Auckland Marathon Shakeout Run

In October 2019, Diego founded RUN4 in Auckland with a clear mission: help beginners overcome the fear and excuses that keep people from starting to run. He and his co-founder Marcela built the city's first running group exclusively for newcomers, creating a pressure-free space where personal goals matter more than pace or competition. Today, RUN4 has over 2,000 members who gather every Sunday morning at Victoria Park. They run 5km or 7km at beginner-friendly speeds (5:30, 6:30, 7:30 per kilometre), but the real magic is the consistency and warmth. These weekly meetups anchor the community, a place where runners build confidence, celebrate progress, and form lasting friendships. RUN4 stands for encouragement over competition, fitness over finish times.

The Muriwai Sea Slugs started in the 1970s as a loose group of neighbours gathering on Sunday mornings to run Auckland's wild west coast trails. That original spirit, built by Cameron's father and his mates, never left. When Cameron and his brothers revived the club, they inherited something rare in running culture: genuine continuity across generations. Now around eighty runners show up to the Muriwai Deli every Sunday at eight, heading out for six to eight kilometres through dunes, headlands, and clifftop paths where the Tasman crashes below. There are no fees, no pace requirements, no barriers. The crew includes hundred-mile ultramarathon veterans and people running trails for the first time, moving together at an easy pace before circling back for coffee and pastries. The Muriwai Sea Slugs measure their runs not by splits but by whether the trails were worth the effort, the coffee was hot, and the conversation was honest. By those measures, they have been getting it right for more than four decades.