After thinking more, Edison said he will not only accept the invitation to watch the marathon but moreover, he will definitely participate to it. His story became viral worldwide and the officials decided to invite him to watch the race as a honour guests. There were two possibilities they have thought about: either to ride in the leading vehicle or to hold the finish line tape, however none considered the Chilean will want to race the marathon. And that is the exact thing he wants to do, the Chilean consulate revealed.

Mary Wittenberg, president of the NY Road Runners, admitted that Pena will participate to this event as a runner and there is no doubt about this. Marathon organisers were thinking how to best honour him but it seems allowing him to run at the event is the best thing they can do.

Pena spent 69 days trapped underground, at nearly 800m below the Earth’s surface, along with other 32 coleagues of him. After they got rescued, the marathons officials contacted the Chilean consulate to invite Pena at their event and last week the invitation acceptance has came. Only on Monday they found out that the miner will not only observe the marathon but will also run along other contestants and everybody is anxious to see him performing at the event.

For some Marathon runners in Xiamen, South China running 20 miles a day or doing strenuous preparation to run a marathon is probably not their cup of tea because they have other plans as to how to complete the run. Marathon officials have disqualified more than 30 runners of the top 100 finishers in the Xiamen Marathon. Looking through video footage of the even, officials found that quite of a few of the runners deployed unsportsmanlike methods to complete their marathon.
Cheating methods deployed by in the race includes giving the timer chip to a faster runner who then ran with two chips, some got lift in vehicles for many miles during the run while other hire impostor to do the running for them.

Unlike say 100 meter sprint, Marathon which take the best sports men and women over 2 hours to complete leaves a lot of time for cheats to find a sneaky ways to gain unfair advantage, many years ago in London marathon, before time-recording chips were introduced, two runners tried to cheap by one running half of the marathon and the second completing the rest, they managed to swap their number successfully, they would have got away with it for one minor detail the cheats over looked, one of the men had moustache but the other did not, comparing the picture of the man who finished the race with a particular number with the man who started the race with the same number, official saw that he had no moustache at the start of the race but a full moustache at the end of the race.

Cheating in Marathon dates back a long time, in the 1904 Olympics, the gold medalist Fred Lorz was later found out to have has a lift in his managers car for about 11 miles of the 26 miles race.

World record holder, Radcliffe, 35 clutched her left let as she hobbled past the finish line in pain.

Britain’s world record holder finished fourth and clutched the back of her left leg in pain as she came home.The race race was won by two-time Olympic 10,000m champion Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia, who was just able to keep  Russia’s Ludmila Petrova at the last half mile to the end of the race.

Paula Radcliffe was supposed to run in the Birmingham half marathon as a sort of warm up preparation for the New York Marathon, she pull out at the last minute due to tonsillitis.  In an interview she gave after r Sunday’s race, she revealed tendinitis behind her knee had started to take its toll before the halfway stage.

“I knew I was fit coming in, it felt great, then at 11 miles it just went,” Radcliffe said.

“For the last miles I was just thinking ‘just hang in there’ as long as I could. Just try to stay with them.”

Radcliffe said she had had a cortisone injection last week to help ease the problem.

One of the best ways to stay fit at a budget is running. Since the current economic pinch, gym membership subscription has decline as people looks for ways to save money. Cancelling you gym subscription should not mean you stop exercising. You are probably already using the treadmill in you former gym, you can swap the confines of a gym for the outdoors and see another way to stay fit, a much cheaper way when compared with running and exercising in gyms.

Here are some of the basics of running on the road, in the park or off-road if you live in rural location.

Get the right footwear
If you are going to be a serious runner, it is absolutely important that you get the right footwear, this is crucial to you ability to run long distance comfortably and injury free. You can buy a pair of trainers at any sports shop but it may be much better to buy from specialist running shop. Good specialist running shop have treadmill with gait analyser that will analyse your unique running style and help decide the kind of running shoes you need, some runners need neutral, others need one that provide support for runners who list to the right or left when running.

Start slowly
When you first start running,do not run fast, run slowly at a pace you are comfortable with. Some people even start by walking. Run or walk for as long as you can cope with, make note of the time or distance you covered, increase the distance at subsequent runs.

Find a running partner
Running with a mate is a lot more fun than running alone, find a running partner with similar running ability to yours and run with him or her, better still join a running club.

Be safe not sorry
Learn to stretch properly before running and after your run, this is important to say injury free and avoid aches the tender muscles the day after a run. You can learn to stretch properly and if you do a search for stretching exercises on any search engine.

Birminham Half Marathon

For the single marathon runner hoping to attract a date on the day it is potentially a great way to meet members of the opposite sex, over 10,000 runners are expected to participate and a great deal of them are probably single so why not put on your best running shoes and running gear just in case you find a woman or man that catches your fancy. Quite a few runners have been know to find partners are races.

Here are some tips that could help you get a date with another marathon runner at Birmingham 2009 half marathon.
Wear read or any other colour that stands out.
The man or woman you are targeting should be of roughly the same running ability so that you can chat as you run together
First ensure the man or woman is single by looking for tell tale signs or by asking