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Burnaby man runs 'every inch of every street' in New West

Between 66 running sessions, one Burnaby man has covered 299.8 kilometres, running every street in New Westminster.
Duran Cheung
Burnaby man Duran Cheung has run every street in New Westminster. PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

Between 66 running sessions, one Burnaby man has covered 299.8 kilometres, running every street in New Westminster.

Duran Cheung said he was inspired by friends who were trying to run the cities they lived in (Port Coquitlam and Vancouver) after they showed him the CityStrides website, which logs all the places a person has jogged.

“I thought it would be a good challenge to runa city of my own, so I chose New Westminster, which I live very close to,” said Cheung, who lives in Burnaby near Connaught Heights, in an email.

“New West isn’t too big, but still a sizable city to cover. I always loved the beautiful views, parks, homes and historical buildings of the city, and I thought it would be neat to experience every inch of every street – to be able to say I’ve seen it all and have been everywhere in the city.”

He added that the goal of running every street in New West boosted his motivation to run, saying that running is a “chore” for him, and he doesn’t like to run the same route all the time.

 

“I love exploring. I also knew from the CityStrides website that nobody had run all of New West yet, so being competitive, I was kinda motivated to be the first (that I knew of)!” he said, adding that Cumberland Street and Royal Avenue were the toughest.

“There were tons of other steep streets, but they felt shorter than those two. I was definitely a little slow to run those hills!”

By running around the city, Cheung said he got to learn about the community neighbouring his own.

“I learned so much about New West as I ran it, such as how good some of the donair shops are and how peaceful some of the neighbourhoods feel. Seeing the beautifully kept heritage homes made the runs so much more interesting and eye-opening,” he said, adding that he’s “definitely inclined” to move to the city one day.

He added that he likely won’t stop at running New West – he’ll likely start running Burnaby at some point, but said that city “won’t have the same density of cool things and places, though.”