Gopher Attack Marathon and Half-Marathon, April 14, 2017

Post date: Apr 15, 2017 11:19:38 PM

Mother Nature turned out to cooperate with the club's flagship event - the temperature was perfect for running (but not much else), and the winds faded throughout the morning. The volunteers had to be brave, and they were - all the marshals were in place smiling while they fought the cold; Terry Allen was up at 3 am, ready to place km markers in the thunder; Wanda Bouchard-Barry was ready to handle any eventuality; Jeff Campbell managed to laugh non-stop while working non-stop; and Head Gopher Milos Kostic kept us all hopping.

The complete results are below. The race had a 28% Boston-qualifying rate - one of the highest in Canada!

Some runners deserve special mention:

Conor Renouf, the Men's marathon winner, set a PR.

Steve Whelan ran his 50th half-marathon in a near-PR time.

Douglas Best set a marathon PR by 50 minutes.

Shelley Cook ran the marathon, and then kept going for another 8 km. She was joined by two others that accidentally went too far: Brenda Vaness ran the half-marathon, and then accidentally kept going for another 21.1 km. Jon Paradowski meant to stop at half-marathon, but found that he just couldn't quit.

Age group winners from Marathon Matters included Loanne Myrah (Marathon Womens 60-69); Rick Minett (Marathon Mens 60-69); Tracy Fisher (Half-marathon Womens 40-49; Robert Humphries (Half-Marathon Mens 60-69); Brenda Udahl (Half-Marathon Womens 60-69); David Wessel (Half-Marathon Mens 70-79).