In an announcement sure to lift the spirits of runners far beyond the Land of the Long White Cloud, parkrun has confirmed that their weekly runs will resume in New Zealand on Saturday, 4 July. The return of the events will be cheered as one more sign of the reappearance of post-lockdown ‘normal life’. 

In March, parkrun suspended its events in all the territories in which it operates in response to the coronavirus crisis. Tom Williams, parkrun Global’s Chief Operating Officer, acknowledged that the closure of the organisation’s popular events ‘impacted everyone in one way or another’.

He wrote: "Within just a few weeks, of course, many of us went from thinking parkrun will always be there, every week, for everyone, to thinking it would never come back, ever. So, as much as closing our events was a huge wake-up call that we aren’t invincible, the reopening of parkrun New Zealand is proof that we can all get through this challenge."

While the resumption of runs in New Zealand is ‘a fantastic step toward the full return of parkrun events around the world’, runners in the UK and the 21 other countries still without their weekly 5k fix will have to wait a little longer for ‘circumstances to improve’.

Earlier this week New Zealand reported its first two coronavirus cases in nearly a month, both of which came from travellers to the country from the UK. 

As they have been for the last three months, parkrun continues to monitor the global situation, and are ‘considering their position in every single country’ in which they operate. 

Three weeks ago parkrun confirmed all its events would be suspended until the end of June, further noting that all events in any given region will be ‘required to start’ at the same time.

Image credit: parkrun