THE SISTERS of Mary School Boystown will host its first-ever fun run today in its spacious facility in Barangay Tungkop, Minglanilla town, south Cebu.
The race was made possible through the efforts of Cebuana Olympian Mary Joy Tabal and her trainer John Philip Dueñas. The distances offered are 5 kilometers and 10k.
The 5k distance will be for runners 14 years old and below while the 10k distance will be for those 15 years old and above.
Around 2,000 runners composed of students from the school’s Minglanilla and Talisay campuses will be joining.
SMS Boystown local superior, Sister Emelan Lee, was the one who suggested to Tabal and Dueñas to organize a race. According to Lee, Msgr. Aloysius Schwartz, the founder of the Congregations of the Sisters of Mary and Brothers of Christ, which runs the Sisters of Mary schools, was an avid marathon enthusiasts. This is the reason why they want to promote marathon among their students.
“Life is like a marathon, it is a long way, there’s challenges and U-turns, detours, uphills and downhills, but you need to finish,” said Sister Lee.
Dueñas and Tabal have been conducting running clinics in SMS’s Minglanilla and Talisay campuses through the efforts of University of the Visayas (UV) Baby Webmasters’ assistant coach Van Halen Parmis.
The top three runners in each distance will be given trophies while medals go to the rest of the top 10 finishers. /REPORTER GLENDALE G. ROSAL