‘Still recovering’

DEFENDING 21K women’s champion Mary Grace Delos Santos is not sure whether she can keep her title in the 21K division of the 2013 Cebu Marathon on Jan. 13 at the Cebu I.T. Park.

Delos Santos, who won the women’s title in the Milo Marathon national finals last December, said, “This will be my first race this year, this will be a tough one because I might be up against stronger opponents like the Kenyans. However, as of now, I am still in my recovery period after the national finals.”

Meanwhile, the increase of registration fee with this year’s CCM may have been one of the reasons why only around 3,500 participants have registered as of press time.

The registration fee for the 42K is P1,200, up by P200 from last year, while the 21K is P900, up by P200. The fee for the 5K is P900, which is P100 more.

“Aside from the increase of the registration, probably we started slow with number of registrants because we started late with our registration which was in October.

Usually we have it either by July or August,” said Cebu Executive Runners Club president Roy Trani.

Last year, they had about 8,000 runners with the bulk of the runners coming from the students who joined the 5K division.

This year’s field of 3,500 runners does not include students.

“This year, we decided not to tap students and focused on competitive runners,” Trani said during the press conference yesterday at the Mooon Café in IT Park.

Although, registration is still open in the 21K and 5K, they have closed the registration for the 42K, which now has almost 1,000 entries. The 21K has 800, while the 5K has 700.

Organizers are also hopeful that the number will increase starting next week when the tourists and balikbayans arrive for the Sinulog celebration.