Kakamega Forest Marathon defending champions, Solomon Soi and Nancy Koech will be seeking to defend their titles when the second edition of the race goes down this weekend.
Joining the duo will be the half marathon winners Charles Chemengich and Pascalia Chepkorir, who will also be seeking to retain the titles during the event which will start at Solia and end at Ireo, inside the Kakamega Forest. Representing the organisers during the launch held at Riadha House yesterday, Felix Midikira said the race, in addition to the full and half marathons will have a 15km corporate run and 5km toto’s run for youngsters between 7 and 15 years as well as a bicycle race. The toto’s run and the bicycle competitions will be held on tomorrow.
“The main aim of this annual event is to raise money for the conservation of the forest,” said Midikira.
Winners in the full marathon will rake in Sh500,000 in both the men and women’s categories. Runners-up will pocket Sh250,000 with bronze winners getting Sh120,000.
In the half marathon, a top prize of Sh250,000 await both the male and female winners and will trickle down to the 10th finisher.
Midikira revealed that in a move aimed at encouraging the local community to participate, there will be cash prizes for homegrown runners where winners will get Sh30,000, Sh20,000 for runners-up and Sh10,000 for third finishers in both the men and women’s races.
The bicycle race (70km) will fetch the winners Sh60,000 while the 30km winners will receive Sh30,000.
“Registration for the event is ongoing and interested participants are paying Sh1000. Over 980 runners have so far enlisted the race,” said Midikira, adding that they are targeting over 3,000 participants. Athletics Kenya vice president in charge of competitions, Paul Mutwii has called on race organisers to cement rich sponsorship deals to enable them meet the set cash prize road running guidelines.
“Some organisers have come with cash prizes not matching our set guidelines and we are at times forced to bend the rules,” said Mutwii, adding that strict adherence to the same will be critical in the near future.