Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the traditional Tomsk International Marathon model to keep up the running community`s competitive motivations in the global health crisis period. Methods and structure of the study. Tomsk is one of the 13 largest cities in the Asian Russia that has hosted, since 2018, the Tomsk International Marathon in compliance with the AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Races) and WA (World Athletics) rules, with a special contribution from the local running community. The Tomsk International Marathon is ranked among the top five marathons in Russia, with the Tomsk International Marathon running community estimated at 7100 runners as of early 2020. Results and discussion. Since the modern sports remain one of the key elements of the modern healthy lifestyles, we have reasons to believe that in the crisis periods (1) sports offer a powerful toolkit to encourage the human resource mobilizing, development and healthy lifestyle popularizing initiatives; (2) sports communities in their social dimensions may be highly effective in changing popular attitudes to the sporting lifestyles with their habitual training agendas; and (3) running communities may take leadership in the crisis periods to motivate people for new forms of competitions including the online ones, to successfully cope with the challenges of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.
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