The 25th anniversary celebration of the St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race was a smashing success.
“It was just amazing,” said race director Dave Wilson with the St. Albert Roadrunners and Triathlon Club. “I received so many accolades from the runners for the work our committee had done to produce the race this year and make it even more fun than in other years. The feedback I got was they enjoyed themselves and had a really great time.”
Registrations totalled 725, with about 687 processed by Saturday night. A strong pre-race turnout Sunday morning pushed the entries over the 700 mark.
“People really picked up on the anniversary and they wanted to be part of it,” Wilson said of the final tally that was five runners short of last year’s mark and well behind the course record of 976 in 1998. “Of course, the weather was very kind to us too. What got me was the clouds parting just at the time when we assembled for the awards ceremonies [behind Grandin mall]. It was quite cloudy, in fact I was a little nervous for rain, and then all of a sudden the clouds parted and it was beautiful and sunny.”
Prime racing conditions made for fast times as 17 runners completed the challenging course in less than one hour. The previous high was 21 runners in 2007.
“To have so many finishing under 60 minutes was great.”
Going the distance were 330 males and 315 females, compared to 358 male finishers and 293 female finishers last year.
FAST TRACKS: In the high school category (three runners per team), New Norway finished first and second with the lowest aggregate times of 1:14:14 and 1:16:06, respectively. The perennial champions of the perpetual trophy also hit the jackpot when one of the male runners won the draw for the trip for two to Las Vegas to run the marathon or half marathon in December.
Placing third at 1:27:56 was the Bellerose Bulldogs’ trio of Tara Fyffe (top U19 female for the second straight year), Jessica Paterson (sixth in U19) and Alix Proctor. Bellerose was represented by 15 runners in the 10-miler.
Race results are listed on page 58, as well as online at www.resultscanada.com
