Registration set to close early

It is now looking almost certain that entries for the marathon and half marathon will have to close early.

This should be confirmed at next Tuesday's press conference by Race Director Joe Micallef.

It will be the first time this has ever happened and is being viewed positively by the organisers. In years past it has often been acceptable for runners to apply even on registration day one week before the race.

This will not be possible this year, and hopefully will not come as a shock to any local runners who have been leaving their application till the last minute.

The marathon organisers also put on the pre-Christmas Mdina-Spinola race. This laid-back event has no pre-registration with runners able to simply turn up, apply and run.

The organisers were (pleasantly) stunned last December to see an upsurge in participation of over 50 runners more than the previous year and a record field of over 200 athletes.

This pleasant surprise soon turned to concern as they realised that they did not have enough medals for all the finishers, each of whom quite rightly expected and deserved one for their performance.

To avoid such a situation re-occurring in the marathon, the organisers will be forced to cap the entries when the number of participants matches the number of available medals. Since a new medal design is planned for next year, no extra medals can be ordered at this time.

Under no circumstances will the organisers create a situation where a runner reaches the finishing line, tired and exhausted, only to find no medal.

In recent weeks, in this column, I have been warning readers to get their applications in as quickly as possible: the official closing date was February 1. If you have been postponing applying for one reason or another, you may have left it too late.

Cyclists in the way

If you have a friend who accompanies you on race day by bicycle, please request that he, or she, does not impede the other runners.

We received complaints last year from some entrants, and it is amazing how it's the little (annoying) things that people remember.

Be considerate of all your fellow participants on the day. Your cycling friend doesn't have to stick to you like glue.

Maltese in Marathon

In one of the first articles last November, I mentioned that armed with the race results from 1986 to the present, I was hoping to be able to answer one basic question: over the years how many of all the race finishers have been Maltese?

At the time, I did provide some simple data: a total of 12,323 runners completed either the marathon or half marathon between 1986 and 2006.

That total is broken down into 4,212 in the full marathon and 8,111 in the half. Although I provide all the following data in table form in the official race magazine, I can reveal here that in the full marathon, 974 (23.1 per cent) of the finishers were Maltese.

The percentage of participants is much healthier in the half, where 4,152 (51.2 per cent) of all competitors were Maltese. Indeed, in the past three years, local participation in the half marathon has been on a high at 68.2 per cent of all finishers in 2004, 67.8 per cent in 2005 and 59.0 per cent in 2006.

Of the 974 Maltese runners in the full marathon, 913 (93.7 per cent) have been male and 61 (6.3 per cent) have been female.

In the half, 3,451 (83.1 per cent) have been male, and 701 (16.9 per cent) female.

The highest number of Maltese participants in the full marathon peaked way back in 1987 with 78 runners (77 male and one female).

In the half, the peak participation was in 2004 with 367 Maltese finishers (307 male and 60 female).

From the entries this year, it looks like 2007 could set new records for Maltese participation, both overall and in the half marathon.

Of course, the next logical question is: how many different runners made up those 5,126 Maltese finishing times over the last 21 years. In other words, some people ran (and were thus counted) more than once.

Some ran for many years and were therefore counted each time as a finisher.

So, how many different Maltese runners have ever run the Malta Marathon or Half Marathon?

Answering that question might take me a little while. With luck I'll manage it before the 2008 event!

Enjoy your running.

johnwalsh42195@yahoo.it