Ayutthaya Marathon & Thailand Int. Half Marathon
Another interesting running weekend in Thailand is behind us. There were a few smaller mini marathons, but the two main events were the Thailand International Half Marathon in Bangkok and Unique Running Ayutthaya Marathon.
Thailand International Half Marathon had some decent prize money at stake (up to 50,000 Baht), and hence attracted many speedy professionals runners. The “half marathon” actually covers 22 kilometers, adding 900 meters extra value to the entry fee. Still waiting for the official results, but got reports about Kenyan domination.
Ayutthaya Marathon 2013 was not dominated by Kenyans, instead there were plenty of Bangkok Runners on the podium. This marathon event has gained popularity because of its scenic race course around the ancient capital Ayutthaya. This year’s Ayutthaya Marathon was suffering from a few organizational mistakes, such as lack of race officials along the route. Perhaps it’s now time to take this event to the next level by starting to use chip timing. There were in fact a few incidents where runners went the wrong way, adding or cutting off distance from their runs. Therefore, the top of the men’s half marathon table is disputable. Find all results here.
Love your blog. Really keeps us weekend warriors up to date with what happens at events where we don’t participate.
Just for the record, the Unique Running Ayutthaya half-marathon did have chip timing yet nobody quite understands how two of the runners got a first split time when they didn’t cross the chip detector. In fact, in turns out that where they went wrong was roughly 300 meters from where the chip detector was located!
Keep up the great work and looking forward to reading more soon.
Thanks for the encouraging words and your inputs Steve!
Since they did use chip timing, these kind of mistakes really should be easy to avoid. The fastest runner over the real half marathon distance (Matthew) finished only 3rd. Anthony (officially 2nd place) showed great sportsmanship when he declined his trophy because he unintentionally took a shortcut. This mess mustn’t happen in an otherwise very nice event.
Any word as to if the Full Marathon distance was true? The course was nice, especially the elephants in the dark!
Of what I’ve heard, the full marathon was slightly short, not sure by how much though. The half was 21.3k according to the reports.
Yes, seems like a really nice course, I should go there and see it for myself next year.