THE newest running race on Bermuda’s athletics calendar gets underway at Horseshoe Bay beach this Sunday morning with runners facing a dash across the beach and through the dunes to the Chaplin Bay car park before climbing up to South Road and heading out to Astwood Park and back again.Youngsters taking part in the latest KPMG race series, which is held in conjunction with the main event, will also have sand in their training shoes by the end of the morning as their shorter race follows the main route to South Road then heads back via the road to finish at Horseshoe Bay.

Organisers have extended the entry deadline to this evening for those who have not yet decided whether to try out the semi-beach race.

And runners can expect to find themselves rubbing shoulders with Bermuda’s football hero, the former Manchester City star Shaun Goater, who has signed up to run along with colleagues from the Bermuda Hogges team.

Sunday is the first staging of the new route for the IAS & Park 5K, which has moved from its previous home in Dockyard in a bid to attract more competitors and give athletes something altogether different from the usual road race experience.

Explaining the thinking behind the “Beach to Beach” race, Fran Tucker of IAS said: “We’ve been looking for something to increase the interest in the race.

“We kept getting feedback that Dockyard was too far away for people who lived in the middle of the Island or the far end. And the set-up in a field was not very inviting.” The IAS & Park event has been a 5K race since 2002, before that it was the MRM Five Flat Miles race.

A brain-storming session was held to decide how to give the race a boost in terms of profile and competitor numbers.

“We were trying to think of something different and a couple of us thought about other races like the Lindo’s to Lindo’s and the Fairmont to Fairmont and I thought why not have a beach to beach race,” said Tucker.

She thought a race from Horseshoe Bay to Elbow Beach would fit the bill, but with a junior KPMG race also required, such a point-to-point race was problematic, and so it was decided to have a loop race out to Astwood Park and back (for the older athletes) and a shorter race for the juniors — both races starting and finishing on the beach.

The event is held in conjunction with the Bermuda Pacers Track Club and raises funds for the Coalition for the Protection of Children.

As an added incentive competitors will be entered into an after-race prize draw with travel vouchers, courtesy of Meyer-Franklin Travel, and a couple of Nano iPods from the new Apple store in Hamilton, up for grabs.

Members of the Bermuda Hogges football team, including coaches Kyle Lightbourne and Shaun Goater are due to attend the race with some competing and helping with the prize-giving afterwards.

Tucker said: “It may take a year for the race to take off, but I think once people get to know about it they will want to do it. We will certainly have it again next year.”

The main race is open to walkers as well as runners. Registration for the race has been extended with late entries being accepted today between 3.30pm and 6pm at Cathedral Hall where race numbers and t-shirts can also be collected.