The race to retirement savings is not a sprint.

It’s a long, steady process where, paycheck-to-paycheck, you put aside funds into a 401(k) that will one day accumulate into a healthy retirement fund.

What better way to exemplify that journey than an actual long-distance run?

To celebrate financial literacy month, members of Utah Valley University’s Personal Financial Planning program in the Woodbury School of Business put on a 4.01K race last weekend at Mountain View High School in Orem.

The third-annual event, sponsored by Fidelity Investments, was meant to help people take strides to a more secure financial future.

“It’s a way to remind you that we’re running a long-term race toward retirement,” UVU professor and Financial Planning and Analytics Program Director Benjamin Cummings said. “We’re just here to encourage and support each other. … This is a chance to increase awareness of health and wealth and show how these two things go hand in hand.”

“At Fidelity, we’re passionate about two things: helping people prepare for retirement and giving back to our communities,” added Fidelity Utah Regional Leader Lori Smith. “This event is a unique combination of our passions. It’s a great way to engage and empower Utahns on their journey towards financial wellness and retirement readiness. We were excited to once again bring this event to life with UVU.”

Approximately 200 runners participated in the race. They started at the Mountain View track, then went around the school campus and nearby neighborhood, passing signs with tips and messages on how to best save for retirement.

“It’s aimed at helping our community understand and prioritize their retirement planning,” UVU junior and financial planning program member Jenna Smith said. “We know that a lot of people aren’t maximizing their matches to their employers, and really the event is aimed to target those people and advertise that our 401(k) balance is free money, like employer match, and we just want to make sure people are taking it.”

UVU professor Luke Dean, who organized this year’s race, said that half of Americans have no retirement savings in their account by the time they reach 65. The issue, he believes, is that people don’t know how to save for retirement, and UVU’s goal is to show Utahns it’s a simple process.

The first step, he said, is to max your 401(k) match with your employer. The second is to invest the money.

“The easiest way, the most low-hanging fruit is that when you get a job and they offer you a 401(k), take their full match and invest it,” Dean said. “If you do that, you’re going to be a multi-millionaire in retirement.”

Some people, though, may be concerned about putting their savings in a 401(k) and investing their money. Those concerns may be heightened in light of recent volatility in the market due to tariffs.

But Cummings assures the best way forward for young people is to stay the course, likening it again to a healthy lifestyle.

When you start exercising, you shouldn’t worry too much about checking your weight everyday because muscle mass weighs more than fat, he said. Similarly, instead of checking your 401(k) on a daily basis, focus more on the long-term accumulation of financial muscles.

“There’s research that suggests that the more often we check, the more detrimental our behavior ends up being with our investment, especially for retirement,” Cummings said. “So I just tell people, don’t check. Make sure you’re saving, and things will work out in the long run. Now, if you’re closer to retirement, certainly there’s a need to be mindful, and we might need to be scaling back on how we’re investing and how much we’re invested in stocks, but for younger individuals, just invest. And the fact that things are going on sale is something we should be excited about, rather than worried about.”