Singapore Marathon runners get chance to put timings on finisher tees (no pressure)

By Les Tan/Red Sports

Velocity @ Novena Square, Tuesday, September 15, 2009 – Full marathon runners at the upcoming Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon will get a chance to put their race times on their finisher t-shirts this year.

The new finisher t-shirt was unveiled today at the New Balance store at Velocity to mark the return of the brand as a sponsor of the Singapore Marathon. New Balance last sponsored the Singapore Marathon in 2004.

“We have specially designed the official runners’ t-shirt of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2009 to offer runners an even better race experience,” said Patrick Wong, country representative of New Balance. ” We are also proud and honoured to design and provide the special-edition finisher’s t-shirt this year to commemorate our return as apparel sponsor for Singapore’s premier running event. We hope that this special-edition finisher’s t-shirt will be a much treasured item in the participants’ wardrobe.”

17,500 runners have signed up to run in the full marathon on December 6, 2009. Last year, about 11,300 runners completed the marathon.

Caroline Chok, 31, a fitness instructor, is gearing up for her eight marathon since 2002.

“This year, I’m trying to hit below 5 [hours],” said Caroline, whose personal best is 4 hours 45 minutes which she set in 2008. “I’m in the midst of my training. I was introduced to triathlons [in 2001] and that’s how I got hooked onto endurance sports.”

Registration for the marathon, which also features the 21km and 10km categories, closed on August 27th just six weeks after the race was open for registrations. Organisers have capped the numbers at 50,000 for all categories.

Elangovan Ganesan, the fastest Singaporean male marathoner from 2004 to 2006, won’t be running this year because of torn anterior cruciate ligaments in both his knees suffered in late 2008 and early 2009.

“I did surgery in late December [2008] and now I’m into my eight month of recovery. I’m slowly starting to run again. I’m still in a recovery phase. I’m not planning to take part this year and let it recover. It’s an over-use injury. I’ll be ready for the second half of next year. I’ve had my days. I won in 2004, 2005, and 2006. It’s about time to take a break for awhile and get through all these injuries,” said Elangovan, who finished the 2006 marathon in a time of 2 hours 50 minutes 58 seconds.

Runners can bring their finisher certificates to any of the four New Balance Concept Stores at the Raffles City Shopping Centre, Velocity @ Novena Square, Junction 8 Shopping Centre and Tampines 1 to get their times added to the back of the t-shirt.