registration.

Pancake Breakfast

Participants in the Washington, D.C. region are invited to join us for a special pancake breakfast at the National Press Club on November 18.  Tickets can be purchased for $15 as an add-on at the time of registration. 

Run with a Team

Don’t want to run alone?  No problem! Create and register a team or join an existing team. Maybe your team can’t physically run together but you want to feel power in numbers – we get it!  Give your team a name and tell us about it on social @PressClubDC.

Connect with Us

Tell us you’ve registered and tag us as you train by connecting with us @PressClubDC on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Use the hashtag #RunForAustin.  Share your results on race day as you proudly wear your virtual race bib.

Upload Photos

We encourage you to create posters and signs to take photos with on race day! Registered virtual runners may upload photos with your RunSignUp account. Don’t want to upload your photos? That’s okay! Tag us on social @PressClubDC and use the hashtag #RunForAustin.

Virtual Bib

Registered virtual runners may download a personal participant bib to print out and wear or share on social media. Bibs will be available for download after you’ve registered.

Finisher Certificate

Run For Austin 5K finisher certificates will be available as soon as runners upload results. Accessible through your Run Sign Up account, the certificate includes the runner’s name and finish time and may be shared digitally or printed for framing. 

Submitting Results

After completing the Virtual Run For Austin 5K runners can submit their results through participant account on Run Sign Up or email them to members@press.org.
Results may be submitted via a link to a public page from an app, a screenshot, a photo of a watch or treadmill or directly from a supported wearable device. Send both distance and time in your submission, or just tell us you completed the distance!

Your Donation

The Austin Tice fund holds money collected from businesses and individual donors who want to support the safe return of a journalist, veteran Marine Corps captain, and a beloved son taken in Syria in August 2012. The fund is being held to supplement the FBI reward for information leading to the safe return of Austin Tice, or if no reward is given, to help Austin transition back to his life after detention. In addition, a small portion of the funds will be used to support the Tice family’s travel and advocacy efforts. We will deduct the value of your t-shirt/shipping from your registration fee, and that's the portion of the fee that is tax-deductible for you. You'll receive a donation acknowledgment at the end of the calendar year from the Club's nonprofit affiliate, the National Press Club Journalism Institute.