When you grab a cup of water or Nuun at a Get in Gear fluid station next month, you and the thousands of runners around you won’t be using a single-use waste product or something headed straight from your hand to a recycling center or composting facility.
Instead, you’ll be grabbing a reusable silicone “Hiccup” that’s already hydrated runners at dozens of events prior to Get in Gear and will do so again -- and again and again – long after you’ve hung up your race medal and worn out your participant shirt.
Your cup will be provided by Hiccup, the reusable cup service established by Kristina Smithe (and pitched on Shark Tank) that has kept 750,000+ race-cups out of landfills and recycling plants since 2020. Their reusable cups will be introduced at Get in Gear as part of the event’s and Twin Cities In Motion’s overarching sustainability efforts.
While Twin Cities In Motion has used compostable fluid station cups exclusively for more than a decade, the reusable cups signal another stride forward in TCM's sustainability efforts.
"By lowering our impact on the planet we’re able to contribute to being a part of the waste solution and we hope to lead by example and use solutions such as the reusable Hiccups on race day to show our participants and community that sustainable living is approachable,” Alana Dillinger, the staffer leading TCM’s sustainability initiatives noted.
“The addition of Hiccup to Get in Gear is a huge step for us in the direction of hosting a “zero-waste” race in the future.”
The Hiccups in use at Get in Gear will arrive after serving runners at the Newport Road Races in Rhode Island on April 19 and they’ll continue their endurance run on May 4 at the Tulip Run in Michigan as well as at the Providence Marathon.
The sanitized cups arrive at races in 17-gallon totes, which each hold seven bags of 50 cups, ensuring organized transport, clean cups, and efficient access for fluid station volunteers.
Unlike the less robust silicone cups popular at trail races that participants can take with them for personal reuse, used Hiccups will be collected for use at their next race. After runners use a cup on course, they’ll be asked to drop it in one of the large bins at the end of the fluid station or toss it to the side of the road as they would with a disposable cup.
After a race, every cup gets a dip in soap and disinfectant water, goes through Hiccup’s specially designed commercial dishwasher, gets dipped in 180 degree water, and is stacked to dry.
“Our first order of 5,000 cups was manufactured in September of 2020,” Kristina explained to Let’s Get in Gear. “We now have 70,000 cups in inventory and the last batch was manufactured in August of 2024. Altogether, Hiccup has been at 127 races.”
Kristina thinks even the oldest cups in her stock have lots of running and hydrating left in them.
“Out of our 70,000 cups in inventory, only three of our cups have worn through,” she noted, “and one was from a fraternity boy taking a bite out of a cup in Boulder, so I think they will last at least another 10 years easily.”
Out of our 70,000 cups in inventory, only three of our cups have worn through ... I think they will last at least another 10 years easily.”
And when their run comes to an end, she expects the cups to become playground mulch, since the cups are made from the same silicone medium used for that purpose.
"The addition of Hiccup to Get in Gear is a big step for us in the direction of hosting a “zero-waste” race in the future," Alana emphasized. “When each runner at a race with 5,000 people uses a reusable cup and when that’s happening at hundreds of races the overall impact is huge."
See the sustainability steps Twin Cities In Motion took at last year's Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon here.