There's a race this Sunday: the Marathon Project
6 Canadians will be racing on Dec. 20!
Hello,
There’s a race this weekend: the Marathon Project will feature several of North America’s top marathoners taking on 42.2K on Sunday in Arizona.
I’m torn as to whether having races — even ones with several safety sanctions and no spectators — is something we should be doing right now. I think the fact that almost all races in Canada have been cancelled, and Canada is doing better than the U.S. when it comes to COVID, is indicative as to whether it’s wise. But with sponsorship deals and Olympic berths on the line, I understand why pros want to race.
So here we are: a race is happening, and it may potentially impact our Canadian Olympic marathon team. So I am covering it here, even though I do not condone it. I felt this way about the London marathon too, and want to maintain the balance of covering the sport we love while recognizing that decisions being made — both in running and in general — are ones I do not necessarily agree with. We’re all doing the best we can.
I also have some news odds and ends, and podcast recommendations, like always.
2020 is almost over. We’re gonna make it after all.
Let’s get to it.
The Marathon Project is this Sunday, here’s what you need to know
The Marathon Project, which is shaping up to be the biggest road racing event in North America this year, is set for Sunday, Dec. 20.
What’s the Marathon Project?
The Marathon Project is a marathon for elite North American athletes who have had their seasons wiped out because of COVID.
It will be held in Chandler, Arizona, set for Dec. 20 and will adhere to the health and safety standards set by World Athletics, USATF and the Arizona government. It’s a looped course and there will be no spectators.
The project is being organized by Northern Arizona Elite coach Ben Rosario, BOOM Management agent Josh Cox and Big River Race Management event organizer Matt Helbig. Runner’s World has a piece about how the race came to be and what to expect.
The Marathon Project also announced the paces set for the race. Men will have pacers for as fast as sub 2:10 and women will have pacers for as fast as sub 2:24.
Who is running?
Eight Canadians were initially announced as part of the 100-person field, I wrote a breakdown of them all back in October.
Rachel Cliff announced this week that she will not be running on Sunday, citing ankle tendonitis.
Emily Setlack is also no longer on the start list, but I can’t find any information online as to why she withdrew.
Here are the remaining Canadians in the field, as of Sunday night:
Cam Levins (PR: 2:09:25)
Rory Linkletter (PR: 2:16:42)
Kinsey Middleton (PR: 2:32:09)
Natasha Wodak (PR: 2:35:16)
Benjamin Preisner (debut)
Justin Kent (debut)
Scottish runner Sarah Inglis, who lives and trains in B.C., is also making her marathon debut on Sunday.
Notable Americans in the field include Sara Hall, Jared Ward, Scott Fauble and Stephanie Bruce.
You can see the complete list of entrants here: men | women
Why does this race matter?
For Americans, their Olympic team is already chosen, so it’s an opportunity to race in a year where road racing was decimated by COVID. This can matter for fitness, sponsorship fulfillment and also giving a sense of purpose to a year with so much uncertainty.
A storyline to watch will be whether Sara Hall goes for the American record of 2:19:36. Sara is coming off a remarkable runner-up performance in London in October and according to her social media, training has been going very, very well.
For Canadians, it’s one of the few opportunities this year to go after an Olympic qualifying mark. If any of the men run sub 2:11:30 and any of the women run sub 2:29:30, they put themselves in the conversation to make Canada’s Olympic marathon team.
It’s also why Rachel could choose to opt out of this race. She is one of four Canadian women with the Olympic qualifying mark for the marathon, thanks to her then-record-breaking-run of 2:26:56 in 2019.
Malindi Elmore is the only Canadian who has run faster — she ran 2:24:50 in Houston at the beginning of 2020 to break Rachel’s record. And Dayna Pidhoresky is automatically on the Olympic team because she won the Canadian national championships/Olympic trials race in Toronto in 2019.
Rachel is playing it safe by not running on Sunday, she just has to hope no one runs faster than her 2:26:56 and she’ll probably be named to the Olympic team.
Marathon qualification is open until the end of May 2021. So if someone does beat Rachel, she could always go after a faster time somewhere in the spring and reclaim her spot.
That means for the Canadian women in the mix on Sunday — Natasha Wodak and Kinsey Middleton — they need to be eyeing sub-2:26:56.
On the men’s side, only two men have qualified: Trevor Hofbauer and Tristan Woodfine. So a sub 2:11:30 would grab that third spot. But with five months left to qualify and a lot of men in the mix, the faster the better.
How can I watch?
It will be broadcast on USATF.TV, but you need a paid Runnerspace+ account to view it. I am not entirely sure if it will work in Canada without a VPN, but I’m going to give it a shot. The broadcast starts at 9:45 a.m. ET.
Canada named it’s athletes of the year this week, but there was a case to be made for Malindi Elmore and Moh Ahmed
The Lou Marsh Trophy, which is annually awarded to Canada’s top athlete, was handed out this year. In an unusual turn, the 18-18-1 vote meant the 2020 trophy went to two athletes this year: soccer player Alphonso Davies and football player Laurent Duvernay-Tardif.
In the lead up to the announcement, the Toronto Star ran a series of articles profiling Canadians worthy of the honour of athlete of the year. Laura Armstrong made an argument for Malindi Elmore, who kicked off 2020 by breaking the Canadian marathon record, putting herself in the conversation for the 2020 Olympic team, 16 years after her previous trip to the Games:
Elmore might something of a long shot in the race for the annual Lou Marsh Trophy, honouring the best Canadian athlete of the year, with few athletics events held because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But then again, she’s no stranger to being a long shot.
“I never thought at 24 that I would be coming back at 40 in the marathon, that’s for sure,” she said after her record-setting run in Texas, a performance that all but booked her spot on team Canada for the 2020 Tokyo Games, later postponed until next summer.
Malindi then made more headlines, for being supportive of Canada’s decision to withdraw from the Olympics (this was before the Games got postponed all together) and has been one of the most positive people on social media and in interviews when it came to getting through the pandemic.
Over at The XC, John LaFranco made a case for Moh Ahmed to be named athlete of the year. The distance runner ran 12:47, the 10th fastest 5,000m in the the world (not 11th fastest) during an intrasquad meet with his team, the Bowerman Track Club:
His 11th all-time performance puts him behind only such names as Bekele, Kipchoge and Gebrselassie. He’s ahead of “the other Mo” Farah, former world-record holder and multiple world cross-country champ Paul Tergat, as well as every Canadian and American ever. Every Brit, Australian, Italian, Moroccan, Algerian... Put it this way: only two Kenyans have ever run faster than Moh Ahmed over 5,000m. And one Ugandan and seven Ethiopians. That’s it.
Moh also spoke up about racial justice and quality, sharing his stories about what it was like to be Black in track with media outlets like the CBC, Toronto Star and Sports Illustrated.
2020 isn’t over yet. And unless there’s a breakout performance at the Marathon Project, I think it’s safe to say that Malindi and Moh were definitely the top Canadian runners of the year, offering uplifting and unexpected performances in an uncertain year and using their profiles to talk about important issues.
Events scheduled for first half of 2021 going virtual
2020 is coming to a close, and races across Canada were cancelled or went virtual between March and, well, now it looks like the first half of 2021 will see more of the same:
🌶 The Chilly Half-marathon in Burlington, Ont. is now virtual. The race, which is held at the beginning of March and is a great tune-up for spring marathons, is leaning into the idea that going virtual means going national. Since there isn’t a lot of competition for races in Canada in March, why not.
🌊 Around the Bay 30K in Hamilton, Ont., is also virtual. The race is the oldest road race in North America and another popular spring marathon tune-up for those in southern Ontario. They are also planning a 30-day fitness challenge to keep people engaged in January.
🍁 CTV is reporting that the Ottawa marathon will also be virtual. The Ottawa Race Weekend, which includes a 10K and a half-marathon and is the biggest race weekend in Canada, is usually held on the last weekend in May. The race website has no information about the virtual event up yet.
🛑 The Toronto marathon (NOT to be confused with the Toronto Waterfront Marathon) is usually held the first weekend of May. The 2021 edition has been cancelled outright.
❓The status on other spring Canadian marathons, including Mississauga, Vancouver, Halifax, Fredericton, Calgary and Manitoba, remain unclear at this time.
Run Calgary wants you to get outside this winter
I appreciate how running organizations and races are trying to get creative to keep people engaged (and keep the lights on) during this period without races. Run Calgary is the latest to dive into this, with Winter Moves.
Winter Moves runs from the first day of winter (Dec. 21) to the first day of spring (March 20) and asks people to engage in 80 hours of physical activity outdoors during the 90 days of winter. Any outdoor activity counts, not just running. And the swag bag looks pretty sweet.
You can learn more or sign up here.
Strides: other stuff to watch, listen to and know about
🎧 Justin Kent talked to the Mile2Marathon podcast about making his marathon debut on Sunday at the Marathon Project.
🥇 Andrea Seccafien, who lives and trains in Australia, won the Launceston Running Festival in Tasmania this weekend, running 1:11:39 to break the tape. Australia endured a very touch lockdown to nearly eradicate COVID, which is why racing is happening there. Andrea is currently the Canadian half-marathon record holder, having set that record in January. Her 1:11:39 time is two minutes off the record, but it was only her third race of the year. Because, you know, there’s a pandemic.
🎧 Simran Jeet Singh was on the Shakeout Podcast, to discuss his children’s book, Fauja Singh Keeps Going. The book tells the story of how Fauja Singh became the first 100-year-old to complete a marathon, which he did at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 2012.
🚩 Doug Harrison at CBC Sports talked to Ben Flanagan after he made his half-marathon debut last week. Ben won the Sunday's Mortgage Network Half Marathon in 1:03:19:
In a "tough" final 1.5 km, the native of Kitchener, Ont., tried to stay composed and keep his stride relaxed while capitalizing on the moment.
"I was trying to balance the emotions," said Flanagan, who used a monster kick on the track to win the 10,000 at the 2018 NCAA Division 1 championships after he was seeded 23rd in a 24-man field. "There was a mix of excitement and determination because you don't want to get too excited before the job's done.
"I'm really happy with the overall effort and this will be a big confidence-booster. A win at any time is a special moment."
🎧 The XC launched a new podcast about Canadian university track & field athletes. They kicked off the show with an episode with Lucia Stafford, who runs for the University of Toronto. Lucia won the 2019 USports cross-country championship and has set several U23 records.
💊 Greek American runner Alexi Pappas spoke out about her experience with depression after competing in the 2016 Olympic Games in the New York Times. It’s an important conversation about how we talk about and treat mental health, compared to physical health. Alexi is coming at it from an athlete’s perspective, but the message rings true for everyone. This video and conversation is happening about a month before Alexi’s memoir, Bravey, will be published. I pre-ordered it from my local bookstore already, and you can do the same. You can find a local bookstore through Bookmanager.
👏 Halifax Road Hammers, a run crew in Halifax, is running 14,000K as a team in December to raise money and awareness to combat homelessness: they are calling it #StridesForShelter. The crew has divided up into 30 teams of four, and each team will run 477K during December. There are currently 477 accounted for homeless people living in Halifax. Canadian Running has more about how this initiative came to be.
🎁 Andre De Grasse has partnered with actor Ryan Reynolds to raise money for the Sick Kids hospital in Vancouver. Their goal is to raise $100,000 by Christmas Eve.
That’s it for this week!
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Run the North comes out on Monday mornings.
Next week, I’ll recap the Marathon Project and bring you whatever other running news comes our way between now and then. This is issue #96, the countdown to #100 is on.
Thanks so much for reading. Stay safe, take care of yourself, and run alone. I’ll see you next week.
— Erin @Run the North