Competitors get ready for Beach to Brother Running Festival 2023

But competitor Johnathon Hewis will be keeping up his seven year long dedication for the festival, as one of three people who have run Beach to Brother every year.

Mr Hewis, his brother-in-law Michael Ames and Cliffird Hoeft have run the track every year since it started in 2016 and plan to keep up the tradition again this year.

"It's a shame there's only three of us," Mr Hewis said.

"Hopefully all three of us will keep on going until the 10 kilometre mark."

The British national moved to Port Macquarie in 2012 and had run his fair share of marathons but had never run a trail race before until the local running festival.

It wasn't an easy feat going from running on roads to keeping up his pace on soft sands and elevated mountain ground but Mr Hewis has kept going back for more year after year.

"I'ts one of those things you get sucked into and they become slightly addictive I suppose," he said.

"You have amnesia of what happened, you sign up again, and keep on going."

"I do support it because it's a local race and bizarrely I enjoy it although you don't always enjoy it when you're getting towards the back end."

Competitors will be starting from Town Beach, travelling down to Laurieton before crossing the finish line atop North Brother Mountain.

But Mr Hewis is planning to go a step further.

The festival was his first introduction to trail running with Mr Hewis has going onto run longer trail races including a 100 kilometre Ultra-Trail through the Blue Mountains.

Later this year he will compete in the 167 kilometre trail run at the Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko event.

"This is one of my training runs to some extent for that," he said.

"So I'll actually turn around and come back some of the way because I need to do a longer run this week.

"I'll run to the top, maybe have a beer, stock up on some fuel, run back down the mountain and come back to Bonny Hills or a bit further depending on how I'm feeling."

Despite the warm weather planned for the weekend, Mr Hewis is looking forward to seeing the wildlife as well as other runners on the track.

"Trail running is a nice community of people," he said.

"There's always a bit of banter and support."

IN OTHER NEWS: