Canberra parkrun is my winter running motivation. With the chill coming in this last week, Winter has started closing in on us Canberrans and with that, many of us will choose to stay rugged up indoors, avoiding the weekly run.

Every winter, I’ve been in the habit of dropping off many of my outdoor activities to avoid the cold weather and it has routinely impacted my fitness level. After 5 years out of town, I’m back in Canberra and I’m determined to try and maintain my fitness over the colder months. It was never pleasant to find that I lacked the cardio to chase a frisbee when the weather warmed up towards the end of each year.

Over the years, I’ve been involved with parkrun, a FREE community 5km run that’s held every Saturday. It’s open to participants of all fitness levels and it’s timed to help you track your running progress each week.

Even if it’s once a week, getting out and going for a run is a fantastic way to fit some cardio into the week. Hopefully, having a timed Personal Best will challenge you to fit in an extra run mid-week as well.

I’ve really enjoyed getting involved with parkrun. If you can’t run because of injury or any other condition, parkrun is always looking for volunteers so you can still be involved in the community. Active runners are also part of the volunteering team that helps keep parkrun running!

You can find out more and register for a time tracking barcode on the parkrun website.

Canberra Parkrun locations

There’s currently three Canberra parkrun groups (Tuggeranong parkrun, Ginninderra parkrun and Gungahlin parkrun). A fourth parkrun, Burley Griffin parkrun is due to launch on 18 June 2016. I’ve had many friends come along to enjoy the positive vibe of the diverse group of runners at parkrun and recommend it to anyone keen to keep fit this winter.

I’ll be running down at Tuggeranong parkrun until the new Burley Griffin parkrun kicks off in June. It would be fantastic to see some of you there and I’m always keen to hang around after to grab a coffee and to catch up.