Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon

Nearly 40 PepsiCo runners from PepsiCo AMEA headquarters in Dubai and the PepsiCo MEA head office, together with employees from Dubai Refreshment Company, one of PepsiCo's local bottlers in the UAE, participated in the 2011 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon. The events included a 40 km marathon, 10 km run and 3k family fun run.

The 10 k runners have been training for 3 months with Nikky Sports professional running trainer Zakaria el Yakoubi. The PepsiCo runners established a running team at the start of 2010 and the training was sporadic and consisted of casual runs along Jumeriah beach.

"The training with Nikky Sports in the last 3 months has been more frequent, structured and focused. Combining Fartlek/interval training along with longer runs has increased both our physical and mental fitness."

In the 10 km race. PepsiCo's women runners placed 17th of 68 teams and the men placed 22nd of 130 teams. This was a considerable improvement compared to last year’s race. "We would like to thank Nikky Sports for the commitment, education and motivation over the last few months", we’re now very focused and motivated to achieve new PB’s in 2011.

"Zak from Nikky Sports made me believe I can run faster and I did" – Anton Botha, South Africa (PepsiCo)

In May 2010 I ran my first 10k in just over 60 mins, my 2nd 10k race was Dubai Marathon 2011 and I finished on 53:13. "With 3 months training from Zak at Nikky Sports it was possible to knock more than 7 minutes off my time!" – Kimmy Hanna, Scotland (PepsiCo)