Local Focus: A worldwide craze at a Parkrun near you

The Parkrun movement is steadily spreading. Made with funding from NZ On Air.

It's the Saturday morning ritual catching on worldwide, at a park near you.

"Mostly it's about community," says Flaxmere Run director Richard Mills.

Parkrun has two branches in Hawke's Bay, at Napier's Anderson Park and Hastings' leafy Flaxmere Park.

Mills' fellow run director Philip Shambrook said the timed 5km run was held in more than 2000 locations worldwide.

"Here in Flaxmere we have a three-lap course around this beautiful park – lots of shade," he said.

"It's always free. The tagline is Parkrun is free for everyone, forever."

Joining Parkrun "couldn't be any easier" at www.parkrun.com.

"Follow the links to register, and all you need to do is put in your name, your address and that's it.

"You then get directed to a page where you get your barcode. You print them off – you get six on a page – and just turn up at any Parkrun with your bar code."

Parkrun times are automatically sent by email. Hawke's Bay runs start at 8am and participants are given a briefing 10 minutes before the start.

The only problem with Parkrun is the name, according to Shambrook, who says it could be misleading, because walking was very important.

"The best thing about Parkrun is it is for everybody. Parkrun in the title, puts people off because it says 'run'.

"But one of our proudest statistics in Parkrun is that our average time at virtually every Parkrun in the world, is getting slower."

Parkrun tourism is a popular part of the movement.

"The barcode you get when you register is a free ticket to any Parkrun anywhere in the world.

"So really you just find out where the nearest Parkrun is when you travel and just turn up in the morning.

"They're in the UK, they're in Australia, they're in the USA, South Africa, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia - it goes on."

With help from Parkrun, last year Flaxmere Park was awarded the title of New Zealand's Most Active Park.

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