Flying finish after marathon effort

Hundreds of Hawke's Bay primary school children raced local police officers to run a marathon this week.

The Roadsafe Marathon Madness event was a culmination of months of training by students at St Mary's School, Camberley School and St Joseph's School who received training from local Community Policing Teams.

Each school ran 105 laps of the 400m track at the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park on Wednesday, totalling a 42km marathon against a team of police officers

Sport Hawke's Bay's Jeanette Cooper said police officers had been in schools teaching students how to run properly and getting their fitness levels up.

"They have been running in their lunch hours," she said.

"It's getting active so they can use that fitness towards everything else they are doing and be healthier children. Plus it forms a really good relationship between the community police and the school kids, and also Roadsafe Hawke's Bay gets the opportunity to spread really good safe messages to the schools."