The coronavirus is impacting running events around the world
That's the big story in the running world this week: What's going to get cancelled? And how bad it this going to get?
Hello!
It was a quieter week, racing-wise, but not news-wise, especially if you read every single coronavirus article being published by reputable news sources, like I am. I have too much free time and too much anxiety.
Several races in Europe and Asia were cancelled, postponed for limited to elites. In North America, the Los Angeles marathon went on as planned. People are now on cancellation watch for the London marathon and the Boston marathon as the virus spreads. The Olympics are in doubt. (I doubt they would cancel the Olympics. But they might do something like have no spectators and cancel all the stuff other than the actual sporting events. There’s too much money involved. But it’s still early, so we will see.)
The Canadian team was announced for the half-marathon championships — then the championships were immediately postponed. There’s a new 5K Canadian championships, a campaign to put Terry Fox on the $5 bill and more.
Thanks, as always, for reading. If you want to connect, you can reply to this email or drop me a line at runthenorthnews@gmail.com
— Erin @ Run the North
There’s a campaign to put Terry Fox on the $5 bill
The Bank of Canada has issued a call for nominations for exceptional Canadians who should be featured on the next $5 bill. There’s been a push to put Terry Fox on the bill.
Terry Fox decided to run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer after he lost his leg to bone cancer. His “Marathon of hope” ended in Thunder Bay, but it went on to become one the of biggest and most influential annual cancer fundraisers in Canada. Terry Fox is now an icon. He came second in CBC’s 2004 quest to name the greatest Canadian (Tommy Douglas, who created our universal health care system, was #1).
The Bank of Canada is seeking submissions for Canadians who “demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievement, or distinction in any field, benefiting the people of Canada, or in the service of Canada.” They must have died at least 25 years ago. Terry Fox died on June 28, 1981. He was 22 years old.
The call for nominations closes on March 11. You can submit a nomination here.
Civil rights activist Viola Desmond was put on the $10 bill in 2018 after a similar campaign.
Seven athletes named to Canada’s half-marathon team, half-marathon championships then got postponed
Athletics Canada named four men and three women to the national half-marathon championship team. The race was set for March 29 in Gdynia, Poland.
Shortly after Athletics Canada revealed the team, it was announced by World Athletics that the championships have been postponed to October because of the coronavirus.
“This postponement was made with the best scientific information available and Athletics Canada supports the decision. Our first concern is always the health and safety of our athletes, coaches and support staff. Canada will be ready to race this October and we look forward to competing in Poland this fall,” David Bedford, the CEO of Athletics Canada, said in a statement.
The team may change as athletes’s priorities change in the wake of the coronavirus and the changing athletics calendar. But the seven athletes who were originally named to the team are:
👟Rachel Cliff: Rachel Cliff ended 2019 the Canadian marathon and half-marathon champion, gearing up for the Tokyo marathon in 2020, a dream race for her that denied her an elite bib in 2019. It’s now March and she doesn’t hold either record and decided to not run Tokyo after they made it an elite-only race because she knew that she’d end up running most of the race solo and it didn’t make sense to go all the way to Japan to do that. She hasn’t announced what her plans are for the rest of 2020, but she seems like a lock to be named to the Canadian marathon Olympic team, as she has the second-fastest qualifying time. Rachel’s fit, she lowered her own half record in December, before Natasha Wodak and Andrea Seccafien both broke it in January. She ran 1:10:13 in Houston earlier this year.
👟Victoria Coates: Victoria Coates just represented Canada at the PanAm Cross-country Cup, where she placed seventh overall to help Canada to an overall team victory. Her PB in the half is 1:13:35, which she ran at this event in 2018.
👟Trevor Hofbauer: Trevor Hofbauer is the current Canadian marathon champ, the second-fastest Canadian marathoner ever and is set to represent Canada at the Olympics in the marathon. He was pumped to represent Canada at the 21.1K distance too, but if you click on this tweet, it’s clear he doesn’t plan on running his race anymore, as it’s only nine weeks after the Olympics and he won’t be able to give it 100%:
👟Rory Linkletter: Rory Linkletter, who lives and trains in Arizona with NAZ Elite, ran the second-fastest Canadian half-marathon ever when he ran 1:01:44 in Houston. His focus now is on making the Olympic team. He has a fun podcast with some of his NAZ training partners called Running Rivals, and they interviewed U.S. trials champion Aliphine Tuliamuk on their most recent episode:
👟Benjamin Preisner: Ben Preisner broke into the Canadian elite running scene last year after graduating from the University of Tulsa, notching wins at the Vancouver and Toronto half-marathons last summer. He was also the top Canadian at the world cross-country championships at the beginning the year, placing 77th overall. Ben is set to make his marathon debut in London on April 26.
👟Andrea Seccafien: Andrea is the current Canadian half-marathon record holder. She lives and trains in Australia and recently ran 1:09:38 to become the second Canadian woman to run under 70 minutes and break Natasha Wodak’s record, which wasn’t even two weeks old. She followed up that performance with an announcement that she was focusing on the 10,000m for 2020 and a win at the Run the Bridge Hobart 10K, running 33:05.
👟Thomas Toth: Thomas Toth He ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in the fall, placing 16th in 2:16:28. His half-marathon PB is from Houston in 2016, where he ran 1:04:28. He came second at the Canadian half-marathon championships in June in Winnipeg, running 1:05:27 to finish behind Tristan Woodfine, and he won the Rock & Roll Half Marathon in Washington, D.C., in March 2019, running 01:05:11.
Athletics Canada’s statement on announcing the team is here.
The World Athletics statement on postponing the race is here.
Moncton to host new Canadian 5K championships
There were no 5K Canadian road racing championships in 2019 after the Yorkville 5K in Toronto pulled out of hosting them. They had previously hosted the championships for the four years prior.
That’s going to change in 2020. InSeptember, Moncton, N.B., will host the Medavie Moncton Running Festival, which will feature the new 5K national championship race.
New Brunswick’s Geneviève Lalonde, Canadian record holder in the steeplechase and recent PanAm Cross-Country Cup champion, is already committed to the race and was part of the committee to make it all happen.
Moncton will also host the national 5K championships in 2021.
Ben Flanagan and Natasha Wodak won the races in 2018.
Here is the full Athletics Canada statement about the new Moncton partnership.
Canadian Rob Waterlow will be one of the oldest time qualifiers at Boston this year
An 82-year-old Canadian named Rod Waterlow will be one of the oldest time qualifiers at Boston this year. According to this CBC British Columbia profile, it will be his third time running Boston. Waterlow didn’t start running until he was 47 years old. He currently trains three times a week: sprints or hills on Wednesday with his training group, a social run on Saturday at his local story and a solo long run on Mondays.
He was drinking a pint on St. Patrick's Day in 1984 when he found out the friend he was with was training for the Vancouver marathon. Waterlow had never heard of it.
After his friend completed the race, Waterlow was impressed — and inspired. He signed up for training at the YMCA and ran his first marathon the following year.
And just like that, he was hooked. Since then, he has raced in over 100 half-marathons and 34 full marathons. Today, he trains three times a week.
"When I'm really in the zone, [I'm] not even thinking about it," he said. "It's like a Zen feeling."
He recently ran the First Half in Vancouver in 2:05:58.
Calgary’s Jeremy Deere places fourth at Woodlands half-marathon in Texas
Jeremy Deere placed fourth at the Woodlands half-marathon in Texas. He ran 1:10:34.
The Woodlands is a race that has been kind to Canadians in the past. In 2018, it was where Rachel Cliff broke the half-marathon Canadian record for the first time.
44-year-old Jeremy owns Strides, a running store in Calgary that employs none other than Trevor Hofbauer. Canadian Running profiled the store in 2019:
Strides has remained committed to giving back to the community. Their events are not a way of making money, but a way of enhancing lifestyles. A previous national level track athlete, Deere knows how the running community can change lives. “I look at road races as a way of giving back to the community. We give back to local track and field teams, who don’t get a lot of support from corporate sponsors, and we try to support them in any way we can. I personally get involved with track, as it was such a big part of my life growing up.”
According to his World Athletics profile, his PB in the half is 1:05:17 from 2004. His PB in the marathon is 2:43:52 in New York from 2015.
You can follow Jeremy on Strava here.
I was told this by Jon Walk on Twitter, thanks Jon!
Odds & Ends
👟 The Los Angeles marathon went on as planned, but it was requested that all runners stay six feet away from each other, as part of practicing the recommended “social distancing” being used to combat coronavirus. Popular Mechanics looked into whether that was even possible for a race featuring 20,000 runners. Spoiler: it’s not.
👟 Slate talked to Jim Heim, the newest race director for the New York City Marathon for a recent episode of their podcast Working. I love race logistics, so I loved this conversation.
👟 Retired American middle-distance runner Lauren Fleshman is writing a book. No publication date has been set and she’s going to spend 2020 writing it. If you’re interesting in knowing more, she’s set up a “book club” online.
👟 U.S. marathon trials champion (and one of my forever faves) Aliphine Tuliamuk recapped her race on Twitter and it is everything. Click this tweet to get the whole thread:
👟I enjoyed this article by Jenny Donnelly for Citius Mag about what it was like running the U.S. marathon trials as someone who wasn’t a contender:
Over those first 20 miles on the loop, I kept waiting for the fatigue and pain to settle in. I stood by for the panic to take over. Somehow, I felt like I was running on pure exhilaration and gratitude for two hours.
Locked in with my friend Grace for the first loop, we ran stride-for-stride, waved to the crowds, and screamed at our family and friends. It bears repeating but I was truly just soaking everything in. It was a feeling – that even days later – I cannot put into words. The best way I can describe it is it was as if I was floating just outside of my body. I was flooded with all the happiness and love for this sport that I had been chasing for years.
For the first time in a race, I felt like I belonged.
👟A few issues ago, I wrote about how Queen’s University fired their coach Steve Boyd after he made some comments about what happened at the University of Guelph with David Scott-Thomas. Since then, Boyd has publicly spoken about how he wishes to apologize for his comments and wants his job back, there was a rally at Queen’s in support of Boyd, Leslie Sexton wrote about it on her personal blog, a GoFundMe account has been launched to support Steve and Cara Langley, a sexual assault survivor who ran under Boyd before running in the NCAA system in college where she was subject to emotional abuse by the coaching staff and was raped, wrote an open letter on iRun to the Queen’s University administration:
During my four years in the NCAA, I encountered a completely different side of the sport, one rampant with casual though nevertheless egregious sexism. I felt constantly demeaned by my coaches, who seemed to never see me as the capable, intelligent, and ambitious individual I knew myself to be, instead only ever as a girl. The women’s team was told on a regular basis that we were overly emotional, scared to compete; that we had an “attitude problem” and that’s why we didn’t race well. We were told that no matter what we did on the track, it wouldn’t affect the grand scheme of things because we were going to be “great mothers and wives someday.” When we did compete well, our accomplishments were trivialized. For example, when we were presented with hard-won conference championship rings one year, we were told to be proud “even though they [weren’t] the rings we came to school for.”
👟2016 steeplechase Olympic champion Ruth Jebet tested positive for EPO and will serve a four-year ban. Because the positive test is from 2017, she will not be stripped of her Olympic medal or the world record she set (that record has since been broken). Her results from Dec. 1, 2017 to Feb. 18, 2018 will be void. To which I say: SERIOUSLY? That’s not even three months of results.
American Emma Coburn, who has raced Ruth head-to-head several times, had a great Twitter thread about the financial cost clean athletes face when competing against dopers:
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