Dennis Colburn was a frisky colt at the tender age of 19; springs in his legs and lungs of iron when the university student hit his stride as an accomplished runner at the inaugural St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race.
Matching wits with John Carroll, a noted racer with a long list of achievements, an enthusiastic Colburn set the standard for future 10-milers with an exciting charge to the finish line.
"At that stage of my career it was a big win for me," recalled Colburn, a five-time champion as the most successful 10-miler in race history. "John was one of the top runners at that time. It was quite the experience to be able to beat an older, more experienced guy. I don't want to say it was unexpected but I'm sure it was by some in the running community."
Looking back on the victory, Colburn knew it was a "cool and definitely windy day," but was startled by his actual time of 54 minutes and 12 seconds.
"Was that my time 24 years ago? Wow! I don't know if I can run fast like that anymore," he said. "I spent seven miles chasing him down and then finally I made my move and got him with a couple of miles to go, just by the Percy Page building [on Mission Avenue]. After that I ran the rest of the way in.
"It took a week or two to recover but it was worth it."
Train troubles
The first 10-miler was almost derailed before it started from the St. Albert Rugby Football Club. Race officials were told by CN a train was scheduled to chug through St. Albert — where the course intersected with a railway crossing about a quarter-mile into the route — around the 10 a.m. start time.
"Everybody was ready to get going when the starter said something about they were expecting a train so we'll have to wait for it. Somebody then told him it was going to be a little bit longer than we thought and we might be sitting here waiting for the train to go by for half an hour, so he said, 'OK, we'll start right now, so run like hell,'" remembered Terry Gordon, a St. Albert runner who will compete in his 25th straight 10-miler on Sunday.
Legend has it the starter's gun fired the same time as the first train whistle, triggering a mad dash across the tracks.
"They warned us about the train. They said if it came, we had to stop and wait but I was faster back then and I got past it in time," said John Czuroski, who has pounded the pavement in every St. Albert 10-miler.
Race origins
Sponsored by 1070 Gold Radio and the St. Albert Roadrunners Club (established in late 1984), the first 10-miler was staged the second Sunday in April. A running club in Edmonton was interested in organizing a 10-miler in the spring when the Roadrunners offered to host the event as a way to promote themselves and a St. Albert sports tradition was born.
"It was a big race then and it still is now," Colburn said. "You still get guys coming out with great performances."
The spring fixture as the outdoor season opener is a big drawing card.
"Not only is it the challenge of the course, but the timing of it because you get a chance to see where your fitness level is at through your winter training. It's your first serious race once the snow melts, or hopefully does, that you get to do. The 10-miler is also bit of a tougher distance compared to the 10K," said the prolific Sandy Jacobson, the five-time female champion who won her first 10-miler in 1998 with a time of 59:16. "That was earlier on in my career. I was just starting out, so there was a lot of excitement surrounding what I did in that race."
The turnout was encouraging in 1986, despite the -7 C temperature, forcing runners to dress for the weather than for fast times. With only seven no shows and 25 late entries the morning of the race, the final tally was 127 competitors.
"I'm sure glad I decided to give it a go," said Keith Foster, who hasn't missed a St. Albert 10-miler in race history. "It was nice to have distractions like the train to take your mind off the run. It wasn't my fastest run but I was happy with it. It gave me an indication that I could go faster the next year. I was always shooting to do it in an hour, and I've never been able to do it, but that was my goal."
Endurance test
For the second 10-miler, the course was tweaked to avoid the railway tracks. The start/finish line was positioned by St. Albert Place as 240 runners participated. According to race lore, sponsorship was provided by Labatt's, who supplied the entrants with two packs of Labatt's Lite.
Entries increased to 469 in 1988. The next year organizers processed 370 entries the night before the race, with between 60 to 70 runners signing up the next morning to test a course that had been in place for two of the last three 10-milers. The layout would basically stay the same until 1997, when the start line was moved up to Grandin Road across from Grandin mall for traffic reasons.
"It's been slightly different but always the same," Gordon said. "You always take pride in finishing it. You're pretty much grateful it's over."
The rolling course, with two inclines and two declines, winds into a tidy figure-eight loop through the Sturgeon River valley and Grandin and Lacombe neighbourhoods. The last 1.5 miles drops a wicked 120 feet towards the finish line behind the mall.
"St. Albert is a tough course. It's got a lot of hills," Czuroski said. "I always found the starts to be the toughest, even when I was competitive and running really well. You're warmed up a little bit, but going from nothing to something is always a hurdle to get over. Once you're moving it's OK. It's always that anticipation, that anxiety at the start. It's like, 'What am I getting into?' Your body knows what it has to do but does it really want to do it?
"There is always congestion at the start too, so that doesn't help but once the lungs and legs are moving and you're getting warmed up a little bit more, what comes afterwards is no big deal."
When the floodgates open, runners pour out of the starter's chute as the elite racers bolt into the lead and the age-groupers systematically separate themselves into a long conga line winding through the streets.
"As you get around St. Albert Place, you're still in a big crowd of runners. Once you're past where the Bruin Inn used to be, you're sorting yourselves out with everybody else and then as you're going up the hill and towards the elevators, you're kind of separating out and you've got room to run. By then you kind of know how you're feeling," Gordon said. "Coming past the elevators [towards mile six] you're going downhill but you know you have to go past St. Albert Place and then back uphill to get to mile seven. You're getting closer to the end but that's a tough hill and then another tough hill going up Levasseur.
"No question, getting to mile seven is a bit of a challenge. You look at your watch to see how badly you did on that. The ninth mile is tough too because you're going up Levasseur. You're so late in the race doing a run up there but that's always been the place where my family has been waiting for me at the top part of the hill so it's a little easier to do it then. That pumps me up a little bit," he added. "You might find you've lost a lot of time in that stretch, getting up to the eighth mile and the ninth mile, but that last mile you're thinking you will get a lot faster on it because there is a lot of downhill to it, but the downhill doesn't really start until the last third of the mile. By then you're letting out whatever you've got left to try and finish."
Keeping an even pace throughout the route will pay off time-wise.
"You get drawn out fast in the race because of the excitement, so when you turn that corner at Sir Winston Churchill and you've got to take that big climb up the hill, that was always the point where I got my breathing under control because that hill will catch you," Jacobson said.
The second leg of the race has historically determined Foster's fate.
"I don't like the beginning because it's uphill. I like the middle because it goes along Riel Drive more or less and it's very calming back there. You see the railroad tracks and you can look down into Riel Park. It's very nice," Foster said. "After the Husky [station], where you're going west to east, it's a mile or mile and a half where you're going basically flat for a little bit and then uphill. That's the point where people pass me and where people got passed.
"Of course, I like the ending because it's downhill."
Weather conditions
If the course doesn't break the runners, bad weather will.
"We ran some of those races in pretty atrocious weather and there have been other years, like the year I set a personal best, where the weather was just fantastic," Czuroski said.
Foster shuddered recalling a race in the 1990s when the elements changed dramatically.
"It was a reasonably nice day. A lot of people were in shorts, including myself, based on the fact that it looked like it was going to be an OK day," he said. "By the time I got on Levasseur it was blowing from the east to the west. It was almost horizontal snow. It was not a whiteout but it was just blowing snow like crazy. A lot of people basically turned around and called it [a race]."
The worst of the worst was the blizzard two years ago. The temperature at start time at 9:31 a.m. was -10 C, but with the wind chill it was -18 C. The final registration total surpassed 700, but only 545 runners picked up their timing chips the morning of the race. There were 515 finishers — 261 females and 246 males. Four runners completed the race in less than one hour, compared to 21 from the previous year. The winner was Canadian Olympic triathlete Paul Tichelaar with an impressive 56:09.
"It was just tough running. The snow was so powdery. You had no traction. Everybody seemed to be suffering through the whole thing. Certainly it was the hardest one to run and the least amount of fun for sure," Gordon said. "Usually you're suffering towards the end no matter what year it is, but that was really, really bad."
"There was another year, maybe 15 yeas ago, where it was almost as bad," added Czuroski. "A few years before that it was like sloppy stuff, half melted and I remembered getting sprayed by vehicles going past. It was closer to zero, -1 C, so it was warm enough and stuff was melting but I got very wet doing that race."
Longevity runners
The tradition will continue Sunday for a trio of runners as the 10-miler celebrates its 25th anniversary.
"Absolutely, I'm looking forward to it," said Foster, 53, a sales rep. "I will run it together with my friends like I always do, and then we'll go out for breakfast afterwards and have some fun."
Gordon, 59, will be joined in the race by sons Chris, 27, and Dave, 29, for the historic event. His wife, Shirley, will lead the family's cheering section on Levasseur.
"I'm trying to keep the streak alive and with it being in St. Albert I don't want to miss it. It's neat to get involved in it," said the construction manager. "To do the race for so long, there has been a little bit of luck. You have to be healthy and uninjured. Since this is so early in the year there were a lot of years where maybe I wasn't as fit as I would like to be to run the race but I would still go anyways."
Czuroski, 55, is keen on going the distance for the 25th straight year.
"It's like anything; you start a streak and you want to continue it," said the lab technician at the University of Alberta. "St. Albert has always been a good race and they always have good eats at the end. It's also the first race of the season. Everybody gets spring fever so it's nice to get out there and test yourself. It always brought out the cream of the crop so to speak, so you had a good idea what you were doing. I'm nowhere the runner I used to be — I barely slug my way through it — but I keep doing it."
The forecast for the 25th 10-miler is excellent as organizers continue their pursuit of breaking the all-time registration mark of 976 in 1998. Rounding out the top five attendance totals are 892 in 1999, 875 in 2005, 869 in 2007 and 867 in 2001. Last yea
Breaking the hallowed 1,000 barrier is within reach, especially with an expected late surge of entries the morning of the race prior to the 9:30 start time.
"I'm excited to see the level of competition growing and the times kind of dropping," said Jacobson, who won her fifth and last female race title in 2006 at 64:09. "The volunteers and the community have always done a phenomenal job of supporting it and that's why people want to run in it."
Totals have gradually increased over the years, buoyed by the Jasper/Banff time trials in the early years, generating tremendous exposure for the 10-miler.
"This was the race to mark where you were fitness-wise. It dictated whether you made the team or not for Jasper/Banff. It was held in such importance by everybody to gauge how you're doing," said Colburn, who posted his fastest time of 51:18 in 1993 for the second 10-mile victory of his career. "At that time it was one of the fastest times that had been run [in the 10-miler]. I beat Adrian Shorter by one second. That year I was in amazing shape but I got injured in the race. I blew out a ligament in my foot. It basically cost me my running career for three or four years but I came back [to win the 1999, 2001 and 2002 10-milers]. Right now, I'm basically an old horse. I run infrequently."
Finishing what you started is the ultimate goal for all runners, especially if you're the first one of the bunch to break the tape. Kelsey Kelemen, a three-time champion, summed it up best after bursting though the finish line in 2003 at 54:01 in frigid race conditions for his first 10-mile title.
"This is really like the Olympics for me. I always wanted to be up at the top and I finally am, so I'm pretty happy about it," he said with a gold-medal winning smile.
