‘VnExpress Marathon promotes running movement in Hai Phong’
According to Hai Phong Runners Club, the movement has grown strongly and running events have flourished throughout the city since VnExpress Marathon announced its arrival at the port a year ago.
In mid-October, the Hai Phong open half-marathon Thuy Nguyen cup was held, attracting more than 2,000 athletes from Hai Phong and some neighboring provinces. One week later, there was the Cat Hai District Open Cross Country Tournament, with the participation of many professional track and field athletes. This tournament offers free hotel accommodation for all competing runners, combined with a series of running events in Do Son, Nam Dinh Vu industrial park, Nam Cau Kien…
Runner Bui Quoc Dat – admin of the Hai Phong Runners (HPR) group, who started and followed the port running movement for the past 6 years, said that running has never developed as quickly and strongly as it is now. All districts, districts, and residential areas have clubs. All of these effects are possible thanks to the way VnExpress Marathon announced it would organize a large-scale tournament exactly one year ago. “The appearance of VnExpress Marathon has created a big boost for running in Hai Phong”, Mr. Dat said.
Runner Hai Phong in traditional shirt. Photo: NVCC
In addition to promoting local culture, people and tourism, VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong 2023 is a city runner tournament that focuses on expertise. Since the beginning of the year, HPR has gathered a group with key runners, supporting each other in training, aiming for the goal of standing on the podium at home.
He cited as evidence that when founded in 2017, HPR had only 3 members. Earlier this year, the online group Love Running in Hai Phong had 3,000 members and currently, on the eve of the first VnExpress Marathon on port land, this group has surpassed the mark of 6,000 participants.
Not only runners from the Royal Poinciana city, the online group attracts many runners from other localities to participate. In recent days, the group’s atmosphere has been more exciting than usual. Posts about places to eat, stay, and have fun in Hai Phong and around the competition area are constantly updated by runner land port. “Not only come to compete, we want all runners coming to Hai Phong to have beautiful experiences and memories of our people and homeland,” Mr. Dat said.
According to him, Hai Phong people love sports passionately and have great pride in their homeland. Besides football, running is a sport that many people follow. Therefore, runners always want to spread the image of their homeland through the colors of their flags at sports tournaments, especially on running tracks with many participants. Upcoming, at VnExpress Marathon, HPR’s goal is to dye white and red – the club’s traditional shirt color along the running route.
Runner attended the 4AM tournament. Photo: 4AM
Not only districts, some clubs in Hai Phong city also organize many running activities. In particular, the 4 a.m. (4AM) running group’s tournament attracted more than 200 registered runners. Prominent names in the running world such as Dao Ba Thanh (Hanoi) also participated in the competition.
Besides HPR, 4AM is also a large community of Hai Phong. The group organizes training activities, long runs, and guides runners in the city as well as across the country to become marathon runners. Since the beginning of the year, 4AM has had a professional plan for the year’s tournaments, especially the most important and target tournament at home – VnExpress Marathon.
About 280 members of 4AM also went through the sprint training phase with intense lesson plans, entering the taper interval before the tournament. “We still maintain 16 to 18km long runs for athletes competing in 21 and 42km. Runners running 5 and 10km still work hard with the distances according to the lesson plan. All are ready for an explosive race at home”, said runner Nguyen Duy Kien – 4AM group.
VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong takes place on December 17, expected to attract 9,000 attendees. This is the closing tournament of 2023 of the VnExpress Marathon system.