De 4e editie van de Mergelland Marathon

Newsletter July

The number of entries for the marathon is at the moment significantly higher than last year.

The Internet site (http://run.to/mergel) results in many reactions from abroad. We even got from India a request for information from the New Gujarats Sports Federation, an organisation for able and disabled athletes. We have told them that they are welcome and that well-trained wheelers, provided they have a good braking capacity, can capture the course.

Much interest is shown again from North Africa. Not withstanding the fact that we don’t pay starting fees and costs for accommodation, we prefer low entry fees, it is very probable that this year a team from a Casablanca club will participate with young athletes, who anyhow all have times between 2.15 and 2.20 behind their names. Visa remain the problem.

Also the Athletic Federation from Algeria has contacted us again. We hope their efforts are successful this year.

From Switzerland came the question whether we had not forgotten a 0 in the course profile. No, of course, for the lowlanders under us the hills that are in the course already sound bad enough.

Speaking about slopes. The steepest parts of the course do not exceed 10% and can be found on the Biesenberg and In de Schreub over a length of 60 and 120 meter respectively. With the exception of In de Schreub downhill does not exceed 6%.

The Marketplace, the start/finish area, will have a different layout in which the beer isle of last years has disappeared and accommodations for the athletes and supporters have improved. So it will be possible to leave your training suit at the start and is there a place to recover after the race with the traditional free Limburger vlaai.

New this year is the 5-km run for joggers. This is done on request from many people. It consist of one nearly flat round through the town of Meerssen and has as a special challenge one steep 10% slope over a distance of about 150 meters midway. So be warned! The participants of the 10km take this round twice.

Teambuilding is hype in profit and non-profit organisations. Therefore this year as an experiment also a 5-km business run.

Running teams may number up to 10 persons. The first 5 finishers of the team, no difference between sexes, account for the team trophy. The winner receives the unique Mergelland marlstone engraving. For the teambuilding afterwards the team participants receive some tickets to spend in the pubs at the Marketplace. Costs 125 Hfl per team. Each finisher receives also the only original Marsana Mergelland towel to wipe off the sweat afterwards.

For the company 2 meter commercial space is available in the start/finish area.

Entries to be send to the wedstrijdsecretariaat, Schippersdreef 24C, 6216 TK Maastricht, The Netherlands.

KLM-Exel the intercity hopper has a special surprise for the participants of the 5 and 10 km Marsana runs. 2 tickets each for 2 persons to any destination of the Exel Airline are made available.

At this moment we are dubbing about how to award these. One method, very obviously, could be to award these tickets to the respective winners of the races. However this would automatically exclude the ladies and that is against our general policy. We have not yet reached a conclusion! Watch our site for more news about this and other items.

To ease the way the entry fees can be paid, we have opened our banking account at the SNS Bank for this purpose.

No.96.23.05.480 of Stichting Marathon Z-Limburger at Munstergeleen.

As banking traffic is sometimes slow please take your banking account slip with you when picking up your start number.

The prize schedule for the 2001 Mergelland Marathon is fixed. Also this year the same prize for the men and women’s winners. Also prizes for the different veteran groups. (10 year steps). See further under Prijzenschema.

A number of short for the Mergelland Marathon 2001