For some games there are level leaderboards which are essentially speedruns up until a certain point, such as in the Legend of Zelda Oracle games, there are speedruns for up until a certain point, be it having 2 essences, 3 essences, beating a certain boss, etc. This kind of system could work for Pokemon as well. You could run up until you have one badge, or 2, or 3, etc. I showcased this idea in Colosseum by going up until Pyrite Colosseum. Unfortunately the run died because of some bad luck with Quilava going into Hyper Mode and Espeon's stats weren't so great either. But hopefully my explanation should suffice.