Bogota will host its annual woman’s race, featuring 16,000 female runners, joggers, and walkers on Sunday, September 25 at Parque Simon Bolivar, reported newspaper La Republica.
The slogan for the race is “Time for You,” and event coordinators urge all Colombian women to partake in the race, as well as other forms of physical exercise. In addition to supporting the cause of the League Against Cancer, the race seeks to welcome women and inform them that they can meet all their social roles as mothers, wives, and professionals, without neglecting their health and emotional balance.
“We want to give women a space to rebuild themselves, despite their daily chores,” said lawyer Juan Carlos Gonzalez, a coach of the competition. The race this year allows mothers of young children to bring them along for the fun and partake in non-competitive 2K race, making the event all-inclusive and family-friendly.
“Participating in these activities is wonderful. Exercise and taking time for yourself, gives you more energy, opens the mind, helps you to reflect and then face all the challenges that you face,” said Maria Carolina Sanchez, manager of corporate relations for Microsoft Colombia. This is the third year that Sanchez will have participated in the woman’s race, and will be challenging herself this time to complete the race in less than an hour.
This year elite athletes Joyce Chepkirui, world record 10K runner, Emily Chebet, a cross country champion, and Balinesh Gebre, who won the Boston Half Marathon, will be participating in the race alongside other Colombian women. The race features a variety of different distance categories, ranging from all ages 4K race to the professional 12K distance division. In 2009, the Bogota-based race was ranked as being the largest all-female race in the world, according to the event’s website.