Veloria, Miller top Marianas Tourism Month 5K

The usual suspects—Sildrey Veloria and Akiko Miller—topped the competitive race of the Marianas Tourism Month 5K Fun Run last Saturday morning that began and ended at the Garapan Fishing Base.

In the men’s division, Veloria clocked first overall at 19:41; Joel Phaii was second with 20:28; and third was Chad Taflinger with 21:54.

Miller came in first for the women’s division in 20:55; Noriko Jim was second at 22:32; and Adalee Taflinger was third with 23:48.

There was also a “Best Tourist Costume” contest for runners in costumes, and the awards went to Theodore and Michael Rodgers who won $300 for their airplane costume; the Taflinger family received $200 for their beach day getup and third place went to Mr. and Ms. Iwamoto who received $100 for their bikini-shirt costumes.

For Veloria who ran sans costume, he said “the race was a lot of fun. I thought the race was going to start at 6:30am and I came a little too early.”

When asked why he didn’t run with a tourist costume, he said “I was supposed to. I was supposed to build an airplane like the [Rodgers] brothers, but I just said that I’ll let them have that costume and just race without one.”

On his time, he said that he wanted to come in at 19:30, but said that “you’ll really never know with the weather, the people you’re racing with—it can make a difference.”

He said he will definitely join when the Marianas Visitors Authority has this race again and was actually supposed to join the MVA Half Marathon, but it was unfortunately canceled.

For Miller’s part, she said “at the beginning of the race, I felt very heavy and was not comfortable, but I tried to keep the pace and watch the front runners all the way. My time was not very good but I was happy to get first place.”

“It was also nice to see the costume category. Their ideas were great! I enjoyed it too. Thank you for the MVA and all the volunteers. I hope more tourists will come back,” she said.

MVA managing director Chris Concepcion said that the annual event was organized by their team to get “the industry partners, families, and community members active and engaged with the tourism industry.”

With MVA’s slogan “Tourism is everybody’s business,” these types of events try to bring the community together to work out, get some exercise, and it’s all in honor of May being Tourism Month,” he said.

There were 116 participants, which Concepcion said was a good amount and looks forward to growing it in the years to come.

Concepcion thanked their partners Run Saipan, their partners in the tourism industry, stakeholders, and members of the community who have donated and volunteered, and have provided support.

He also invites the community to make their way down to the Garapan Fishing Base for the Taste of the Marianas starting Saturday, June 3, and will continue every Saturday of June.