It's the type of coverage that the Bermuda International Race Weekend organisers could only dream about¿until now.

Runner's World magazine, which sells an average of 615,000 copies per issue, has placed the Bermuda showpiece event front and centre in the racing report section of its latest edition.

Three colour pictures of the 2008 races and a glowing write-up in the sport's premier publication is the reward for the Race Weekend committee after putting on last January's well-received spectacle and having the foresight to play host to a number of key figures from the world of magazine publishing.

And the coverage in the June issue has delighted the race committee, who believe it is the first time in "many, many years" that the Bermuda event has figured so prominently in an international publication.

Race secretary Pam Shailer said: "It's excellent. To me getting an article like this is something that no kind of advertising would pay for."

And locals are being warned that, especially in light of this extra publicity, if they want to compete in next year's Bermuda Triangle Challenge - running on all three days to end up with a combined time finish - they need to look sharp, because the entry will be limited to 400 runners to mark the 400th anniversary of Bermuda's permanent settlement.

Runner's World writer Dave Kuehls was one of the 54 competitors who took part in the inaugural Bermuda Triangle Challenge six months ago, and after recovering from running in the Front Street Mile, 10K and half-marathon on consecutive days, wrote up the experience for the magazine under the headline 'Triple Crown'.

"I'm at the start of the Front Street Mile in Bermuda in running shorts and a T-shirt. And I feel guilty. Guilty because January is made for snow, not sunshine, and by hopping on a 90-minute flight to a small island 700 miles off the coast of South Carolina, I've somehow violated the natural order of things," writes Kuehls, as he introduces his race report.

He goes on to explain the background to the invention of the new Bermuda Triangle Challenge, which links up the annual running festivals three days of individual race distances.

With two races done, he wonders what the third - and most gruelling - day will bring, before answering: "It brings beer! Or at least the promise of it. Six miles into the half marathon, residents are lined up kerbside with a breakfast of codfish and Carlsberg."

The more than half-a-million regular readers of Runner's World are left in no doubt about the joy of taking part in Bermuda's mid-winter races, and Kuehls speaks of returning himself before signing off with details about how to enter the 2009 event.

If that international coverage was not priceless enough, a second member of the Runner's World organisation was also invited to this year's event - none other than the magazine's vice president and publishing director Andrew Hersam.

Just like Kuelhs, Hersam is a runner and he also competed in the first Bermuda Triangle Challenge, posting a number of respectable times in the process.

Hersam wrote his race diary experience on the Runner's World online site earlier this year and it remains posted on the site.

All of which adds up to a commendable piece of marketing PR for the race weekend and Bermuda.

The pair were brought to Bermuda through a long-standing association between the event and Boston-based Marathon Tours.

Marathon Tours owner Thom Gilligan invited the journalists to come and try the new 'challenge' and the race committee agreed to play hosts, with the assistance of Fairmont Hotels, another of International Race Weekend's key backers.

Peter Lever, one of the event organisers, feels certain there will now be benefits visible in the number of competitors taking part in 2009, particularly those looking to have a go at the unique Bermuda Triangle Challenge now that it has been proven a success and featured so prominently in the Runner's World publication.

Lever said: "Dave Kuelhs came and took part and wrote about it and that was influenced by Hersam. He was so enthusiastic about it."

Since January the race committee have been working to promote the 2009 festival of running, with Lever personally manning the Bermuda stall at the Boston and London Marathon expos.

It may be more than half-a-year away, but entries for the 2009 races are already being taken, and the earlier you enter the cheaper it is.

Lever is urging locals who want to take part to visit the web address www.bermudaraceweekend.com and sign up now before the incremental rises in entry cost start to kick in as the year progresses.

Race secretary Pam Shailer said she was particularly pleased to have seen Runner's World vice president's Hersam's Internet report, saying: "He enjoyed coming over with his family. His daughter won her age group in the 10K and it was that family participation that he really enjoyed."

Next year's race weekend is shaping up well, with enquiries already coming in from overseas athletes who have heard about it through the promotion at various expo events and now through Runner's World.

Entries for the three-race Triangle Challenge are being limited to the first 400 to tie-in with Bermuda's 400th anniversary.

Bermuda gets a second bite of the cherry in the current edition of Runner's World as veteran athlete and 'honourary Bermudian runner' Sid Howard is featured in the 'Real Runners' section.

The magazine picks up on previous stories in the Mid Ocean News about how American former world age-record holder for the 800m has run in all but one of Bermuda's International Race Weekends since 1979 and almost as many times as an unofficial competitor in the Bermuda Half Marathon Derby during the same three decades.

Last year the May 24 committee agreed that Howard had, on account of his longevity as a Bermuda race entrant, earned the right to be an official entrant with a race number.

Under the headline 'Bandit no More' the magazine reports: "Howard's favourite race is the one that he only recently became eligible to run. For 25 years, the 69-year-old from Plainfield, New Jersey, has bandited the Bermuda Half Marathon Derby, which is for residents only.

"I would duck out just before the finish line", he says. In 2007, organisers granted him official entry. Howard, who won the indoor mile and 800 metres at the 2007 USA Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships, will be pinning on a Bermuda bib for the second time this May.

Alas, Howard was unable to compete in this year's May 24 race as he was injured. But the crowd favourite has told the Mid Ocean News he intends to return to the Island next year to compete.