Time to Enter the Feetbeat Walking Challenge

Time to Enter the Feetbeat Walking Challenge

Call Out to Tamaki Makaurau's Aucklanders

With less than three weeks to go, now is the time to register your team for the annual Feetbeat Challenge beginning on the 13th September.

Feetbeat is a fun and free team walking event for people of all ages and abilities who want to walk.

Registrations are now open for you to enter your teams, as many as you like.

Organised by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service for the past six years, last year's 2009 Feetbeat Challenge attracted 318 teams from Auckland workplaces and organisations.

So bring it on Auckland.

Where-ever you live or work - Auckland Central, Waitakere, North Shore, Rodney, or Manukau City - we would love to see your teams on board from all of Auckland's corners and cultures from tagata whenua, Pasifika, and the many ethnicities represented in the region.

You don't have to be a workplace team to register either. Feetbeat Challenge welcomes teams made up of groups of friends and families, community groups, churches, not-for-profits, and, of course, media newsrooms looking for a challenge.

Something as simple and easy like walking brings benefits that stretch beyond health. It gives people wanting a challenge to step up to something that they might not have thought possible. We've had teams share some inspiring stories about their motivations, why they took up the walking challenge, and that's highly inspiring considering people's busy schedules and lives.

We've found that people who've done this challenge end up taking up walking as a regular pursuit with workmates, friends and family.

Feetbeat isn't a competitive event but it certainly creates some fun inter-team rivalry and competition. You can enter as many teams within your organisation or family as you wish.

Auckland Regional Public Health Service provides complimentary tools to monitor individual and team progress. Once the event begins, team track their goal distance virtually using the New Zealand map. That provides a great way at measuring progress and cajoling each other along.

Staff at the Auckland Regional Public Health Service will be entering a number of teams. Whether you're entering for the first time, or you're entered each year, Feetbeat is a worthwhile activity for all groups of people. For a number of workplaces who have entered previous years, Feetbeat Challenge has become an annual spring tradition.

2009 Team Results

* 318 teams walked a combined total of more than 200,000 kilometres, an amazing feat considering people's busy lives.

* Manukau Institute of Technology's all female team, BOSS for Buns of Steel Sisters, out walked all other teams clocking more than 5000 kilometres over eight weeks.

* The winning team name last year? Holy Walkamolies from Auckland City Council.

Prizes will be given for the best team name, best photo and story.

To register, go to www.arphs.govt.nz/feetbeat/feetbeat2010.htm or call the Auckland Regional Public Health Service on (09) 623 4600.

ENDS

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