The Association's General Manager, Alain Dalais says with over 22 000 entries, they have the biggest field of runners ever on a down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.

He says with safety in mind, they have made a number of changes. This include splitting the race into two start times according to seeding batches, the first at 5:45 and the second at 6. The number of runners in the first starting group has been capped at 14 000. Dalais says some of the start-line traditions will be repeated for the second group to make the start of the race special for them as well.

"And once group one has the starting gun goes off at 5:45 am, and group one moves forward. When group 2 are proceeding to the start line there will be Chariots of Fire again and Max Trimborne's cock crow. So it will be a shortened version. The other introduction that we've done at the start as well, is that we'll have the speaker towers all the way until the back of S batch," Dalais said.

--SABC--