Many people might want to start running for fitness, but simply don't know how to get involved. My advice is walk out of your front door and simply start running..., but some people prefer a more structured approach. In that case I would really recommend joining a Parkrun, a timed 5 kilometer run on Saturday mornings in various places all over South Africa.
Best of all its free and they cater for everyone from the racing snakes to the casual walker. Simply go to parkrun.co.za, register and print out the personalized barcode that it will give you and rock up at one of the venues before the 8am start on a Saturday. I would recommend cutting your barcode out and laminating it, but maybe only do that after you have decided that this running thing is for you.
The barcode is scanned at the finish line to record your finish time, position and age ranking. This is easily checked on the website after you receive the official email of your result.
I regularly run the Modderfontein Parkrun, but there is 16 all over the country including 5 in the greater Johannesburg area, being
Delta near Craighall Park,
Roodepoort,
Ebotse in Benoni,
Woodlands in Woodmead and of course,
Modderfontein. There is 3 in the greater Cape Town area being
Greenpoint,
Big Bay in Bloubergstrand and
Root 44 in Stellenbosch. Durban has 1 on
North Beach.You can find your nearest by clicking
here.
Recently Discovery Vitality partnered with Parkrun and will award Vitality members with 500 points for each run, you simply have to add this when you register and points will be awarded automatically.
