The MetroRun team

Chairperson - Susie Hyatt

Hi, I’m Susie and I started running in the early 90’s, about 1991 or 1992, as a social activity really. I joined a group called the Hash House Harriers which started in Malaysia but now are worldwide and whose tag line is ‘A Running club with a drinking problem or a drinking club with a running problem’. Take your pick! I remember my first run vividly, I thought I was going to collapse it was so hard given the last time I’d run had been at school many, many years before.

Extremely slowly I managed to improve enough to feel confident to run a 10k with some friends and then a few years later, those same group of so called friends, managed to persuade me to enter the New York City marathon. It was a weak moment and I definitely think alcohol may have been involved! We all trained together and travelled together and even though I was last of our group to cross the finish line, the celebrations more than made up for it.

So 5 marathons, numerous half marathons, 10k and 5k runs later, here I am at that stage in my running where I know I’m a lot slower than I was 10 or more years ago but my enthusiasm for the sport is still there. I’ve been away from it and come back several times but it’s always been there to keep me going whatever has happened in my life, both the good and the bad. I have met some amazing people through running through the Hash, parkrun and MetroRun and the best thing is we all have the same goal – to enjoy running but don’t take it too seriously!

Treasurer - Julie Moon

Julie has been running on-and-off for almost 10 years, but never consistently until joining TempoFit. After training alone for two half-marathons, Julie joined TempoFit for the company and motivation of training with a group. Although some of her fellow runners suspect Julie is also motivated by gloating to her friends at Sunday lunch about how far she ran that morning (and using that to justify another glass of wine!), she does keep coming to training and has now been running consistently for 2 years since joining TempoFit and has completed another 6 half marathons. Julie is our Treasurer and plans the programme of Sunday morning long runs.

Board member & Race pacing coordinator - Michael Jenkinson

Michael is an active member of the running community. He is always more than happy to help fellow runners achieve their goals. Michael is a key support person and board member of MetroRun and is an Event Director for Western Springs parkrun. Michael has been running since 2014, mostly as a way to lose weight and lead a healthier lifestyle, but this quickly turned into a love of running. Michael has completed three full marathons and over 40 half marathons. When Michael isn’t at events he is a keen member of the Sunday run groups. He is friendly and approachable and has a wide knowledge of running, training and events.

Sunday run coordinator & Away trip coordinator - Chris Maffey

Chris is not the fastest or smartest runner in the group, but he is definitely the most attractive and known for his modesty

After a few false starts, Chris began running seriously by doing 1km per day every day for a month back in 2014.  Since then, by very gradual increments, 5kms have turned into sprints and half-marathons into regular Sundays.  Chris finds running in a group like Metrorun provides motivation and makes doing the big kilometres significantly easier.

Chris has now had enough of talking about Chris in the fourth person.

Sunday run leader - Tony Coombe

Tony started running while his children were young. “You can run at any time and not have to worry about gym opening times”.

He completed the Auckland half marathon 10 times before deciding to try a marathon.
He has now completed 7 marathons and is currently training to complete Christchurch marathon

FSAPSUP - Gretchen Moriarty

FSAPSUP - Fields Spam, Approves Posts, Shows up periodically.

Gretchen is a huge help keeping our Facebook account clean and up to date.

Social Media Manager - Liliana Prado

Originally born in Bogotá, Colombia. I started running nearly 12 years ago in my city.

I ran a couple of 10km races such as Unicef, Nike Run, Night race, National Geographic run.

Then I moved to NZ and ran my first half Marathon in 2019. After that I was just running half marathons by myself until I joined the MetroRun group in 2022 and got motivation for a full marathon. I trained and ran the Auckland Full Marathon. I also ran the Omaha half marathon with a couple of friends from the MetroRun group.

I want to become a professional runner as many members of this group.