Message from the Race Director

16 September 2011

Dear Registered and Potential AIMers,

“Nine weeks away” has turned into just 9 days away since our July message to you. By now, your training is mostly history and you've tapered down considerably, especially if you're doing the full or half marathon. For many, we expect there's a bit of anxiety mixed in with the exciting anticipation of successfully completing the event. We have some good and useful information for you, but first, we would like to clear up some apparent confusion out there about the date of AIM day. AIM day is always the last Sunday of September, which falls on the 25th this year.

Unfortunately for many young Ghanaian competitive athletes, organizers of the only other marathon distance event in Ghana, the Milo Marathon, decided to change their date, which used to be a month after ours, to fall very close to ours. Last year, they actually scheduled it to fall the day before ours. This year, they've opted to change their date once again and hold theirs on Wednesday, the 21st--four days  before ours. The Milo is only a full marathon with one shorter distance for youth under 15 years. If you are receiving this note, you have successfully registered or have indicated your intention to register for our event, the Accra International Marathon (AIM).  

We promised the race packets would be ready for pick-up at least a week before the event; we are processing the packets now and they will be ready by close of day tomorrow (Saturday). We'll take a day of rest on Sunday, and have them available for pick-up from our offices (see map) from Monday to Friday. During this period, we're generally in the office by 6am and don't close to the public until 5pm. We hope to hold the last day of registration and race packet pick-up on Saturday the 24th at the finish line venue as indicated on the Google map of the course. Our usual free public health screening will be held from 9am-3pm at the same venue. We can bring race packets to the Ramada Resort for those of you who will be attending the pasta dinner there. If you didn't get the details of the pasta dinner, please email us.

The race start times are 5:30am for the full marathon, 6:15am for the half marathon, and 6:35am for the 10K. There are a couple of glitches with the legend portion of the Google map of the course that the good folks at Google haven't been able to rectify, so please use the table below for the water and first aid stops.

W = water; AS = aid station; RCS = Relay Changeover Station

We will provide free transport to all start lines from the Ramada Resort (locate them at mile 22 (km 35.4) on our course Google map). Vehicles will depart the Ramada as follows: 4:30am for the full marathon start line; 5:15am for the half marathon start line; and 5:45 for the 10k start line. We will also transport participants' bags and clothes from the start lines to the finish line.

Our transport sponsor is offering reasonably priced shuttle service for loved ones who accompany participants to the start line.

The full complement of the GU energy gels, chews and drinks arrived safely and will be distributed first to those doing the full and half marathons since these products are specially formulated for those doing the longer distance events. We will include 5-6 packets, depending on the product and serving size, in the full marathon race packets and 3-4 in the half marathon race packets. If we have sufficient quantities after supplying the marathoners, we will include samples in the goody bags for all participants.  

If you have only recently registered, please check our website for important information conveyed in previous Race Director's Messages.

Regards,
AIM Race Mgmt Team

026 4FITNESS [026 434 8637] OR
026 2GET FIT [026 243 8348]

Other Race Director's Messages:

23 September 11

27 July 11

2 June 11