ONE week before the race, the organizers of Hunat Sugbo—Dagan Para Ni Maning thought that they will not hit their target which was 2,000 participants. But the last few days of registration was surprising for them as they got a thousand more registrants for a total of 2,300 runners—the most they got in five stagings.
Cenelyn Manguilimotan, the general manager of Cebu Parklane International Hotel, told reporters after the race yesterday that the fifth edition was the biggest in terms of participants.
“Our initial registration was slow and we even lowered down our target participants to 1,500. The last week of registration was surprising because we got a thousand more runners.” said Manguilimotan. “We could not turn down the other runners and got over 300 and ran out of singlet. But the runners can claim their singlet on Saturday.”
The Hunat Sugbo 5—Dagan Para ni Maning carried the theme “Because I can” to motivate the newbie runners to continue with their goals in the sport and encourage more people to start doing runs.
“In five years organizing this race, we can fairly say that Hunat Sugbo has become an institution and people are looking forward for it every year,” Manguilimotan said. “It has become a challenge for us organizers to bring something new every year.”
“Our goal every year is to put meaning to running and to make the running community excited,” Manguilimotan said just minutes after finishing a half-marathon.
The event, a memorial run for the late hotel president Manuel Ting, started last 2011 with 1,600 participants and has been growing and improving every year.
This year's race had four categories—the men's and women's 21K, 12K, 6K and 3K—and was held at the Terraces, Ayala Center Cebu.
A total of P120,000 in cash prizes were given away to the winners in every division, while all the finishers in the 21K and 12K each received a medal.