Taipei's International Expressway Marathon will begin in the wee hours of Sunday morning on the elevated Wuku-Hsichih section of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway.
Secretary-General of the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association Sunny Chen said the event promised to be the biggest and best in its 10-year history.
"Yes, everybody, come on down and watch. The start and finish lines are at the same place so it will be a good opportunity to watch the runners."
An international field of around 5,000 runners will participate in five events: the 100km ultra marathon, the standard 42.195km marathon, 21km half marathon, 10km and 5km races.
The highlight of the day is likely to be the 100km ultra marathon, in which 22 Taiwanese runners are expected to participate and are hoping to do well on home soil.
Those who perform well in the race may be picked by the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association (中華民國路跑協會) as reserves for overseas events in the coming years.
Big foreign names in the marathon event include Uladzimir Kotau of Belarus, Jacek Kasprzyk of Poland and Jesse Maina from Kenya.
All of them hold records of between two hours, eleven minutes and 2:15.
They will compete against some of Taiwan's best long-distance runners, including Chiu Chien-hsing (邱建興), Wang Jui-jung (王瑞榮) and Tu Mao-kai (杜茂開).
In the women's marathon, Harumi Noto and Midori Daigo of Japan and Wioletta Uryga of Poland will run alongside Taiwan's leading runners Chen Shu-hua (陳淑華) and Hsu Yu-fang (許玉芳).
The 100km race begins at 2am, while the marathon and half marathon startat 6am.
The 10km race will start at 7am with over 1,400 runners. The 5km event will begin at 9am and is open to the general public.
For information on how to get there, call 2357-9885.
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