Rotorua Marathon: Mountain of goodie bags awaits entrants

BIG JOB: Lake City Athletic Club volunteers pack the 9000 race bags needed for the Rotorua Marathon. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER 300414SP5

Runners and walkers in this weekend's Rotorua Marathon event will get a bunch of food items and special vouchers from race sponsors in their goodie bags.

Yesterday more than 100 volunteers from Lake City Athletic Club helped put 9000 bags together at the Energy Events Centre.

They started at 9am with the aim to go on through the day with revolving shifts of volunteers. About 10 stations were set up with the bag contents.

"There will be spare bags made up for late entries," Event Promotions marketing manager Charlotte Pearson said.

"We've received 8700 entries so far. This is the biggest amount of bags we've had to do for any of our events. We've done 6000 for Tough Guy.

"We couldn't do this event without the volunteers. The groups get paid so it's good for fundraising but the individuals are giving their time free."

More volunteers will help today and at registration tomorrow, with many more required on race day.

Every race participant gets a race bag. The contents include popcorn, bagel bites and tinned chicken.