The Great North Run

3:39pm Friday 29th September 2006

A HEAD teacher, a chef called Taffline Tough, two chief executives, a team of firearms officers and a giant millipede - those are just some of York and North Yorkshire's entries in the Great North Run.

Up to 50,000 people will take part in the charity race in Newcastle, on Sunday.

Among them will be Geoffrey Chapman, head teacher of Queen Margaret's School, in Escrick. He will join Eleanor King, chairman of the school governors, and other members of staff and sixth-formers in the race.

The team have been hard at work training and raising sponsorship money for Shelter.

Taffline, Taff to her friends, is assistant chef at St Leonard's Hospice, in York, and has worked there for two-and-a-half years. It will be the first time she has run the 13-mile half-marathon.

She said: "It was my brother's idea to do the Great North Run, though he's chickened out of it.

"The training's going well and I'm looking forward to finishing the run. I hope to raise a good sum for the work of the hospice."

Jane Morley, the hospice's director of fundraising, said: "It's great that one of our staff members has been able to get a place in the Great North Run to raise money for us.

"We'll all be cheering her on, and we know that she'll do really well."

More than 30 employees from Norwich Union, in York, will take part to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign.

Leading by example is chief executive Mark Hodges, who will be going head-to-head with the campaign's own chief executive, Philip Butcher.

Mark said: "I am sure there will be a little bit of competition between us chief executives when it comes to crossing that finishing line."

Colin Wilson, 40, a police officer on the Firearms Support Unit in Tadcaster, is one of 140 runners supporting the Prostate Cancer Charity.

He is running for his father, Brian, 70, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer 12 months ago.

Colin will be joined by friends and five fellow firearms team members.

He said: "I'm used to working as part of a team on a daily basis and taking part in this event will be no different."

But perhaps the strangest competitor of all in the race will be an enormous 100ft millipede, which was yesterday limbering up near York Racecourse.

The creepy-crawly - or at least the people inside it - are running to raise money for Action Medical Research.

• Don't miss tomorrow's Press sports pages for a full preview of the Great North Run

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