Comptroller General’s Mini Marathon 2013 – review

Fellow runner Lawrence Neal shares his thoughts on today’s Comptroller General’s Mini Marathon:

The 12th annual Comptroller General’s Mini Marathon is perhaps not the best know race in the running calendar, but it still attracted a large number of runners (including Kittiratt Na Ranong, the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister) and plenty of tough local competition.

This year’s event was held at the Government Complex on Chaeng Watana Road, starting and finishing in front of the huge building that houses the Bangkok Immigration Department that will doubtless be familiar to many of the city’s expats. This sprawling complex is well suited for holding races as there’s hardly any traffic in the area on Sunday mornings and the roads are flat and fairly wide, so not much jostling in the early stages of the race. The surroundings are also quite nice, with gardens and water features.

The main race was not 10.5 km as advertised but exactly 10 km and got off on time at 6.00 am with a temperature of 28 C. I registered for the 10 km on the morning for just 100 Baht, down from the regular price of 200 Baht as there were no shirts left. Two other race distances were also held – 5.5 km (roughly) and 2.5 km.

The overall winner of the 10 km was Chakrit Boonkong with a time of 34:09 – congratulations K. Chakrit. The top five runners were all local club runners.

The finishers’ medal was a rather prestigious Buddhist coin (blessed at a temple in Chachoengsao province) and the after-race food was way above average – spaghetti, soymilk, noodles, khao tom, fruit, pa tong ko, etc., with goodies from Tipco fruit juice, Wai Wai noodles, Lactasoy, Scotch chicken essence, Salonpas and more.

All in all it was very well organized – no complaints at all. Looking forward to the 13th edition of this race!