In what’s becoming a growing tradition year after year, the third annual School District 27 Mud Run featured upwards of 300 student athletes Wednesday afternoon.
Students from eight School District 27 schools, and four visiting schools — Lac la Hache, Horsefly, Dog Creek and Big Lake — converged at Mountview elementary for the event, which sees students traverse either a six- or three-kilometre run through the trails behind the school, which is located on Dog Creek Road.
“It’s a lot of fun, and really exciting for us and the kids,” said one of the event organizers, Martin Kruus. “The kids prepare for it as much as they can, but this year we started a little late because of the weather. I just hope they get to celebrate and enjoy it.”
Cataline Grade 6 student Ian Foster said he’d been looking forward to this year’s event.
“I just like the wilderness, running with my friends and having fun and getting more fit,” he said.
Mountview elementary’s Montana Waters said she had a lot of fun, and enjoyed getting some exercise.
“It’s really exciting, running through the mud, and getting to go through all the obstacles in the trails,” Waters said.
Students, meanwhile, raised funds for the Williams Lake chapter of KidSport through this year’s run.
“Kids brought donations and we were this year’s charity of choice,” Radolla said. “Funds will go into a big pot to help kids in our community afford to play sports in Williams Lake.”
GROW staff and students also created more than 300 handmade, branded wooden medals for the event, and will be presenting KidSport with a cheque of the money raised from the donations given for food under the KidSport tent.
The tent was organized by Rick Miler and food was provided and prepared by GROW PAC with the help of a generous contribution from Save-On-Foods.
Students were also treated to a special hose down close to the finish line as Jordan Magnuson, Eric Schmidt, Joshua Wilkinson and Tyler Olsen of the BCFS Wildfire Management’s Vest Unit Crew were on hand to cool off participants.
