Almost 600 Santas sweat it out in fun run

Nearly 600 keen runners showed up dressed in Santa suits to run 5km around Hobsonville Point in the first ever Early Bird Run Crew's Santa Run.

The run club's founder, and event organiser, Duncan Oswald, told RNZ he had always wanted to get the event going but didn't think it was viable.

That changed at the last minute this year when Oswald made a swift move to grab hundreds of Santa suits and local brewery Little Creatures covered the cost.

When Oswald heard from the hospice about raising some money for a previous event, one of the club's runners had just lost his sister and he described the team at Hospice West Auckland as "angels on earth".

Oswald said another crew member worked in the nursing team and he knew how tough funding could be.

"It's amazing how many people have come and spoken to me during the build up to share how the hospice has helped them," he said.

Given the club's small budget, he wasn't sure how much interest there would be in the inaugural event, but a spot prize to Fiji donated by the House of Travel Hobsonsville helped build hype.

Oswald said he was always trying to come up with new theme-inspired fun runs. Their annual Neon Run for Pink Shirt Day in support of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand was another great success this year.

"Hundreds of runners with light batons running in the dark all in pink fancy dress. It's so much fun to get the community together for things like this so I'm always on the lookout for other ideas."