Lime-green tutu for big-hearted City2Surfer | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

It's green for go for The Star City2Surf with Pump's standout entrant this year.

Even among 15,000 fun runners, Heart Foundation fundraiser Riwai Grace in the pink tutu was the participant everyone remembers last year.

Grace and wife Cate walked the 12km and raised $1400 for the Heart Foundation.

This year, he's jogging it on Sunday, March 21, with his wife - and they're pushing her 84-year-old grandmother Ngarie Falk in her wheelchair, too.

Having lost so much weight, the famous pink tutu - a legacy of his stag night - now risks falling around his ankles.

Grace is having a lime-green one made instead.

"My wife calls it the Green Light for Fitness!" he said.

Both Graces have a history of heart trouble and strokes in their families, and are appealing to every City2Surfer to sign on as Heart Racers to raise money for the foundation. Now down to 124kg from the 137kg he was last year, the 41-year-old knows the importance of being fit to stave off ticker trouble.

"My goal is to do the Christchurch half marathon in June," he said.

"Normally I run five days a week, six to 10 k's a day. And I'm doing a lot of weight training now and more swimming.

"I've given away all my triple-XL rugby jerseys and I'm now down to XL."

Grace got stopped so many times for photos last year that it took him 1hr 45min to reach Queen Elizabeth II Park, but he doesn't mind.

He reckons if a "big Maori boy in a pink tutu" puts heart disease in the spotlight and helps raise money to fight it, it's great.

Cate Grace got into her fitness regime so seriously that she is now a qualified personal fitness trainer and coaching her husband for his half marathon, but she prefers mountain biking to running.

In the tutu, Grace also did a bucket collection in town on Friday and filled two buckets with cash for the Heart Foundation. A student donated her last 10c - and the Heart Racers hope The Star readers can reach just as deeply in their pockets to help the cause.

You can sponsor Riwai and Cate for the City2Surf by going to www.heartracers.org.nz/leap2it