What
Running of the Gnomes is an event that we’ve held for 11 years where the community holds a digital “run” from the Gnome Starting Zone to Booty Bay in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month and to raise money for a cancer charity.
The little event was so popular retail side that it gained a micro holiday, and when Classic Launched we decided to hold one with the original course that was changed when Cataclysm’s prepatch launched.
Donate
We’re raising money for to help fund The Cleveland Clinic’s research for The Tuohy Vaccine. The Vaccine is being developed to help prevent Triple Negative Breast cancer and the team is undergoing various clinical trials.
When:
Friday, October 16th, 2020
7pm ET/4 pm PT/11 pm GMT/8 am KST
7pm is race time, so show up early for invites, etc.
Where
Right where you log in as a Gnome. We’ll be there doing invites the afternoon of!
How to participate:
Simply log in on the specified day on Bloodsail Buccaneers, before the run start time and join us for a little adventure. We’ll have the invites, you just need to bring yourself on a pink haired Gnome. No need to level.
We don’t know how popular this will be/won’t be/etc, I suggest not showing up 10 minutes before the run just incase. I also ask showing some patience if it is massively popular and we get overwhelmed.
There aren’t cross realm invites, there are no trial accounts or anything else. If you can’t join us however, you can cheer us on on various Twitch streams or social media.
Discord?
Classic Hashtags:
#ClassicGnomeRun or #ClassicGnomeRun2020
A note about Racing Guilds:
We ask that even while it’s hectic, or there’s multiple guilds, we ask that you only join the guilds we’ve confirmed for a variety of reasons:
We use the guilds to give out directions during the run, we don’t want people to have unexpectedly negative experiences in a random guild, or be scammed with a false donation link, we do use them to have some idea of how many people are at the event.
Also they’re just our fun little social channels! <3 <3
You cannot pick your guilds. It’s just whichever one we are currently inviting to! We’re sorry!
** Guild names: **
- The Gnome Run Itself
- The Way of Gnomes
More guilds will be announced on our social media and discord as needed!
Whispering those of us spamming chat with instructions to do so the exact word INVITE will auto trigger our addon (thanks to Ellypse for making it!) to get you a guild invite unless you have a trial account.
Why Gnomes?
Gnomes are one of the few races with pink hair, making it easy for everyone to coordinate. They also fit the idea of something “Small” together adding up to something big when together.
What about tabards
People may have a variety of pink shirts and possibly tabards to pass out. They can be mailed, and traded, and they can be passed out to others. If you can bring your own, or spare an extra you’d be a hero!
After Party?
Yes! We always head to Orgrimmar and kiss/lick/hug the leader in charge. Classic Thrall deserves love.
I only play Horde!?
Yay Horde friends! If you’re on one of those servers and want to bring your character…Please just don’t get eaten alive by Alliance Guards, most especially Duskwood which has some very serious Horde Unfriendly Guards. It’s best to meet us outside the Stormwind Gates. Otherwise come be a Gnome because there’s no Cross Realm invites!
What if I die/ zones are going to be hard/what if I get lost?:
Keep in mind, the whole idea behind winning isn’t getting there first, but simply making it to the end. We’re not racing, we’re just running!
If you ask in the chat channel /join Gnomerun, or discord someone can try! I can’t promise that someone will, but asking nicely might get you some help. We’ll take a couple of small pauses to help people catch up at a few big stop points, but we can’t stop a horde of Gnomes too too much. It’s out of our hands at a certain point and we hope everyone understands 
The entire purpose of the event is to do something silly but challenging. Laugh and have fun if something happens. ½ of the years, I’ve fallen off the tram/gotten killed in STV/or separated from the pack in some ways. I still had fun. Don’t stress about where exactly you should be, the journey and enjoying yourself is the point!
Why Breast Cancer, isn’t there a ton of attention for this already?
Well, why not?
October is breast cancer awareness month. We understand we’re sugar coating something devastating for people with cute gnomes to open up a conversation, but for a good reason. Everyone’s been affected by cancer of some form. Plus, we really realize that breast cancer isn’t just a woman’s issue. It affects our moms, our sisters, but also our dads, our brothers, our friends, guildies, coworkers, and many other people in our lives. It’s affected people that we really love in our community.
We feel even if the pink hair and cute outfits or all these Gnomes remind just one single person to check themselves to get a mammogram or encourage that family member who hears to go in to the doctor who’s been putting it off we’ve done our job for the year. Especially in a community where oftentimes many of us feel we’re too young or any number of other things to allow ourselves to put it off.
Plus it’s really hard to miss thousands of Gnomes doing anything, let alone thousands of Gnomes with the same colored hair stampeding through half a continent. Even out of game it gets people talking for a day or two.
I want to help with the Run!
Tell your friends! Reshare our information on various social media platforms. Turn your guild’s tabards pink and talk about the vaccine! Ask your friends to come with you!
If you have another idea you can tweet at me @Dravvie/ Discord/Reply here or send me a message elsewhere!
Can’t wait to see you guys soon! <3
We’re repeating like this.