WP Engine Joins the Automattic Worldwide WP 5k

Yes, that IS a rather long title for a shortened marathon. But it’s a really awesome idea.

WP Engine ran the Worldwide WP 5k yesterday morning. Automattic’s goal for the 5k is to have the entire WordPress community, Auttomaticians and WordPressers alike, running the same race, staying healthy and having fun, no matter what city they live in. WordPress has no borders. There are developers and designers building WordPress sites in most cities on the planet who have never met one another, but who still speak the same language and have WordPress in common. The 5k is designed to bring all those women and men together, and WP Engine wanted to be part of the event.

We ran the event Friday, April 28th, at Lake Lady Bird in Austin, Texas. In true WP Engine style, we also added a twist to the event, wrote a script, assigned roles, and captured it all on film. If you all are familiar with Parks and Rec, or The Office, you’re going to love the video when we release it Sunday afternoon.

We want to thank San Austin Productions, who are an incredibly talented and professional film production company in Austin. If you need video work done, hire them. They took a good concept and gave it wings.

There are dozens of pictures the team took, so I put a WordPress site together with 2012 that you can check out at wwwp5k.wpestaging.qa. I hope that other 5k teams build sites as well so we can share them as part of the community.

When the “Parks and Req-esque” is released tomorrow afternoon, I’ll post it on the site. Until then, check out the 5k race pictures of everyone, including our founder, Jason Cohen, running the race.

Thanks to the Automattic team for organizing this global event, and for keeping WordPress a vibrant open-source software platform. Thanks to San Austin Productions for their hard work on the film. And thanks to all the gals and guys at WP Engine for being great sports and running the 5k while the cameras were rolling.

As soon as we release the video, we will let you know first.

PS, if you would like to wear a WP Engine t-shirt and go 4x faster next time you run a 5k, tweet the video tomorrow afternoon with the hashtag, #wwwpe5k, and we’ll ship you one.