© Copyright - Christopher Kelsall - 2010

(Victoria, BC – October 12, 2010) Cloudy, damp conditions greeted 14,078 participants at the 31st Annual GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon held Sunday October 10th– a record for the event. Clouds gave way to windy, but sunny conditions for many finishers.

The 8K Road Race had a record number of participants with 3,184 runners; the sold-out Half Marathon had 6,800 registrants followed by 3,221 marathon participants. The Thrifty Foods Kids Run & Marathon had 875 kids in the 1.2 km run. A new world age-group record was set in the Women’s Marathon, as well as a BC age-group record in the Men’s Marathon.

Victoria resident, James Lander battled the wind and three Kenyans to take second place behind eventual winner, Kenyan, Philip Samoie during the 2010 Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon Sunday October 10th in front of a vociferously cheering finish line crowd numbering over 5, 000 spectators.

Lander and Samoie finished 33 seconds apart in 2:23:24 and 2:23:57 respectively. Together they split 10km in 32:48, half-way (21.1km) in 1:10:24 along with Kenyans, Bernard Onsare and Gilbert Kiptoo. 

The four ran together in a tight pack for 28 km before the separation began. 

Gilbert Kiptoo applied pressure to the pace along the Beach Drive hills shortly after the long downhill stretch through the Victoria Golf Club. Kiptoo led and continued to put space between himself and Samoie through the streets of Oak Bay before being passed by Samoie at exactly the 35km mark on Irving Street, shortly after turning off of Fairfield Road with 1:57:47 showing on the clock.

Samoie held the lead for the final 7 kms while James Lander positioned in 3rd pushed the effort to close the gap, passing Kiptoo shortly after the corner of Dallas Road and Douglas Street with 4km left to go.

In the women’s race Catrin Jones of Nanaimo won in a time of 2:52:21 after exchanging the lead several times with previous winners, Suzanne Evans of New Westminster and 19-time Canadian Champion Lucy Smith of Sidney. Smith also won the masters (40+) division 2:55:30, Evans finished in 2:53:53. They ran through half-way in reverse order with Smith leading in 1:23:35, followed by Evans in 1:25:07 and Jones 1:25:09. They were led by 2009 winner, Cheryl Murphy of Victoria who dropped out shortly after the halfway point.

The masters division.

Kelowna, BC resident Cindy Rhodes who is a 6-time winner won her 50-54 age-group, finishing 4th over-all and 2nd master in 3:11:46, she was followed by 3rd master and winner of the 45-49 age-group Mary Hanna of Maple Valley, Washington in 3:20:42.  

The men’s masters winner (40+) was Kevin O’Connor of Vancouver with his time of 2:31:09, he was followed by Edwin Montero of Costa Rica, who was extatic with his result. He was expecting to finish in a time of 2:40:00, he finished in 2:35:31. 3rd master from Tokyo, Japan, Kanta Matsuura finished in 2:36:15, 36 seconds faster than his 2009 result.

The approximate male leader’s 5km splits were:

5km – 16:24 – pace 2:18:20
10km – 16:24 - 32:48 – pace 2:18:20
15km  - 16:43 -  49:31 – pace 2:19:15
20km –  16:50 – 66:21 – pace 2:19:55
25km –  17:14 - 1:23:35 – pace 2:21:09
30km –  16:36 - 1:40:11 – pace 2:20:52
35lm – 17:36 - 1:57:47 – pace 2:22:05
40km – 17:43 - 2:15:30 – pace 2:22:55

Other splits:

10 miles – 53:20 pace for 2:19:20 – mile pace 5:21 per mile
15 miles – 1:20:46 – pace 2:21:07
21.1km – 1:10:24 – pace 2:20:48
20 miles – 1:48:01 - pace for 2:21:30 – mile pace 5:24 per mile

In the Half Marathon, top seeded Jim Finlayson won in 1:07:56, with the 2009 8K champion Matt Clout coming in second at 1:08:02. Third was Steven Crane from Rainier, WA in 1:08:16. Calgary’s Lisa Harvey won the women’s race in 1:18:37, second was Mary Akor in 1:18:48 and third was Gillian Cook in 1:19:11. Harvey also won the Women’s Masters and Neil Holm from Courtney, BC was the Men’s Masters winner in 1:13:50.

The top three seeds in the 8K Road Race were true to form, although third seed Peter Corrigan won in 24:30, Kevin Friesen was second in 25 minutes even, and Dylan Gant was third in 25:04. Victoria triathlete Kirsten Sweetland won the women’s race in 27:39 – the fastest time in three years – second was Natasha Wodak in 27:55 and Care Wakely was third in 29:32. The Men’s Masters division was won by Kevin McGinnis in 27:24 – a title he also won in 2009 – and Karyn Mitchell took the Women’s title in 33:39.

The GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon saw a world record shattered with Gwen McFarlan winning the F75-79 category in 4:02:27, 47 minutes faster than the previous record for a 76-year old. Herb Phillips also set a BC record in the M70-74 category in a time of 3:06:08, beating the previous record of 3:29:01.

The event saw the highest number of finishers in the Half Marathon and the 8K Road Race – 5,696 and 2,678 respectively. The Marathon saw 2,558 finishers and with the Thrifty Foods Kids Run & Marathon the total number of finishers was 11,807 – another record for the event and an increase of over 13% on 2009.

The 32nd Annual GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon will take place on October 9th, 2011.

For full results from the 31st GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon go to:  HYPERLINK "http://www.raceheadquarters.com" http://www.raceheadquarters.com

 

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Contact Chris: chriskelsall@flocasts.org