The 80th running of the Seoul International Marathon was held on 15 Mar 2009 with runners from over 80 countries taking part in the event. This was also the biggest marathon in South Korea and had emerged as one of the world’s top 30 marathons. The organiser of the marathon aims to apply for the IAAF Gold Label Road Race issued by the International Association of Athletics Federations at the 2nd half of 2009. To get the Gold Label, a marathon must have 5 records that meet standards in both men’s (2:10:30) and women’s (2:28:00) races over the past three years. This meant that the Seoul International Marathon is a fast road marathon which produced as many as 10 men’s records that satisfy the standard, but the women had only 4. So exactly how good and how fast is the course? Check out Ripley’s race review of this year’s event by clicking here.