The ninth Leading Edge Physiotherapy RunWild on Sunday is a record breaker.
More than 2,000 runners and walkers are registered for the biggest annual sports spectacle in St. Albert and the total shattered last year's high of 1,691.
“We’ve always been prepared to grow this into a large race and our organization and our committee is absolutely over the moon ready and excited for the turnout,” said Grant Fedoruk, president of Leading Edge Physiotherapy.
“Obviously, we want to make sure that it’s organized for people to keep wanting to come back so we can grow it and show it that as organized as we are, we can even get bigger yet – and as we get bigger, it just means more people get a chance to enjoy the day with us,” Fedoruk added. “It's been adopted by the community in an amazing way.”
Today marks the last chance to enter the ninth RunWild as individuals can register in person at the St. Albert Seniors Association at Red Willow Place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cash, MasterCard or Visa will be accepted. However, organizers can’t guarantee a T-shirt or race package.
“We’re at 2,015 (as of Thursday morning) and we’ve already got more than 40 to 50 people planning to late register, so between Friday and Saturday that total will probably grow by at least 75, maybe 100 people," Fedoruk said.
The 2,012 tally after last Saturday’s online registration deadline consisted of 167 for the Priority Printing 21.1-kilometre half-marathon, 401 for the FenceLine Rentals 10 km, 544 for the Leading Edge five km and a mammoth 900 for the Cybertech Automation WildOnes Kids MaraFun, a 1.3-kilometre jaunt for ages four to 12.
“We’re proud of the size, but really the size is a reflection of the community’s ability to get involved and be part of this event,” Fedoruk said. “The fact that it is this size just shows the community for what it is. It’s a very supportive, amazing community and our hats go right off to everybody who is involved and wants to support our charities.”
All proceeds from RunWild will assist the Zebra Child Protection Centre, St. Albert Seniors Association and St. Albert Sturgeon Hospice Association.
This year’s fundraising goal is $100,000 and the previous eight RunWilds have raised more than $450,000.
To pledge a participant or make donation, visit the event’s website at www.runwild.ca.
A strong component of RunWild in terms of participants and fundraising is the MaraFun, consisting of three races: pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and Grade 1, Grades 2 and 3 and Grades 4 to 6.
At the MaraFun, youths complete their own marathon that started by running or walking one kilometre at a time at their schools leading up to RunWild.
Last year’s MaraFun featured 620 youths, with Neil M. Ross School leading the way with 170.
“With the kids’ race, we’re really excited about something we started 10 years ago, which was this real move to get kids involved from an activity perspective, all the way to having a feeling of contributing to the charities as well and being involved in the school systems and making it part of their own physical activity, but at the same time sharing that philanthropic kind of approach to everything you do. They are as much a part of giving back as anybody else running in this race. Some of them are fundraising on their own. Schools are doing their own kind of side projects that generate money towards the charities so not only are they getting their exercise, but they’re also making a difference in the world all at the same time,” Fedoruk said.
The birth of RunWild was delivered at a Leading Edge Physiotherapy social function.
“As much as we are contributing to the community as a business, we wanted to make a bigger difference and one of the things we wanted to do obviously was to combine fun, activity and giving back to the community all in one kind of event,” Fedoruk said. “It started of course as a marathon. We thought there has never been a marathon (in St. Albert) so we decided we would tackle that feat, but at the same time it needed to be inclusive so we had a walk, a run and then multiple distances and that’s when we really had the idea of making sure that kids were involved and providing a distance that kids could easily accomplish and that’s where the MaraFun grew out of that. At the time, that wasn’t common place and it's grown since than.”
In 2015, changes to the City of St. Albert’s special events guidelines to ensure all safety concerns are addressed forced RunWild organizers to drop the marathon from the original run/walk lineup of the half-marathon, 10-kilometre, five-kilometre, plus the MaraFun, because of the cost factor and resources required under the new guidelines for the 42-kilometre marathon.
The 2016 RunWild was also restricted to the MaraFun because of the temporary loss of the race headquarters at what was then the St. Albert 50+ Club and construction at the start/finish staging areas that affected the logistics of the routes.
“It’s all come together not exactly as we had envisioned, because now we do the half-marathon instead of the full marathon,” Fedoruk said. “It’s been an adventure. We've had fun at every turn and we're really proud of the fact that we took that year off to kind of reorganize a little bit and it's been able to grow from there, so that was a good call and from that we’ve got to this size and we hope it keeps growing.”
Every level of runner and walker will queue up Sunday in front of St. Albert Place on St. Anne Street and the race times are 8 a.m. for the half-marathon, 8:50 a.m. for the 10-kilometre and 9 a.m. for the five-kilometre.
The Victory Lane finish line for the three races is located between Lions Park and St. Albert Curling Club.
Last year’s winners were Trevor MacLean (30 to 39 male) of Edmonton in the half-marathon in one hour, 17 minutes and 53 seconds, Nic Wang (30 to 39 male) in the 10-kilometre at 37:26 and Dawson de Sousa (U19 male) of St. Albert in the five-kilometre at 20:10.
The top females were Amanda Van Brabant (30 to 39) of Sturgeon County in the half-marathon at 1:35:47 for 11th place, Robyn Carignan (20 to 29) of St. Albert in the 10-kilometre at 43:38 for third place and Shannon Maisano (40 to 49) in the five-kilometre at 20:39 for third place.
The race village in Lions Park is also the launching pad for the MaraFun and liftoff is 11:30 a.m. The race village is basically a party zone with live entertainment, food and a lively beer gardens.
“The race village is a real sense of community with people supporting one another, and it’s not just about the run only but celebrating each other’s success and it’s very communal and that’s the vision we had for it 10 years ago,” Fedoruk said.
The weather forecast for RunWild is damp and chilly.
“We’re always worried about the safety of all of our participants of course, but we're a hearty bunch, the committee and all the people who participate. We’ve seen snow before, we’ve seen snow the morning of it so we're obviously going to be prepared to make sure that safety is paramount in this race,” Fedoruk said.
“No matter if it's rain or shine or wind or hail, it's not going to deter us from having a fun day and making sure that everybody reaches their or surpasses their goals and if the goals are just to finish, then we’re going to be there to make sure that happens too.”
