CamSur run qualifier for Boston Marathon

MANILA, Philippines - The second Summit Water CamSur Marathon hitting the road on Sunday in Pili, Camarines Sur will serve as a qualifier for Filipino runners aiming to compete in the prestigious Boston Marathon next year, the event’s organizers announced yesterday.

“Now Filipino runners no longer need to race abroad just to qualify for the Boston Marathon because our very own CamSur Marathon will be a qualifying race to one of the world’s famous running events,” said Camarines Sur Gov. L-Ray Villafuerte in yesterday’s PSA forum at the Shakey’s UN Avenue branch in Manila.

Joining Villafuerte in the session sponsored by Shakey’s, Pagcor, Smart and Outlast Battery was race director Rio dela Cruz, who noted the fact that the CamSur Marathon is the only accredited race course in the country by both the International Association of Athletics Federation and Association of International Marathons and Distance Races.

“This is the major reason why Sunday’s race became a qualifying run for the Boston Marathon,” said Dela Cruz, who himself had to race in the Fresno Marathon in California, another qualifying contest, this year before he could compete in what many consider the summit of marathon running.

He added that any Filipino marathoner 34 years old and below who completes the CamSur Marathon in three hours and 10 minutes will earn a ticket to the Boston Marathon scheduled in April 2012.

Villafuerte, whose untiring promotional efforts have made his province arguably the country’s sports tourism capital, added that he has set aside the same attractive cash prizes for the country’s local elite runners who will see action in the event.

“For Filipino elite marathoners, the champion will receive P125,00, runner-up P90,000 and third placer P50,000 in both men’s and women’s divisions of the full marathon, which are the same cash prizes for the overall winners of the CamSur Marathon,” Villafurte said.

“Definitely, there will be Filipinos on the podium on Sunday.”

Both of them said they expect to surpass the 18,000 runners who competed in last year’s edition of the races that end inside the sprawling CamSur Watersports Complex, a brainchild of Villafuerte that has made the province one of the top sports and tourist attractions in Southern Luzon.

“We’re expecting at least 20,000 runners this time around and we believe we can attain that,” they said.

Villafuerte said the theme of the second Summit Water CamSur Marathon is a “Race to a Green Philippines,” which is line with his government’s advocacy to plant 12 million trees by 2012.

“For every runner that will compete in our marathon, we are committed to plant 10 trees and if we attract 20,000 runners then that will be 200,000 trees. We plan to plant 12 million trees until 2012 and so far we have three million,” he said.