Sunday’s 10-miler was a brisk walk for ultra marathoner Ailsa MacDonald.
The Canadian Running's 2017 Trail Runner of the Year waltzed through the streets of St. Albert as the first female finisher in one hour, three minutes and 28 seconds.
“It’s not very often I do 10 miles but it’s one of my favorite distances because you can go really hard and when you hit the wall you don’t really have that much further to go,” said MacDonald.
The 38-year-old placed 11th overall in a field of 108 as the second St. Albert runner to finish as the top female in the 34-year history of the 10-miler since Shannon Maisano’s 63:03 breakthrough in 2012.
The St. Albert Road Race, presented by Active Physio Works, was also the first event for MacDonald since competing in her third Boston Marathon on April 15.
“I wasn’t sure how it was going to go after my Boston recovery so I was just going by feel,” MacDonald said. “It was perfect weather conditions today so I just wanted to see what I could do and have fun with it and a couple of my girlfriends are here today as well.”
MacDonald’s ranked 74th among the female finishers in the Boston Marathon in two hours, 51 minutes and 14 seconds for 63rd place in her age division and 1,191st overall.
“It was hard, really hard this year. Really high humidity so it was really hard to breathe during the race so I didn’t get my goal time, but I was really happy with my race. I ran strong the whole way except for the last mile, but it felt good,” said the top Canadian female at the 2016 Boston Marathon at 2:49:59 for 22nd place out of 12,166 in her gender and was 484th out of 26,629 finishers overall.
MacDonald was joined by her mom, Morag, and sister, Mhairi, at her third Boston Marathon.
“We all qualified so it was kind of a family event which is really rare.”
Upcoming for MacDonald is the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Ironman May 11.
“My main focus this year is going to be ultra running,” said MacDonald, who is also training for the Quebec Mega Trail 100K Canadian Championships in June and the prestigious CCC at UTMB, another 100K in August in France.
Last year, MacDonald was the runaway female winner of the Black Canyon 100K in Arizona as the second overall finisher in 8:53:33 while crushing the women’s course record of 10:06:31.
The 100K featured 2,100 metres of elevation gain and 2,712m of elevation loss along the route.
The winner was clocked at 8:12:06 and the second-place female's time was 9:18:33.
“That’s a very elite race and I ended up beating one of America’s top ultra distance runners,” said MacDonald, the top age group (35 to 39) female at the 2018 Ironman Canada at 10:34:36.
The lengthy list of the top finishes and accomplishments for MacDonald includes winning the Edmonton Marathon and Red Rock Canyon Marathon, was the No. 1 Canadian at the 2013 Los Angeles Marathon and in 2015 was the top female and second overall finisher in the Golden Ultra Trail Marathon, a three-day running race (or relay) in Golden, B.C., and her total accumulated time was 9:10:03.
Two years ago, MacDonald entered her first 100-miler and beat everyone in the solo division and all but eight relay teams at the Sinister 7 Ultra in the Crowsnest Pass. She completed the 160K in 18:54:57 and beat the next best finisher by more than 90 minutes.
The Sinister 7 Ultra also doubled as the Association of Canada Ultramarathoners 100-mile championships and MacDonald ran faster than all but eight relay teams and covered the 160K course, featuring more than 6,000m of elevation gain through the Rocky Mountains, faster than the top all-women’s relay teams.
MacDonald’s performance earned her a standing ovation at the awards ceremony the day after the event and the Canadian Running's Trail Runner of the Year award.
“I got that after doing Sinister 7 and since it was my first 100 miler I was going into it to test my limits and do something completely different and I ended up winning outright and that was a real surprise to me and everyone else there, so to come out of that as Trail Runner of the Year, it was just completely surreal to me,” said MacDonald.
The power engineer at the Imperial Oil plant at Kearl Lake started off the 2019 racing season in February as the Pemberton Trail 50K champion with a female course record, the sixth of her career, of 3:41:2, which was six minutes faster than the previous best time.
MacDonald is only the second female to run under four hours on the course and first female to ever win the Arizona-based race outright.
Whether it’s trail running, ultra running, road running or triathlons, there is no stopping MacDonald from going the distance in a hurry.
“I just love to move in general and I think that the variety in my training really keeps me motivated. I’m always doing something different. I’m never really bored,” said MacDonald, who was born in Stirling, a city in Scotland, and grew up in Bridgewater, N.S.
FAST TIMES: The second-place female in the 10-miler was Anna Kessler of Edmonton at 1:07:54 for 15th place.
Kessler finished one spot ahead of Kendall Barber of Edmonton at 1:08:08.
Barber was the fastest female in 2016 at 66:03.
The second-fastest St. Albert female was Maisano at 1:15:13 for 30th overall as the 10th female to complete the 10-miler.
Visit www.stalbertroadrace.com or www.zone4.ca for the 10-mile results.
