The Partner Re Women's road race takes place this Sunday and organisers are expecting another bumper year of runners and walkers opting to take part.

In its 13-year, the five kilometre event has grown rapidly to become one of the biggest races on the –Island, and is second only to May 24 in terms of participation with nearly 800 entries expected for the women-only event.

Race Director Kathy Fulcher puts the popularity down to the socialable atmosphere of the race, the message that it sends out and the fact that 'women are very good at encouraging each other to do things'.

"This is actually the biggest race on the Island," said Fulcher.

"We usually get about 800 (entries), the target is always 1000 and it's all women, which is an amazing thing.

"I think partly it's because women love to do things together, they're very good at encouraging each other to do things as a group, moreso than men I think.

"It's also not too difficult to train for because it's a very managable distance.

"Also mothers, daughters, grandmothers do the race together which makes it a family thing, and then there are the prizes which people can win even if they don't win the race itself."

Fulcher, who organises the race alongside Alison Harvey and Leslie Caslin, also believes that the charities that the race raises money for strikes a cord with a lot of the participants, and that too has an impact on numbers.

"This year's charity is the Centre Against Abuse who supervise safe houses for women in abusive relationships, so this money is going towards completely funding an interim safe house.

"The statistics show that 90 percent of people know somebody who has been touched by this, so that's why we want to get behind them."

With last year's winner Olga Firsova, who set a new course record of 17 minutes, 53 seconds. having left the Island, Victoria Fiddick and Ashley Estwanik are the pre-race favourites, although Firsova was an unknown entity last year, and Fulcher wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened again.

"Victoria Fiddick or Ashley Estwanik are probably the fastest runners here at the moment," said Fulcher, "so the battle will probably be between the two of them . . . unless there is some unknown runner. Sometimes people come back and we don't know who they are here."

n There is still time to enter the race, with organisers accepting late registrations on Saturday at the number pick-up, which will be at the Jack King (Poultry) Building, in the Botanical Gardens from 9 a.m.-11a.m.