The 1st Gaudos Half Marathon & 10K did not start in the best of ways despite having a very encouraging number of applicants for the 1st edition. The Malta Marathon Organising Committee's expectation was to have around 500 applicants, but we had 655, so that was quite positive.

The creation and staging of this event faced several difficulties.

The first was to get a date for the event, the calendar of road running events is quite full and the only first available option was the 12th of May and that was Mother's Day. This was not an ideal day since generally people would like to have lunch with the family. Since the event is in Gozo, with the majority of participants having to travel from Malta and back, being in time for lunch may prove to be difficult. Yet we forged ahead with this date.

The second was the Gozitan Local Council that we were going to collaborate with to organise this event. Initially it was agreed to collaborate with the Ghajnsielem Local Council but 2 months after launching the event with the collaboration of the Ghajnsielem Local Council, this council decided to pull out. Obviously, this caused problems, as a new local council had to be found, artworks changed and this included a change in the medal. The new local council came to be the Xewkija Local Council.

So after having found and measured the Gaudos routes that started and finished in Ghajnsielem, new routes that started in Xewkija and ended there had to be found and measured. This was done and as was expected both routes were to start and finish in the main square of Xewkija which at that time works were on-going to refurbish it. We were made to understand that the works would be finished by the 12th of May. However, 3 weeks before it was evident that the works will not be completed. At first, we tried to find a way with the contractor of using parts of the square which were either ready or no work had yet commenced. Initially we thought that this would work but just one week before the event it was made clear to us that the square could not be used at all. So, within one week, new routes had to be found and measured and all instructions for the 11 Police, 9 Transport Malta Officers, 5 LESA Wardens and 33 Marshals had to be done from scratch.

After working day and night for the whole week we managed to get everything done in time. However despite having a succesful 10K, this was not the case for the Half Marathon. Due to a gross error carried out by one of the Marshals, all the Half Marathon participants except for a handful were directed off course. Results and awards for those that did not cover the proper distance will be given on the first 2.902Km for which we have everyone's time.

This does not discourage us and we look forward to the 2nd Gaudos Half Marathon and 10K. With more time to prepare for it we are positive that like the 2019 Gaudos 10K we will have a succesful 2020 Gaudos Half Marathon.