Peter Thorley There were crusaders and cabinet ministers at this year's Chilltech Beach 2 Basin run/walk but mainly there were kids - lots of kids - and that added plenty of colour to the event. "There was tremendous support from the schools this year," Sport Northland co-ordinator Colleen Atchison said. "There were 130school teams entered and, of those, 53 were from Kamo Intermediate alone," she said. With five in a team, there were 265 individual runners from the one school alone. "That was brilliant and they won the camera draw that we put up for the schools. There were other prizes as well for the kids. We always try to encourage people to get out and have a go and it seems to have worked," Atchison said. Organisers had hoped the weather would clear for yesterday's event and they were not let down, a large crowd of supporters gathering in bright sunshine at the finish line. "We were pretty happy the weather went our way and certainly the crowd appreciated the sunshine," she said. Numbers were up on last year, with about 2250 runners taking part in either the 5.6-kilometre run starting at the Onerahi Hotel or on the 9.4-kilometre course that started at the Onerahi Yacht Club. Northland MP and Minister for Civil Defence and Racing John Carter and his family entered the race and has pledged to enter all of the Fun Run series run by Sport Northland. "He and his family are doing the whole series, he reckons. His mother is 84, so that's not bad going and they're just some of the people who are saying they want to do the whole series," Atchison said. There are seven events in total in the series with the next one, the Newmans Engineering Bailey's Dargaville series on May 10. The number of events in the series has increased by one this year, with Sport Northland taking over the Whangarei Marathon in September for the first time. The Sport Northland Run/Walk Series has a top spot prize that will be drawn at the end of the series in November - a Mazda 2 from Pacific Motor Group. Every Northland adult who enters the event goes into the draw to win the car.
