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October 2009
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UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon : One thousand strong
Last year, two of the finishers—Roy Riley and Aldwin Moonsammy—were over 70, five were in their sixties, and about ten were in their fifties. The overall winners were young though, 18, 19, 20, 23, and it is interesting that the top two women were the younger ones, though the men beat them by a good 20 minutes. The race has grown a lot since it started with 300 participants, and of the 750 in last year’s race, a fair proportion were the students Dr Gloudon had been trying to attract. The categories have grown. In addition to UWI staff and student groups, the wheelchair and physically challenged categories, there is now a team category for a minimum of 15 athletes. To keep the scope manageable, registration was closed as soon as the first thousand had signed up. Next Sunday, runners will have the pleasure of cantering through an entirely traffic-free course as they leave the UWI SPEC at 6am and make their way along the Priority Bus Route to La Resource Junction in D’Abadie and then back to their starting point. It should take no more than two hours, even for the slower finishers, who will walk and run the 13.1 miles in the first and only cool hours of the blistering days we’ve been having. The heat, unfortunately, is one of the reasons that marathoners in climates like ours can never make the record times set in temperate zones. Raffique Shah, organizer of many marathons, said optimal temperatures are around 60ºF… and everyone knows it is way past 96º degrees in the shade these days. Shah says it doesn’t alter the fact that this UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon is the premier event of its kind in the Caribbean. The course will be complete with markers and water stops at every mile for the running convenience of the athletes vying for TT$135,000 in prizes. The half-marathon will be electronically timed and any records broken in this AIMS-certified (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races), and International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF)- accredited race will be recognized worldwide. Although it’s a half-marathon, it’s still a taxing session, so if you haven’t been putting in your daily training of at least an hour for a few weeks, chances are when you pause for breath, you might not be able to keep going to the finish line. And you can’t just turn around anywhere and run back to SPEC; from the time you take off from the starting line, you’re a marked bird. |
When the first half-marathon was being planned five years ago, it was really intended to serve a dual purpose. Dr Iva Gloudon, UWI’s Director of Sport & Physical Education was looking for something healthy that would attract students and she wanted it to be linked to the Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC).