07/03/2026
Are you running Round the Bays this weekend?🏃🏼
Round the Bays grew rapidly in attendance from relatively humble beginnings on the 18th of March 1973, when around 1000 runners ran the seven-mile event from the Auckland Town Hall to Madills Farm, “the largest ever assembled for one run in New Zealand” according to the Auckland Star. Most in attendance had not filled out an official entry form, available exclusively from the pages of the Star.
The run along Tamaki Drive was actually one of two events organised by the Auckland Joggers Club as part of the broader ‘Fitness for Living’ public health campaign. Waitakere Walks organised by famed New Zealand athletics coach Arthur Lydiard formed the other. It seems only the far more successful Round the Bays event continued, growing explosively in attendance and continuing long after the end of the Fitness for Living campaign.
By the tenth event in 1982, the Auckland Star estimated participation at 80,000 people. If accurate, this figure claimed a staggering participation rate of close to one-in-ten Aucklanders (official statistics reported the population of regional Auckland in 1981 at nearly 830,000 people). True attendance figures are impossible to know owing to the high rate of informal participation, a matter which perhaps only serves to underline the level of enthusiasm which developed for Round the Bays. Some called Round the Bays “The Greatest Run on Earth,” a title used for a 1980 documentary about the event.
Watch the documentary here : https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-greatest-run-on-earth-1980
NZ On Screen
Image: Round the Bays run on Tāmaki Drive, 1982. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1021-0371. Photographer: Eric Young.
