As you are leisurely having breakfast and reading your copy of the MetroPost, the first-ever full marathon (42 kms.) traversing 15 barangays in Sibulan, Valencia, and Dumaguete City is taking place. This is the Dumaguete Adventure Marathon 2011, whose beginnings — the “Rice is Life” Leandro Sinco Challenge Races — was first held in July 2006.
Organizing the DAM, participated in by some 4,000 walkers and runners, some of whom coming from France, Germany, Nairobi, Japan, Singapore, USA, Metro Manila, Cebu, and Mindanao, requires mustering the support of hundreds of volunteers, funds amounting to over a million pesos, and the bountiful goodwill and generosity of Negrenenses and Dumagueteños.
With limited material resources but with a grateful academic community that realizes its indebtedness to the City that has been hosting the institution for the past 62 years, Foundation University organized the marathon as its “gift to the City of Gentle People” as the City celebrates its 63rd Charter Day and fiesta.
Current protocol in marathon staging is the use of electronic timing chips for the monitoring and processing of race results. Runners nowadays, from the fastest to the slowest, are more demanding in wanting to know their times and places right after the race.
With thousands of runners to be processed, the only way to meet this demand is to procure an electronic timing system. The cost of this equipment is about P640,000 and about P170,000 for the 5,000 disposable electronic chips that runners attach to their bib numbers. Thus, for the timing system alone, FU had to fork out P810,000.
The DAM, from its inception five years ago, is also known as the “Rice is Life” marathon, the only marathon held to celebrate rice–the Grain of Life, and what a rice scientist referred to as “…not only a cereal (in Asia), but the root of civilization.”
All participants in the DAM make a pledge “To Save Rice, Save Lives”, a rice conservation corporate social responsibility shared among FU, the Asia Rice Foundation, Philippine Rice Research Institute, and the Department of Agriculture.
Instead of awarding cash prizes to winners and participants, bags and sacks of rice are given. For the DAM, a total of 225 sacks (cavans) of rice valued at P393,750 was procured.
Focusing its advocacy on children and youngsters, and to encourage them to observe rice conservation practices, each participant in the 3km kiddie and 5km finishers run will be bringing home a kilo of rice.
In addition to the rice prizes, medals will be awarded to all the finishers of the 21km half and full marathon, costing P18,100. Certificates will be given to all finishers of the 10.5km at a cost of P15,200.
The number of warm bodies involved in the implementation of the marathon: 110 medical team consisting of Red Cross Youth, FU Nursing faculty, medical doctors, nurses, health personnel, and ambulance crews from Dumaguete, Valencia, Sibulan, Bindoy, Ayungon, and Bayawan; with a budget of P14,500; 20 people from the traffic management group with a budget of P5,000; 20 policemen detailed from Dumaguete, 15 from Valencia, and 10 from Sibulan with a budget of P11,250; 289 FU faculty, staff, and student volunteers to man the check-off points, water and sponging stations, and assist in ensuring the safety of walkers and runners. Many of these volunteers will be deployed along the routes in the barangays of Sibulan and Valencia as early as midnight of Saturday.
The test of a successful marathon is the availability of drinking water throughout the race route.
It was reported that a marathon held in Cebu offering the most expensive cash prizes of P70,000 to the winning men and women finishers had runners buying water from stores along the route because the organizers failed to provide enough water for them.
For the DAM, a total of 183 water jars or 3,660 liters worth P32,025 will be provided. Another 4,000 bottles of water will be provided for every participant, estimated at P44,000.
To prevent the full marathon runners from “bonking”, a condition where a runner experiences extreme hunger, 1000 pieces of bananas will be provided. A budget of P1,000 was allotted for this. Another 4,000 pieces of bananas will be given to all the participants as part of their post-run meal.
About P20,000 have been spent so far for organizational meetings, transportation and communication, promotions, and production of collaterals. Development and maintenance of the website has cost FU about P50, 000.
If told five years ago that it would need something like P1,418,825 to stage a DAM, FU President Mira Sinco would probably have had second thoughts about approving of the undertaking.
But FU Chairman of the Board Dean Sinco, who has personally witnessed the health, social, and economic benefits that the Honolulu Marathon brings to that 50th state of the Union (where he resides with his family), has fully supported the DAM from its inception. He had always wanted to organize here in Dumaguete a full 42km marathon, and has been responsible for choosing the sectors where the course has been set up–making the DAM a unique, challenging, and environmentally-wholesome experience.
FU has limited material resources to provide for all the requirements of staging the DAM successfully. It had to secure the support and participation of the academic community with everybody without exception — from the students, faculty, staff, including the physical plant workers — asked to join the event; and who have responded generously and enthusiastically.
The DAM had cast a magical spell on everyone, sharing the joy and excitement of manifesting the spirit of caring attached to a marathon.
There’s a long list of generous people, business establishments, institutions, and organizations who have given substantial support in kind, in cash, and moral support. They will be properly acknowledged in the DAM website. Without them, no one in Dumaguete would be able to hold an event similar to the DAM. And only the grace and blessing of the Almighty will give them back what they have shared with FU its gift to our beloved City.
