Dunedin parkrun is approaching a couple of milestones.
The free, weekly 5km run at the Dunedin Botanic Garden will be held for the 100th time on Boxing Day, and will reach the two-year milestone on January 9.
Dunedin is one of 738 places in 11 countries where parkrun has been established.
The first parkrun was set up by 13 people in Bushy Park, London, in 2004 and the idea has since spread around the world.
Once runners register on the parkrun website, they are given a bar code and can turn up to any of the 738 parkruns.
Runners' times and personal bests are uploaded to the website and runners can compare their times with those of runners in other events.
Emma Haddow and Adrian Laurence set up the Dunedin event after moving to the city from the United Kingdom.
However, the couple moved to Auckland at the start of the year and Tania Hollis and Merilee Williams now co-direct the run, which is held every Saturday morning, 8am in summer and 9am in winter.
The 5km run starts at the Croque-O-Dile cafe and is made up of two laps of the upper garden and two laps of the lower garden.
A team of four volunteers take turns to run the event each week, and signs are used rather than marshalls to direct runners.
Since it was established, there had been only two weekends when it did not go ahead - Anzac Day of this year and an icy morning in the past winter, Hollis said.
''Come rain, come snow, we keep going,'' she said.
''It's a good thing; you can just do it when it suits. You're not obligated to be there every week.''
Since ice near the duck pond caused one run to be canned, an alternative course had been used on icy winter mornings.
The most runners to front on a single day was 87, while the average number of runners per week was 54.1.
Patrick McEwan (5) is the youngest runner to have completed the run.
Hollis said the numbers dropped off in winter but had been picking up since spring.
Seventy-five runners turned up a few weeks ago, and there were 69 last weekend.
Joshua Baan (15min 59sec) and Louisa Andrew (19min 52sec) hold the men's and women's records respectively.
