ORGANISERS of the 2013 Orange Colour City Running Festival are confident the event’s inaugural marathon will go off without a hitch tomorrow, even if that means using buckets to clear rain off the track.
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Some showers are predicted for the weekend but not even torrential rain will put a halt to the city’s first 42.2 kilometre run.
Organiser Kim Roweth and her team have “prepared as much as they possibly can” ahead of the event, set to be contested by a mammoth 1600 runners across seven different races tomorrow at the Bloomfield hospital campus.
As of late Friday afternoon, there were 85 entries for the marathon.
“We’re ecstatic,” Roweth said, following 12 months of preparation.
“Our goal was 1000 people and we’ve blown that out of the water. We’ve doubled what we had last year. We’ve prepared as much as we possibly can.”
Rain, hail or shine the running festival will go ahead.
The marathon begins at 6.30am.
The 21.1km half-marathon begins at 8am while the 10km challenge will start at 8.30am.
The 5km schools challenge, business challenge and fun run all kick-off at 8.50am.
Today there’s a 2km kids run.
One of the larger groups participating, St Mary’s Primary School will have 62 kids split into 12 teams running in the festival’s school challenge tomorrow morning.
Kids from Year 2 through to Year 6 will represent the school.
“We thought the five kilometres might be a little daunting for kindergarten kids,” teacher Cheree Pell said.
“We don’t have a lot of kids that are big runners but it’s a good fitness thing to do together. We’re very proud and impressed with the numbers we will have.”
The goal for the large group of kids was simple.
“Just to do our best,” Pell said.
“At St Mary’s our motto is, you don’t have to be the best, you just have to try your best.
“There is something like $500 for the first team across the line, so there is some incentive that way but we’re just looking to finish the best we can.”
Online registrations for the event have closed, but those still wanting to be part of the day can register for any event at Leisure Centre at the Bloomfield hospital campus on Forest Road between 1-5pm today.
