Kenya-born and T&T-based long-dis­tance run­ner Alex Eke­sa is chas­ing a record-ex­tend­ing fifth Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon ti­tle when the event comes off on Sun­day (De­cem­ber 7)at the Bay Street Es­planade in St Michael, Bar­ba­dos.

​Eke­sa won the 26.2-mile Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024 and re­turns this year as the heavy favourite. Last year's time of two hours, 29 min­utes, and two sec­onds was a new event record, de­spite Eke­sa's com­plaints of a strong head­wind dur­ing the event, which was held at Bar­clay’s Park, East Coast Road, St An­drew. Fin­ish­ing in sec­ond was T&T's Col­in Pereira in 2:45.27, while an­oth­er T&T run­ner, Christo­pher Mitchell, placed third in 2:56.09.

Eke­sa, 42, is com­ing off a fine run of re­sults and is de­fend­ing men’s Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) In­ter­na­tion­al Half Marathon cham­pi­on in T&T af­ter de­thron­ing Ta­fari Wal­dron on Oc­to­ber 26. On May 18, Eke­sa clocked 2:28.45 to win T&T's Mid­night Marathon, which is the newest in­car­na­tion of T&T's pre­mier marathon.

​The Kenyan leads an­oth­er strong T&T con­tin­gent to the 42nd edi­tion of the Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon Week­end. The is­land’s largest road run­ning event com­pris­es no few­er than six cus­tom-de­signed races over a unique three-day ex­pe­ri­ence from to­day to Sun­day. Two-time 5,000m na­tion­al cham­pi­on Nicholas Ro­many, who was a dou­ble win­ner at the 2024 Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon Week­end (Fun Mile and men's 10K), is among over 2,000 run­ners, walk­ers, and gen­er­al health and well­ness en­thu­si­asts this week­end.

​The 2024 women’s Run Bar­ba­dos 10K run­ner-up, Saman­tha Shuk­la, has al­so land­ed on the is­land again, aim­ing to bet­ter last year’s per­for­mance but will al­so face a stern chal­lenge from Aniqah Bai­ley, 17, who de­throned Shuk­la to be­come the 2025 UWI SPEC Half Marathon cham­pi­on in Oc­to­ber, in a time of 1:30.36.

​T&T will al­so field sev­er­al oth­er par­tic­i­pants not con­sid­ered to be in the elite cat­e­go­ry, such as yours tru­ly, who will re­luc­tant­ly face the 7.30 pm starter’s pis­tol at tonight’s Gar­ri­son Sa­van­nah Fun Mile. This event takes place against the back­drop of the is­land’s fa­mous horse rac­ing venue, The Gar­ri­son. On Sat­ur­day (De­cem­ber 6) af­ter­noon, run­ners and walk­ers lace up and head to the Bay Street Es­planade in St Michael for a 4.30 pm start of the 10K and 5K races. Sun­day morn­ing fea­tures the more gru­elling half and full marathon dis­tances, al­so tak­ing place at the Bay Street Es­planade from 5 am, with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous 5K hike at Walk­er’s Re­serve, St An­drew.

The 42nd edi­tion of the Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon course is now of­fi­cial­ly cer­ti­fied by World Ath­let­ics, which means that any records set will stand as in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised, al­though it de­vi­ates from last year’s, which in­tro­duced par­tic­i­pants to the scenic route along the is­land’s north­east coast, fac­ing the roar­ing At­lantic Ocean. With the ex­cep­tion of the 5K hike, all oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties are be­ing staged in the is­land’s south­west, ac­com­pa­nied by views of the more placid Caribbean Sea.

It is one of the many unique at­trac­tions the or­gan­is­ers in­tend to con­tin­ue to cap­i­talise on, the oth­ers be­ing ad­di­tion­al races and pe­riph­ery ac­tiv­i­ties such as the 5K hike, Fun Mile, and a Cul­tur­al Car­dio ses­sion with lo­cal fit­ness in­flu­encer Amory “Spin­ny” Hold­er. Ac­cord­ing to Ka­mal Springer, Sports Tourism Man­ag­er at Bar­ba­dos Tourism Mar­ket­ing Inc. (BT­MI), these facets give the av­er­age rac­er a more ful­fill­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We thought it was im­por­tant to add an op­por­tu­ni­ty for run­ners to meet each oth­er. You don’t get that a lot at oth­er marathons. You run, and you go home. We want you to come to­geth­er and meet peo­ple be­fore you start to run so that when you’re on the road, you’ll see some­one you met from a dif­fer­ent part of the world,” he said.

Springer ex­plained that the vi­sion is to con­tin­ue to po­si­tion the Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon Week­end as the lead­ing road run­ning event in the re­gion.

He added, “The mea­sur­ing stick is cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. When you fly to Bar­ba­dos and run this event, how was your ex­pe­ri­ence over­all? That is re­al­ly what mat­ters. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we do it for eco­nom­ic im­pact as well, so with­in the ex­pe­ri­ence, how much does that trans­late to spend­ing, how many small busi­ness­es ben­e­fit­ed, and how many ho­tels ben­e­fit­ed? What is the over­all im­pact lo­cal­ly? Are peo­ple train­ing all year round to par­tic­i­pate in this event? Do we res­onate with the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty? There are many oth­er ma­tri­ces, but cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and eco­nom­ic im­pact are the two above all else.”

Oth­er T&T run­ners in­clude Don­nell Fran­cis (Fun Mile, 5K, 1/2 marathon), Isa­iah Alder (Fun Mile, 5K), Christo­pher Mitchell (Fun Mile, 5K, 1/2 marathon) and Keron Ali and among mong the women are sea­soned run­ners Alex­ia John (Fun Mile, 10K, 1/2 marathon) and April Fran­cis (Marathon).