Early signs promising for a bumper UJ Mdina-Spinola

It’s hard to believe that more than a year has gone by since one of our most trusted colleagues, John Walsh, passed away and that we have succeeded in staging the most successful Malta Marathon in the race’s 27 years of existence.

Now that it’s done I understand why this was possible.

A structure is as good as its foundations and John helped in many ways to establish that foundation over the years with his contributions to the marathon and athletics in general.

Last year, Astrid Fleri Soler helped fill in some of the void which we were faced with when John passed away. She contributed with interesting weekly articles from December to February, three whole months.

Astrid has again accepted to write articles that will lead us to the 2013 Land Rover Malta Marathon. However, during the next three months we may also see other contributions from different authors.

While the build-up for the 2013 Land Rover Malta Marathon is gathering pace, preparations for the 2012 Urban Jungle Mdina-Spinola road race on December 23 are also well under way.

As with the Malta Marathon each year, the number of participants has been growing steadily and this year will surely beat last year’s record.

The limit to the number of participants has been raised to 550 which I feel will be exhausted by December 8, the official clo-sing date. This date may be brought forward if the limit is reached before.

A page on the Malta Marathon website has been dedicated to all the records of the Mdina-Spinola race since 1979.

Besides the best timings, data also includes the participants who have run the UJ M2S in under one hour, the number of times that they have done this and their best time.

It’s a very interesting page so have a look at it by going to www.maltamarathon.com/mdina_2_spinola_records.htm.

What’s new for the 2012 UJ M2S?

Well, as already announced we shall be introducing the use of chip timing for the very first time next month.

This will be the only other race in Malta, besides the marathon, that will have chip timing.

It will be the same system used for the Malta Marathon, chips will be attached to the race numbers.

These chips will be collected by M2S officials as runners cross the finish line. As with the Malta Marathon, results will include both the official time and the real time.

To accommodate the increasing number of finishers, it is planned to have a proper finish area that will include a large gazebo to also shelter officials and computer hardware from any unfriendly elements.

There will be an official registration at Urban Sports (Tigne seafront), starting from December 17.

The start of the M2S will be brought forward to 7.30 a.m., this is due to the increasing number of participants and the traffic that increases as the morning progresses.

Years ago the Mdina-Spinola race was shifted from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning just for the same reasons... now we are having to start earlier.

The 2012 UJ M2S medal (see picture) has been designed by Charles Cassar, an established Maltese artist.

If you haven’t yet applied for the Malta Marathon, Half Marathon or Walkathon or the M2S, in particular, you had better do so now. We already have close to 400 applicants for the M2S.

As happens each year there will be a rush just before the closing date so don’t risk being left out, there is a limit to the number of applications that we can accept.

Apply on-line now by going to www.maltamarathon.com.

Meanwhile, from entries already in, the Malta Marathon promises to top 2,500 participants next year and may very well be close to 3,000, further establishing its dominance as the most popular athletics event in our country.