24,000 show up for Milo race

A TOTAL of 24,067 runners in Milo-green race singlets swarmed the streets of Cebu City for the Cebu qualifying leg of the 37th National Milo Marathon yesterday.

It was another record-breaking feat for the organizers of the longest-running marathon in the country as they managed to beat last year’s number of 21,000.

But the huge number also gave them a tough time yesterday.

“The biggest challenge we faced was how to handle the huge number of people joining the race,” Cebu qualifying leg organizer Ricky Ballesteros said. “Another challenge was the weather condition, especially the strong winds that knocked down our tents and other equipment. Thank God it did not affect the race that much.”

Ballesteros also revealed that the number of the qualifiers for the national finals also increased this year.

It took organizers an hour to completely release the 16,879 runners in the 5k race wave by wave. They also did not expect to attract 1,294 long distance runners in the 21k race. The remaining bulk of runners joined the 10k race with a number of 588 and 639 in the 3k category.

According to Milo Executive Andrew Neri, they extended the cut-off time of the 21k race to 10 minutes because of the huge number of runners in the category.

Another challenge for organizers was how to fit all the runners in Cebu’s narrow streets.

“Cebu’s narrow roads can’t accommodate 24,000 plus runners. I think we need a bigger venue if next year’s number of runners will exceed this year’s” said Ballesteros.

Organizers are now planning on how to accommodate such a huge number of runners for next year’s event. /CORRESPONDENT DALE G. ROSAL