Time to go beyond

At this time of year most people are looking forward to Christmas and holidays, cakes and presents and all the hullabaloo involved, but distance runners are made of hardier stuff, and our gaze is lifted to a further horizon.

As the days grow shorter and normal mortals huddle in bed on cold mornings we know that it's marathon-training season once again and it's time to start running more miles per week than ever before.

A great many things are being changed for next year's Malta Marathon... and every one of them is positive.

Prime among them is obviously the announcement of a new event sponsor. The Malta Marathon had achieved enormous strides in quality and participation levels under the previous sponsor BMW, culminating in an unprecedented 1,004 finishers in the 2008 event.

As new sponsors, Land Rover, have come onboard full of their own enthusiasm and commitment and the MMOC have been thus energised to do everything possible to improve the quality of the event even further in terms of attention to detail, numbers of runners, yet at the same time never losing that friendly-feel to the race that makes so many foreign runners return year after year.

We are again proud to be supported by long-time official partners San Michel, Urban Jungle and Powerade, and welcome this year a new addition - eWorld.

A new Europe-wide marketing drive by our race travel partners has already begun (runners tend to book their race holidays far in advance), for example the full-page colour advert that appeared in the November issue of Running Fitness magazine (UK).

On a more local level, routes of the Half Marathon (HM) and Marathon (M) are going to change for the 2009 event; the prime reason being to avoid traffic congestion in Qormi and Marsa.

As soon as the routes are finalised, a map will be placed on the marathon website (maltamarathon.com) for those who wish to try out the route before race day.

For the first time (in line with current technology), the MMOC will no longer print out entry forms, these will now only be available from the website. There will be three ways of registering for the race and paying the entry fee.

1. The traditional way, print the entry form from the website, fill it in by hand and send it by post along with the entry fee. This option is already available.

2. Enter your details directly on the website and pay the entry fee by bank transfer. This option should be ready very shortly, perhaps even by the end of this week.

3. Enter your details directly on website and pay the entry fee by credit card. This option is not yet available, but we are working to get it online as soon as possible.

The confirmation of your application will be sent by email, for option 1 once the form and fee are received and for options 2 and 3 automatically by the system.

Applicants will be given a unique ID to confirm their registration and look up their entry and will be advised that registration details may be found on the website.

As in the 2008 races, we will once again be using Timing Data Systems (TDS) as official timers of the events.

This year TDS will be providing a timing carpet all runners must cross at the start and a number of extra personnel to manage the entire timing of all events.

The timing chips will now be attached directly to the running numbers.

An added feature (and to make for quicker publishing) all results and certificates will no longer be posted to each participant at home, but will be available for downloading/printing from TDS website through a link from the marathon website.

Unlike in previous years, both the Marathon and HM will be marked in kilometres only; there will be no mile markers at any point.

Most runners soon learn that an almost perfect correlation exists between the amount of miles he/she covers in training each week and the quality of their race performance; the higher the weekly mileage, the faster the race performance.

By going over the smallest details in a drive to raise the event standard even higher, the MMOC are fully adopting the Land Rover motto to "Go Beyond".

Perhaps as a runner you might make a vow to do something similar this year; you know you've often thought about it. To just this once train a bit harder, a bit smarter and "Go Beyond" anything you have ever achieved and finally see how good you can really be. There might never be a better opportunity.

johnwalsh42195@yahoo.it