Thousands of participants hit the pavement for 2024 Townsville Running Festival
Thousands of participants hit the pavement in the early hours of Sunday morning ready to set personal bests and reach their running goals in perfect North Queensland conditions.
Townsville
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This year’s running festival has been labelled its biggest yet, with close to 3000 participants hitting the pavement in the early hours of Sunday morning to set some personal bests.
Townsville Running Festival president Colleen Newnham spent the last few days setting up and preparing for the thousands of runners to take to the streets and said the conditions couldn’t have been any better.
“The marathoners started and it was kind of overcast and a threat of a bit of rain which was perfect for running conditions, it was cool and we had clouds so it wasn’t bright and hot and sunny,” she said.
Ms Newnham said this year saw around 280 marathon, 700 half-marathon and 700 10 kilometres runners this year, with participant numbers up from previous years in all categories.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to has been happy with their runs, they’ve had a good run, they are happy with their times so they are pleased,” she said.
“We had people running marathons and half marathons for the first time so they were really happy with how things turned out.
“Some of the 5k and 10k runners were really happy, their goal was to get to the finish line so they were pretty stoked that they got there without having to walk so there were a lot of achievements.”
Liz Wu took on the two and a half kilometre track this year alongside her son Henry and partner Peter Phillips dressed in their favourite superhero costumes.
“(Henry) has only just turned three so he was only just eligible … but he was good he probably ran two kilometres,” she said.
Mr Phillips said that they were visiting from Sydney for the weekend and as a spur of the moment decision decided to sign up.
“We saw it was on so we just joined. We may as well while we are here, and we got a medal which is great” he said.
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Originally published as Thousands of participants hit the pavement for 2024 Townsville Running Festival
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