MOST people, as they sip their Saturday morning coffee, feel a justifiable sense of achievement after walking or running five kilometres with their friends at their local parkrun.

However for Ryan Stoddart, who started parkrunning in 2013, joining his local parkrun was not a big enough challenge.

Fourteen months ago he decided to take a year off work with the goal of completing every parkrun in Australia.

So far Ryan has competed in every parkrun in Queensland and Tasmania, and on Saturday 8 February he joined 69 other runners taking part in the Gloucester’s 192nd parkrun at District Park.

Gloucester was Ryan’s 543rd parkrun, finishing seventh in 23min 53sec – he hopes to soon get his time under 20min.

This was Ryan’s first visit to Gloucester.

So impressed he was with the area that he decided to stay longer than planned, even climbing the Bucketts on the Sunday after the run.

During the week between parkruns Ryan seeks out local running groups for midweek runs, and he is a keen bushwalker.

Chasing every Australian parkrun is a bit like painting the Harbour Bridge, because new parkruns are regularly being started.

“Since I completed every parkrun in Tasmania, two new ones have opened up, so I’ll have to return there in June,” said Ryan.

So far Ryan has completed about 25 percent of New South Wales parkruns.

In July he’ll take part in the Broken Hill parkrun, as well as competing in the Mad Max marathon before heading to South Australia,

He will head to Western Australia by Christmas with the plan of spending six months there taking part in all of its 56 parkruns.

By John WATTS