Melbourne was made for running, not just because of the cooler climate that means that right now the weather is like a good British summer but also because the public spaced demand to be run on, around and through.

The Yarra River which flows through the city invites you to run along its banks and follow it for a couple of miles. Despite being in the city surrounded by towering buildings, the river banks are fairly relaxed and quiet and it doesn’t take too long before you’ve left the city behind and are surrounded by green.

The Yarra leads to the Botanical Gardens or ‘the Tan’ as the locals call it. Hills, plants and endless paths to explore are all inside. But on the outside there’s something quite special – a gravel track made for running on. The track has lighting that is on until 12am at night and from 5.30am in the morning. It also has kilometre markers that pop up every half kilometer or so. And it has runners. It was being used by a steady stream of Lycra-clad Melbournites working out.

Urban spaces tend to be divided up into three realms, those for driving, those for walking and those for walking. Runners, maybe because of their smaller numbers or maybe because urban planners don’t recognise the different needs of those walking and those running, often get lumped in together. But we’re different.

It’s difficult to say what came first – the space for running or the runners to use it. But more spaces designed specifically with running in mind (which doesn’t mean to be used exclusively by runners) is the way forward and the way I’d like to see London develop. Maybe it’s a case of ‘build it and they will come’.