If fresh air, river views and community at 8am on a Saturday sounds up your alley, then there is a new event coming to Seymour just for you: Parkrun.
Lucy Linten and Peter Nunn are co-directors of the event.
Ms Linten is a member of Healthy Kids Mitchell, a community group formed after workshops aimed at creating a healthier future for children of northern Mitchell Shire were held in late 2022.
When holding community consultation, Parkrun was highly requested.
Meeting at the Lions Park, the event will make the most of Seymour’s beautiful surrounds.
The 5km course is designed for all ages and abilities.
Mr Nunn knows the path well, having walked the track 15 times to get the 5km course exactly right.
“It’s an absolutely ripper little course … it beats a lot of concrete tracks down in Melbourne,” he said.
Mr Nunn first thought to create a Seymour event in 2016, after volunteering at Parkruns in Melbourne.
When he first called council, the worker was unaware of what a Parkrun was.
Since then, Parkrun has gathered steam. There are more than 470 event locations registered, including Shepparton, Kilmore, Benalla and Puckapunyal.
“It is starting to show up a lot, why it took so long that’s another question, maybe paperwork. We wish we could start yesterday but we just have to follow the criteria,” Mr Nunn said.
“We have had a lot of interest since the Mother’s Day Classic. We are hopefully not too far away … It’s well overdue.
“It’s been a fantastic response, the amount of people asking questions or stopping me on the street.”
Setting up the Seymour event will take some time, with practical and administrative tasks to be completed.
However, the event will soon be up and running.
Mr Nunn estimates, based on the interest he has received, that the Seymour event could have between 50 and 100 runners.
“It involves everybody, if you can’t run then you can help out volunteering,” Mr Nunn said.
“All different people do it for different reasons. The fact is, it’s fitness and wellbeing.
“There’s no pressure, there’s no fuss. In Shepparton there was a bloke who was 93, he did it the other week and finished it.
“There’s no restrictions on it, you can register a child from four years of age onwards. The only rule we have is that children under 11 must be accompanied by an adult. If you are taking a pooch, just have it on a short lead or not a retractable lead.
“It’s got that community atmosphere around it; hopefully we can go and get a cup of coffee afterwards.”
To participate, you must register for a unique barcode on the Parkrun website.
Please note there is not a page set up for the Seymour event yet; however, a barcode generated for any location will still be valid in Seymour.
Once you have a barcode it can be used for any Parkrun event, but for each event you must bring along your barcode to participate.