VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Picture the scene. It's a sun-streaked summer morning in early August, and bevies of robust outdoor enthusiasts are jogging, cycling and rollerblading with healthy aplomb around the busy paved perimeter of Vancouver's Stanley Park.

Rugged mountains descend so close you feel you could almost touch them while in the background, the grey-hued Pacific flickers like a piece of crumpled tin foil against the whale-like hump of distant Vancouver Island.

The city of Vancouver has always been synonymous with the great outdoors, and even for the uninitiated first-time visitor, it's not difficult to see why. Frequently cited as a runaway leader in media-sponsored polls to identify the world's most "livable" urban area, its incomparable natural setting, wedged precariously between escarpment and sea, is the stuff of National Geographic legend.

What better place, then, to try a different form of sightseeing adventure — a leisurely guided run past the city sights?

Pacific Running Guides was established more than five years ago with the aim of providing traveling fitness enthusiasts with the opportunity to enjoy the outdoor delights of urban Vancouver from a refreshingly new vantage point: their own feet.

Eschewing tour buses and group airport pickups, clients are encouraged to swap their Lacoste-wear for Lycra and drink in the sights of Southern British Columbia's most vibrant metropolis through the eyes of a street-level jogger.

In a city that boasts 48,000 participants for its annual Sun Run and a local tourist industry reignited by the prospect of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the idea of combining both fitness and cultural attractions under the umbrella of a single leisure company quickly proved to be as canny as it was unique.

"Vancouver's very much a runner's city," explains guide and coordinator Francine Parker. "But ask the average hotel concierge to direct you toward the best local jogging paths, and chances are you'll end up in a shopping mall."

For the fly-by-night traveler, it's a frustratingly familiar scenario. You arrive belatedly in a strange foreign city, you enthusiastically don your carefully packed pair of running shoes and then 10 minutes later you're lost on a six-lane freeway gulping carbon monoxide and trying, with increasing exasperation, to remember the name of your instantly forgettable downtown hotel.

What can a poor runner do?

Fortunately, Pacific Running Guides founder Kate Milne came up with an answer.

Gathering an expert team of experienced guides, personal trainers and kinesiologists (Parker included), Milne pieced together a diverse package of running clinics, route guides, and luxury weekend getaways in the hope of attracting planeloads of boardroom-bound business travelers in dire need of some extra-curricular exercise. Pacific Running Guides was born.

For overnight visitors bored by the sight of pokey hotel gyms and sadistically manufactured indoor treadmills, it must have seemed like a mirage in the desert.

The formula couldn't have been simpler. A personal guide is sent to meet you at your downtown hotel and takes you through the safeguard of a mandatory health questionnaire. He or she offers a brief explanation of the various different running routes on offer, and a personal itinerary is drawn up based largely upon your own training requirements.

Formalities completed, you are now ready to step outside and launch yourself into the myriad of humanity that is modern Vancouver. One hour to keep fit, socialize, pick up some expert training tips, and enjoy a colorfully informal take on the history and culture of what is undoubtedly one of Canada's most energetic and exciting cities.

The proof, of course, is in the running. Tempted out of semi-retirement by Francine's hectoring, I lace up my training shoes and make a hasty dash for the expansive wilds of nearby Stanley Park.

Running in Vancouver, even for the wholly sedentary individual, is an eye-opening experience. Big, small, light, dark, rough, smooth; forget the mountains for a moment. Quite unashamedly this is people-watching at its satirical best. Breaking into a jog around the Park's vista-laden seawall I encounter, within the space of one hour, everything from a cricket match, to an open-air symphony concert, to a ocean-side wedding party, to a boisterous beach volleyball competition in full swing.

But while Canada's largest urban space might be the a mecca for thousands of beach-loving weekend hedonists, Pacific Running Guides have branched out and thrown a few extra gems into an already impressive itinerary.

Newer favorites include a trail run on Vancouver's steep-sided North Shore, a jog through the wooded wilderness of Seymour Demonstration Forest, or — somewhat more incongruously — a spot of kayaking over on the nearby Gulf island of Mayne

"Kayaking?"

"Well, kayaking and running actually," Parker admits.

It's time to dispel a few myths. Under closer scrutiny it appears that Kate, Francine and the crew are not only able to assist you in reducing your 10km running splits; they can also book you into a hotel, recommend an appetizing restaurant, or organize a guide to take you as far away as Whistler, Victoria or those tantalizingly tranquil Gulf Islands.

"A kind of travel agency with a running bias, then?" I proffer.

"Kind of," she says.

Building on their one-hour sightseeing/training staple, you can chance your luck with a half- or full-day city tour, as well as a weekend "Wild for Adventure" break in Whistler.

For early birds there's the "Energizer" breakfast deal with an outdoor gym workout and spontaneous picnic. For more nocturnal night owls, there's the "Dash and Dine" dinner jaunt with a spectacular sunset finale on Stanley Park's beautiful Third Beach. The 24/7 freaks can find solace in the "Talk Pace" business networking run.

And then there are the special-event packages.

"In 2001, I entered the Honolulu marathon," Parker recalls, almost wincing at the memory, "It was my first real attempt at the distance and — to put it mildly — the course wasn't easy."

Easy or not, tenacity and perseverance clearly paid off and a fledgling idea was quickly born. Every year since, Parker and a handful of other Pacific Running guides have trained up groups of up to 35 local runners for the Honolulu run under the auspices of the "Joints in Motion" program of the Arthritis Society. So far they have managed to log a 100 per cent finishing record in every race they have entered and have raised bucket loads of money for charity in the process.

Present clients are split fairly evenly down the middle between business/pleasure, beginners/advanced, and Canadian/American.

"No casualties yet, then?" I ask Parker, fishing for a juicy story.

"No, but I sometimes lose people momentarily," she says. "I think they get hopelessly enraptured by the views."