Sorry Wellnow, Been bogged down with work.
Auckland is really not the runners paradise it once was. The club system has changed hugely over the last 25 years (Lynndale and Owairaka are but shells of their former selves).
NZ society has changed as have peoples sporting choices .. eg many who would have come to running 30 years ago .. now do triathlon.
Yes ! Cornwall Park and Auckland Domain are still awesome places to run and the main section of the famous Waiatarua (The Bush) Run has not changed massively. But the early sections are horrific .. one word .. TRAFFIC.
People wanting to run Waiatarua do so much earlier in the morning or they run other similar roads in the Waitakeres. They have to drive there to run.
I have not lived in Auckland fro 22 years and now I live in Rotorua (Jack Foster Country). The running scene here is unreal .. we just need more Runners !!!.
One of the last converstions I had with Arthur was along the lines of, if he had his time over again and could set up a place to have a training centre for running it would be Rotorua. We have hundreds (possibly into the thousands) of miles of Forest roads complete with great hills. really good natural surfaces.
In 2005 I took HRE and his son on one tiny section of those roads so he can verify.
The climate here in Rotorua is not as humid and of course we don't have the traffic problem.
To give you another Idea of the excellent roads (the normal ones !!) we have some of the best cyclists in the world living here.
Julian Dean .. Garmin Chippottle Team and Tour De France Rider and Sam Bewley .. Olympic Bronxze medallist in Team Pursuit, plus another young guy Clinton Avery a Pro Rider in Europe.
All these guys do all their "off season" work here. Exactly as Arthur would have done !!
As for your other comment about being influnced and the atmosphere around Snell, Halberg and Magee ... Unfortunately .. by the time I got to Auckland as an 18 year old .. those guys had "retired" although Barry was still running and Arthur was away overseas... the bubble had burst.
But as a Kid ... we fed off all the successes they had ..I can still hear the commentary on the radio of Snells *00 and 1500 in Tokyo as though it was yesterday .. No live TV coverage here back then !!!