NEGRIL, Westmoreland — The eleventh staging of the Reggae Marathon will run off at 5:15 tomorrow morning in Negril along Norman Manley Boulevard at the Long Bay Beach Park to the roundabout, Bloody Bay and back.

The course will be changed this year, and race director Alfred Francis explains. “We have changed the course and we have recertified and we will be using the half marathon course which stretches from Negril roundabout to Salt Creek twice to do the marathon, so we will discontinue the course that went past Orange Bay to Green Island.

“We will have a double loop which will increase the density of the music; the logistics will be easier; maintaining security on the course will be easier and the area for the half marathon will be much flatter and will be an easier and faster run for the marathon runners… we expect a number of overseas runners, the running girls from Canada that will be returning after a year’s absence, runners from Japan and a number of the winners from last year,” he explained.

With the marathon, half marathon and the 10K run, which when rolled together with the Pasta Party, Digicel concert tonight and Reggae beach bash tomorrow, make for a fun-filled entertaining weekend.

The record for the marathon is 2:21.5 by St Vincentian Pamenos Ballentye, while the Russian Ramilia Burangulava did so in 2:42.25 in 2001.

The half marathon record for men is 1:8.32 set in 2001 by the Kenyan Moses Macharia and the female record is 1:16.12 by another Kenyan Jackline Toror in 2001.

Rupert Green will be back to defend the marathon title for men, and if Elizabeth Mondan (last year’s winner) and Terri Rofjimbal, who won in 2009 are back, the battles could be interesting.

Kirk Brown and Twishauna Williams should be back for the half marathon titles, so too Shawn Pitter and Carrie Tollefson for the 10K.