WAL­TER AL­IBEY

T&T's mid­dle and long dis­tance run­ner Tonya Nero will at­tempt to bring an end the trend of in­ter­na­tion­al run­ners dom­i­nat­ing lo­cal events such as the UWI Spec In­ter­na­tion­al Half Marathon which will be held on Sun­day from 5.30 am.

Nero re­turned home from Guade­loupe on Mon­day af­ter­noon where she com­pet­ed at the Guade­loupe 10k and placed sec­ond in a time 36 min­utes and 51 sec­onds, which was a marked im­prove­ment from last year where she placed third in 38:44. She is now send­ing a warn­ing to all vis­it­ing fe­male run­ners to watch out, she will be look­ing to se­cure the top spot and cash prize avail­able.

Last year Kenya's Car­o­line Kip­too claimed vic­to­ry ahead of Brazil's Cruz Nona­ta Da Sil­va and third Linei­ta Madeus Ro­jas of Colom­bia. These four run­ners are ex­pect­ed to be back along with T&T's best fin­ish­er at sixth, Saman­tha Shuk­la.

But on her re­turn to lo­cal shores on Mon­day, Nero said she has in­ten­si­fied her train­ing for the UWI Half Marathon which will al­so be used as prepa­ra­tion for a marathon in Dubai on Jan­u­ary 22.

"These days I run 65-70 miles every week in prepa­ra­tion for the race. Among these miles will be some hill runs which I do to build strength in my home vil­lage of Mara­cas, St Joseph, oth­er­wise I will train at ei­ther the Mara­cas St Joseph Recre­ation Ground or at the Aran­juez Sa­van­nah," Nero said.

The slen­der built 26 year old T&T run­ner has al­ready de­vised her plan for Sun­day, say­ing she will go out hard at the start and will main­tain her po­si­tion with the lead­ing run­ners, be­fore she goes for a dash to the end.

"My race will not be dic­tat­ed by any oth­er run­ner, whether it's lo­cal or for­eign. I will be run­ning my own race on Sun­day," she said.

Nero did not com­pete in the half marathon last year, in­stead choos­ing to par­tic­i­pate at the Guyana 10k which she won con­vinc­ing­ly. But come Sun­day she will em­brace a chal­lenge by lo­cal or­gan­is­ers of road race events to win a race that will fea­ture a num­ber of top for­eign run­ners. Or­gan­is­ers these days have been of­fer­ing in­cen­tives for lo­cal run­ners to win events that al­so com­prise in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants, be­cause of com­plaints by lo­cals that the in­ter­na­tion­al run­ners re­ceive all the prizes in their home­land.

Nero is con­fi­dent she can bring home the win, not for her­self on­ly but al­so T&T.

"This year I am a stronger run­ner. I start­ed train­ing for this event and the Dubai marathon about three weeks ago. I have done a lot of strength and speed work un­der my train­er Paul Voisin and I will be aim­ing to bet­ter my time in the race," Nero said.

She told the Guardian al­so that she sym­pa­thizes with lo­cal run­ners who may not get the type of prepa­ra­tion to com­pete with in­ter­na­tion­al run­ners who run for a liv­ing.

"For­tu­nate­ly for me, I have been ex­posed to run­ning with some of these run­ners and I know what it takes to win the race so I am go­ing to give it my best shot," Nero said.

Mean­while the men's event is al­so shap­ing up to be a show­down in the 13.1 mile event from the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus to the La Re­source junc­tion in D'Abadie and back, with cham­pi­on Chavez Da Sil­va bid­ding to se­cure the win for yet an­oth­er time. The Brazil­ian has said he wants to win the race for 10 years straight.