ORGANISERS of the 27th Tees Valley Leisure Redcar Half Marathon hope to build on the success of this year’s event.

The 13.1-mile road race attracted record entries on Sunday when more than 1,600 runners took part in the event.

Bright spring weather helped to attract 1,688 people to start the race and, of those, 1,391 managed to complete the course.

This entry was a rise of more than 40 per cent on the previous year’s participants.

The 3km Family Fun Run, which started just after the main event, also saw a ten per cent increase in entries with 604 adults and children taking part.

A number of elite athletes also participated in the half marathon, including a number of international athletes from Kenya and Mongolia and paralympic legend Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson in the wheelchair event.

The first to cross the finish line in the half marathon was last year’s winner, Kenyan Zak Kihara, who knocked two minutes off his best time and finished in 1hr 5min. Kenyan Joyce Kandie won the women’s race in 1hr 13min.

The race was organised by Tees Valley Leisure in conjunction with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

Paddy Corcoran, managing director of Tees Valley Leisure and race organiser, said: “The whole team was really pleased with the success of the event. The increase in the entries was superb and now our plans for the future are that we want to push and grow the event.

“The half marathon’s growing all the time and the family fun run’s now a fixture in the diary.

“This is the second year that we’ve been involved in the organisation of the event and we’ve had an extensive marketing campaign which is clearly working. We’re really pleased with how it’s gone and the people of the North-East are now becoming more aware of what we’re doing.”

Mr Corcoran said there were a number of reasons for the growing success of the race.

He cited the location of the course and also the fact that the family fun run takes place alongside the half marathon.

He added: “Anybody can enter the half marathon, but clearly the distance, at just over 13 miles, might put some people off and we want people to get round safely.

“That’s why we have the fun run for those who are on the first steps and just starting out with running.

“We also let people enter on the day and we had steady business on Sunday and that’s something we want to maintain.

“There’s just a little climb on the course, at about four miles, but then you have the compensation of the run down through Marske which is really popular.

“Spectators really get behind it as well and it’s great to have people coming out of their houses and cheering on the runners. It really helps the competitors.”

The event also attracted a number of sponsors, including the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI), Mizuno, TFM Radio and Magic 1170, Hatton Traffic, Redcar and Cleveland Primary Care Trust and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.