KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11 — The Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM) organisers will monitor the haze conditions continuously till race day on Oct 4, says project director Rainer Biemans.

He said as the race was just 22 days away and if the haze persisted, the organisers would consult the relevant stakeholders, including the youth and sports ministry on the next course of action to safeguard the health of the 35,000 runners competing in various categories.

“We can see the haze is very bad today...yesterday, there was no haze. It can switch very fast even in one day but at the moment, there is no alert.

“We will monitor the situation closely... normally, there is no haze in October.

“We are at the final stage of preparation and are confident nothing will change and that everything will go as planned,” Biemans, who is also Dirigo Events director told reporters at the countdown to race day high tea here today.

According to the Department of Environment, as of 5pm today, the reading in Kuala Lumpur was recorded as unhealthy, whereby at Batu Muda in Kuala Lumpur, the API was 114, and in Cheras, 94.

An API reading of 0-50 is categorised as good, 51-100 (moderate), 101-200 (unhealthy), 201-300 (very unhealthy), and 300 and above (hazardous).

For the record, in 2013, the marathon which was initially scheduled in June was postponed to September due to hazardous haze.

On another note, Biemans noted that the number of long distance runners had increased as compared to the last few years.

“The most popular category is the 10km, with 15,000 runners taking part,” he said.

Meanwhile, the full marathon and half-marathon categories saw an increase in participation by 27 per cent and nine per cent, respectively from last year, he noted.

The marathon which offers total prize of US$125,000 (RM537,437.50) has a total of eight categories, including a full marathon (42.195km) and Honda half-marathon (21km).

Runners will start from Dataran Merdeka, with the full marathon route taking them through highways, providing them a vista of the scenic cityscape of the Kuala Lumpur city. — Bernama