Mumbai's biggest sporting event The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon began in the city early this morning. This year's highest number of 38,450 runners, along with world's several top athletes, are participating in the 42 kilometers long run which is also considered as Asia's richest Marathon. Prize money for this year's Marathon is three lakh ten thousand dollars. This year the Marathon race has also involved Band-Worli sea-link in its route. For the first time in seven years the half-Marathon had a separate start beginning from Bandra and ending at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal.Kenyans continued their domination in the Mumbai Marathon as Dennis Ndiso won the seventh edition of Mumbai Marathon today. Ndiso finished the 42.1km race with a timing of 2 hours 12 minutes 34 seconds, comfortably ahead of the runner-up Siraj Gena of Ethiopia who clocked 2 hours 13 minutes 58 seconds. Kenya's Samson, who completed the race in 2 hours 14 minutes 24 seconds came third. In a cut-to-cut competition in the women's category, Kenya's Bijnul Mohammad won the first prize completing the run in 2 hours 31 minutes. Hele Kebebush from Ethiopia stood second in the women's category. Bining Lyngkhoi, stood first amongst the Indians as he completed the 42 km race in 2hours 20 minutes. Inaugurated by Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Chhagan Bhujbal, the legendary 'spirit of Mumbai' was in abundance at the star-studded marathon which was held amidst tight security and elaborate arrangements. This year saw highest participation of over 38,400 people from the city, elsewhere in the country. Foreigners, handicapped people, senior citizens, students and other groups raced their way in different categories in the marathon. The prominent personalities participating in large numbers in the dream run included Akshay Kumar, Reitesh Deshmukh, Milind Soman, Rahul Bose, Konkona Sen Sharma, John Abraham, Gulshan Grover, Gul Panag, and Poonam Dhillon. The entire event represented the spirit of Mumbaikars thus making it successful in the true sense of the term.