The starting and finishing point is Game City Mall. It will be a marathon with a difference, as runners’ shoes will be laced with glowing sticks and reflectors on their arms.
The race's organiser, Mbakiwa Mawila told MmegiSport that it has been a gruelling journey to put together the event. “It is the first time to have a marathon at night in this country, so putting together logistics was a nightmare for me and my team. We are still running around with last-minute preparations,” he said. Mawila said race pack collection will be done tomorrow (Saturday) and there will be an official opening speech by the Minister of Defence and Security, Kagiso Mmusi. Mawila, who is working together with the Botswana Police Athletics Club, Lion’s Den, said he came up with the concept and engaged other people to come up with the first night marathon in the country.
He said the idea was to start with 21 kilometres and a controlled number of runners were allowed to register for the sake of safety. Mawila said they would use the first event to gauge if it would be possible to have a full marathon next year. He said a full marathon was going to stretch their limited resources, which meant they would need more police officers in the streets and to close many roads around the city. “Run Gabz Marathon is a concept that was inspired by the escalating crime rate in Gaborone. I think right from last year, we saw the crime rate going up, so naturally we responded in different ways. I came up with this solution and even analysed it further to see if it is a durable solution and something we can adopt as a country,” Mawila said. The race is divided into 21km, 10km and five kilometres.
The prize money for the winners (men and women) of the half marathon is P7,000, with position two receiving P5,000, while a third-place finish guarantees runners P2,500. The winner of the 10km is P5,000 while position two has a cash prize of P2,500 and P1,000 for the third position. Mawila said the event has received support from different companies. Choppies Superstores is sponsoring the 10m race, Turnstar is the gold sponsor while other partners are Collins Chilisa (legal partner), ER24/7 (medical partner), Berocca (medal sponsor), Stencil Technologies (technology partner), and Coca-Cola (hydration partner).
