Founded by Barbara Oravetz, Jakarta Free Spirit has evolved into a road running club with a focus social fitness running, competitive training, racing and hosts several races during the year.

The club also supports several worthy charitable causes such as a Children’s Cancer group with event proceeds. Many of our members participate in regional events such as the Singapore marathon and club and the club provides a frame long distance training runs on Sunday mornings.

Jakarta Free Spirit now have over 120 members. Some of the activities include:

• Saturday morning runs at Ragunan Zoo
• Sunday morning long runs
• Evening socials
• Annual Zoo Run - 5k and fun run - this run is part of the Jakarta Race Series
• Half Marathon - held twice a year
• Splinter groups of runners around in different parts of Jakarta that train together during the week
• Trips to Singapore and other places to compete in marathons and other races

We welcome runners of all nationalities to come be a part of our group. For any inquiry, contact us.

HISTORY

The Jakarta Free Spirit was started in 2001 by Barbara Oravetz.

We began as a women's running group and to get it started Barb put an ad in the paper looking for runners! Barb (as she dearly called) had about 8 that showed up for the first meeting. We started out with running on Fridays at Bukit Golf. We then later added hikes to the group. The next year we started running at the zoo once a month and quickly increased it to every weekend. Maggie Yeo and Diane Tighe - two of the original members - were responsible for finding our 5k course in the zoo. Before that we ran a different way each time we went to the zoo.

We were going to have our first race in 2002, but because of the civil unrest in the country postponed this. We were trying again in 2003, but had decided we would have to postpone again because of the civil unrest. We had already arranged the date with the zoo, so decided to just have a fun run with our members and invite people by word of mouth. We had about 120 show up! We were amazed and from that point on became a group for men and women runners. The first race you could run or bike the 5k and we had a short distance for the kids which turned out to be too short (500 meters).

Barb then joined forces with Paul Starkie to form the Jakarta Race Series, so our 2nd Zoo Run in 2004 was part of the series. We jumped from 120 runners to 480 runners that race! We still had bikes but had the start at the back of the zoo.

In 2004 (probably, Barb will chek it out:)), we had our first half marathon and 10k race. Barb did it as a whim and decided we needed a longer race so just did the entire thing by herself. We had a great time. Also interesting to see who has run that first race.

The Sunday morning runs began with Zane and Barb training for their marathon in 2004 and then others started joining them later that year.

The beauty of the club, is we have such great people involved and when someone we love leaves, there is always another great runner moving in to Jakarta.