Why Olympic?

Olympic Harriers is a running and walking club based in Johnsonville, in the northern suburbs of Wellington. We cater for all levels of the sport, including children’s athletics for the primary to intermediate school-aged kids, social running and walking, and competitive harriers (cross country and road) and athletics (track and field).

Some people in the sport are competitive, and compete at the regional, national or international level. For most people, it’s about getting fit and having someone to walk or run with. Or it’s about improving 5km fun run times, or half marathon times. Others want support in achieving a full marathon.

Whatever you want to achieve, Olympic can help. Running — the sport where you set the fitness level you and and you set your fitness level.

What we do

Our main season is the harrier season, which runs over winter from April to October. During this time we follow our own syllabus that consists of club runs, club races and inter-club races (see the calendar).

During the athletics season (October to March) we participate in the Athletics Wellington syllabus, or if that’s not your thing we have summer club runs each week.

Club runs are social runs where we split into different packs so everyone gets to run with others of similar ability. They are normally based at our clubrooms but in summer they move around for a bit of variety.

We also run our own club events, most of which have lots of tradition and date back to the early days of the club in the early 1900s. We are one of the few clubs in the country to still hold traditional cross-country races which are full of mud, stream crossings, jumps and hills — which the kids in particular love.

We are affiliated to Athletics New Zealand, and participate in the national and local (inter-club) harriers and athletics events.

During the week there is specific fitness and speed training, if you wish.

We place a strong emphasis on coaching and junior development, and hold organised coaching/training sessions each Tuesday night, run by the club’s accredited coach. See the coaching page for more details of our coaching programmes.

More details of what we do are on our activities page.

Children’s athletics is held on Monday evenings over summery, with interclub events usually on Sundays. See our children’s athletics information for more details.

Olympic Harriers also organises the Twilight 5k series and the Porirua City Scenic Fun Run and Walk.

Why Olympic?

We offer our members: