Half marathon preps on

HARARE Athletics Board secretary-general Silas Muringani says preparations for this year’s Old Mutual Westgate half-marathon slated for Sunday are on course with registration now underway.

The annual race has become popular on the local scene and features most of the top long-distance runners in the country.

The race is usually held towards the end of September, but will be staged earlier this year and Muringani said work is in progress to ensure they host another successful edition.

“I can say that meetings have been going on.

“We had about three or four meetings. The course was revisited and recertified.

“The Old Mutual Westgate half-marathon is a big race that we have on our calendar. We expect a much bigger crowd in that it has come earlier than the previous editions and we are expecting fast times as well,” said Muringani. Registration closes on Saturday. Muringani said they are looking forward to most of the top runners coming, but noted that it’s anyone’s race to win.

“This is actually a tricky event, it changes in terms of people who actually come first, anything can happen at the Westgate half-marathon. But we are expecting all our top athletes to attend,” said Muringani.

Some of the athletes that have expressed their interest for this year’s race include Millen Matende, who was at the World Championships in London a few weeks ago where he competed in the men’s marathon alongside United States-based Pardon Ndhlovu and Cuthbert Nyasango.

Matende said he is eyeing the top five and hopes he will be in good shape to compete, come Sunday.

“I am preparing for the Westgate half-marathon, that’s my next target and now its two to three weeks after the World Championships so for a 21km race I can compete.

“I have participated in this race before and I came ninth so this year I think I can get a better position. I am actually targeting the top five and in terms of time I would want to run something below 1 hour 5 minutes.

“At the moment I am just doing light training since I am still recovering, so I am just going to maintain that and avoid injuries,” said Matende.

The annual race which started in 2011 as a 16km fun run was upgraded to a certified International Association of Athletics Federations half-marathon in 2012 and since then it has become one of the major events on the local athletics calendar.