On Sunday morning July 18th at 4:10am the opening ceremony of the 19th Pattaya Marathon 2010 was held, starting and finishing in front of the Pattaya City Hall. The mayor of Pattaya, Mr. Itiphon Kunpluem, was present at the opening ceremony and starting point. More than 10,000 runners participated in the various different marathon lengths including the Fun Run and Wheelchair Marathon.
The main purpose of this annual marathon is to attract tourism to the Pattaya/Chonburi province and to encourage people to become more involved in athletics as a sport. The runners were made up of a wide range of nationalities and age groups including a section for Men over 70 years of age & Women over 60 years of age. With more than 200 awards given on the day and prize money of over 2 million baht, the Pattaya Marathon is becoming a major event in the worldwide sports arena.
There were many marathon lengths the entrants could choose from when deciding to participate.
Full Marathon – 42km – Started at 4:30am
Half Marathon – 21km – Started at 5:00am
Quarter Marathon – 10.5km – Started at 5:30am
Wheelchair Marathon – 10.5km – Started at 4:15am
Fun Run – 5km – Started at 6:00am
Entrants from more than 12 countries participated in the marathon namely Thailand, Kenya, China, Japan and Hong Kong. Pattaya´s own Jim Lumsden from Ambiance Hotel and Boyz Boyz Boyz took part for the 3rd year in the Full Marathon event and could be seen regularly training around Pattaya for 4 months, 4 days a week leading up to the day. He was raising money for Pattaya Pride, and finished the Full Marathon in 5:54:00 and raised a staggering 300,000 baht. Congratulations and well done Jim!! |
