DESPITE the slight increase in the registration fees for the local leg of the Milo Marathon, organizer Ricky Ballesteros is confident they will still get the usual number of participants.
The Cebu leg set the record with over 25,000 runners in 2008 and have consistently hit more than 20,000 runners in the previous editions.
Now that they have increased the registration fee from P100 to P500 in the 21K and 10K participants, Ballesteros thinks it won’t affect the number.
“With the growing popularity of the sport, we are positive that we will still have the same number of runners,” Ballesteros said.
The increase will cover the use of timing chips for the 10K and 21K divisions—the first time it will be used.
The 3K and 5K registration fee is still P50.
On the other hand, this year, Milo aims to provide underprivileged children with running shoes and the beneficiary for the Cebu leg is the Tejero Elementary School.
The school was chosen during a raffle.
Ballesteros said this will be done in all the 17 regional eliminations but expects Cebu’s beneficiaries will receive the most shoes because of the huge number of participants.
“I believe Cebu beneficiaries will be receiving lot of running shoes since in the past, in all regional races, Cebu has the most number of participants, ” Ballesteros said.