Record number of runners at Christmas Day parkrun
Wednesday, 25 December 2024
A record number of people decked out in festive jumpers and Santa hats started their Christmas Day off with a trot around Hagley Park in Christchurch, and among them was blind runner Mike Asmussen on his mission to 300 parkruns.
“It’s tradition,” he said, seated in a wheelchair prior to the race starting.
For the past five years, Asmussen’s family have started Christmas Day off racing each other around the 5km course and this year would be no different, despite recently finding out he had terminal brain cancer and very little time.
The stalwart of the local running community is determined to fight for every extra day.
His nephew Hogan Ward won the family race crossing the line in 18 minutes and 30 seconds, while Asmussen crossed the line in front of a cheering crowd at the 49-minute mark.
He ran almost all of the course with his faithful Achilles volunteer guides, and only used a wheelchair for about 500m.
It ticked off his 290th parkrun and he was “absolutely” stoked, he said. It was the perfect start before a day filled with food, family, and games.
He was among 713 runners and walkers at the Hagley Park event - a new Christmas Day record in the parkrun’s 10 year operation, co-event director Maria Amos said.
Last year’s Christmas Day event drew 445 participants.
Amos was decked out in a Rudolph the Reindeer costume, with face paint and pom poms to match, as she cheered and danced to encourage runners across the finish line.
Hundreds of others were in the festive spirit too, with eye-catching outfits including Ben Sewell in a head-to-toe Alsatian dog costume and Glen Batchelor dressed as Santa Claus.
“It’s such a fantastic community event,” Sewell said.
“It's awesome to see people getting out and getting active and it's such a supportive environment too, accepting of anyone.”
First time park runner 6-year-old Zoe Clendon was able to open up one present before the race and was thrilled with her new bed sheets with a white love-heart pattern.
She completed the run with her large Christmas crown still on her head, unlike her mother Olivia Clendon whose reindeer antlers kept falling off.
It was the Clendon family’s first Christmas parkrun after Olivia and oldest son Jack, 9, started participating regularly earlier this year. They brought along their dad, granddad and uncles and hoped it could become a new family tradition.
Rosa Wakefield said it was a “good way to start the day” with her two children before a “big family meal with extended family”.
Hayden Walls ran the course with a 30cm long Christmas tree hat wrapped in tinsel and decorations, which he said got a bit sweaty while running. But it was all worth it, he said, to add to the “positive atmosphere”.
“We always do parkrun so it just makes sense on Christmas, it’s a bonus parkrun,” he said.
Parkruns are a free, social 5km event where runners and walkers of all abilities are welcome at 8am every Saturday. They are especially popular in Christchurch.
The only city with more park runners is Auckland, but attendees this year equated to about 2% of the city’s population compared to the nearly 10% of Christchurch residents who have taken part.
The Christmas event was Hagley Park’s 496th parkrun.