Sev­er­al lo­cal run­ners have al­ready test­ed their sta­mi­na and will pow­er in tack­ling the vir­tu­al T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon (TTIM) which start­ed on Jan­u­ary 1.

Due to the on­go­ing coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, the 39th edi­tion of the TTIM is be­ing run on a vir­tu­al plat­form over three weeks and part of the pro­ceeds will go to the Lu­pus Foun­da­tion ac­cord­ing to the T&T Marathon Com­mit­tee chair­per­son Di­ane Hen­der­son.

She told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, that the race is be­ing done vir­tu­al­ly for the first time in its his­to­ry as the dis­tance run­ning com­mu­ni­ty in T&T did not go dor­mant dur­ing the coro­n­avirus lock­down but found cre­ative ways to get their miles in.

Like every year, the par­tic­i­pants are run­ning in four cat­e­gories in­clud­ing the full marathon called the VRM 26.2 miles, the VR 3.1 rep­re­sents the 5k, the half marathon event is called the VRH13.1 and the ul­tra-marathon, the new ad­di­tion for those want­i­ng to re­al­ly test their met­al across 100 miles.

Run­ners be­gan their timed events on New Year's Day and can par­tic­i­pate through Jan­u­ary 24 in any of the races. Reg­is­tra­tion clos­es on Sun­day in each event.

"It has been go­ing quite well. Run­ners com­pete in their own course and run their own race," said Hen­der­son. "The run­ning com­mu­ni­ty has adapt­ed to the vir­tu­al for­mat pos­i­tive­ly. It is a very good al­ter­na­tive."

Dur­ing the first week, par­tic­i­pants have al­ready crushed some of their fit­ness goals choos­ing a scenic route com­pet­ing in the ex­cit­ing and ar­du­ous marathon and Ul­tra Chal­lenge.

She said, "Ten (10) peo­ple com­plet­ed the Ul­tra Chal­lenge - the Ari­ma through Blan­chisseuse to Mara­cas route - on Sat­ur­day night and up­loaded their videos."

Par­tic­i­pants from home, around the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly con­tin­ue to se­lect their routes and up­load their dis­tances and times to the event por­tal in the tru­ly in­ter­na­tion­al event. No prizes will be giv­en out this year, how­ev­er, medals of par­tic­i­pa­tion will be sent to all com­peti­tors.

"For­eign­ers have signed up and they too will up­load their re­sults and their medals will be shipped to them," said Hen­der­son. "All run­ners are out do­ing their stuff, keep­ing ac­tive and achiev­ing their mile­stones. The run­ning fra­ter­ni­ty is healthy and very ac­tive."