In South Africa there are more than 60 venues where you could run a parkrun in the beginning of 2016. If you belong to the medical aid Discovery you will earn 300 vitality points for this effort. It does not matter if you take 20 minutes or 59 minutes, you will earn the 300 points.

Coach Hansie

The fact of the matter is that you could stretch this 300 points and convert it to 600 points. You have to know the rules though to be able to do this. With parkrun it is easy. Provided that you have linked your parkrun profile to your Discovery membership this will be automatic. This means that you do not have to do anything after you have completed your parkrun to get the points.

two new runners with coach Hansie after their first 21 km relay race

To get to 600 points, this is what you have to do. You need a device like a running app that is linked to a smart phone or to a runner’s watch. This tool would need to be able to give the distance and you average pace for your workout and then of course also the length of your workout. Ideally if you could add heart rate to it you would easily be able to claim 1500 or 3000 points if you do a really long run at a good pace.

don’t stop your watch or smart phone app if you want more points

If you are a fast runner (well faster than 8 km per hour, so this is pretty average – a fast walk and a bit of a run), you need to exercise for at least 60 minutes. This means that you could run your parkrun in say 30 minutes (or 20 minutes if you are that fast) and you could then go for a slow walk or jog to complete your hour. What you should not do is to stop your watch or timing device after the parkrun. Do not switch it off or stop it – then it does not count. You could then walk another 3 km in 30 minutes or so to get to 8 km at least and 60 minutes at least. When you upload this time to Discovery Vitalitym you will be credited with 600 points for your whole effort and your 300 of parkrun will not reflect.

If you take 50 minutes or so to complete your parkrun you need to continue until you have covered 90 minutes. You also need to maintain a speed of at least 5 km per hour so that means that you need to cover at least 7,5 km in the 90 minutes. When you have  completed 90 minutes at this rate you will also get your 600 points.

This is the way to stretch your parkrun points.

If you have certain apps like Strava you could get this uploaded directly to Discovery Vitality, but if you use an app like Endomondo (very usefull free app) you will need to do a workaround by exporting your workout from Endomondo and then importing it with e.g. Strava or mapmyfitness. It will then be reflected. It is a bit more work, but certainly worth your while.

Please share your success stories with us. Who would not like to get 600 or 1500 points in stead of 300?