Two Canadian records were broken in Houston! 😲
Malindi Elmore set a new marathon mark, Natasha Wodak set a new half-marathon mark. And several Canadians are running the London marathon in April.
Hello!
Houston was the first major race of 2020 and it delivered, especially for the Canadians. Two records were broken, but those weren’t the only strong performances of the day.
The Relief Run for Australia raised over $1 million Australian. Athletes from 76 different countries participated, more than 18,000 runners registered to run a 5K, half-marathon or anything in between this past weekend.
I ran with one of the organized runs in Toronto, it was so nice to see so many people come out in terrible weather and run for a good cause. You can still donate on the website. If you can afford it, I’d encourage you to do so.
The London marathon elite fields were announced and a few Canadians will be there. I have a full report below.
And, as always, there are some news stories, interviews and podcasts rounded for you.
This issue might be too long for your inbox. If that’s the case, you can finish it online!
The Houston marathon & half-marathon were epic
Well, Houston was everything we hoped it would be. I got all the results I discuss below from here.
Malindi Elmore runs 2:24:50, breaks Canadian marathon record
Malindi Elmore smashed the Canadian women’s marathon record by more than two minutes. The 39-year-old ran 2:24:50 to place third overall. Her time broke Rachel Cliff’s record, set in March 2019, of 2:26.56 .
She also broke the 25K and 30K national records en route to the marathon record.
If you’ve been reading Run the North for a while, you probably know Malindi’s story by now. She ran the 1,500m at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Missed the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Retired from competitive running and turned to triathlons. Had two kids. Decided to try marathoning. Had a breakout year in 2019 to become one of the best runners in the country. Now, in 2020, she IS the best Canadian marathoner ever and is likely to return to her second Olympic games, 16 years later.
The Canadian Press profiled Malindi right after her record-breaking run:
Elmore's story is one of resilience, reinvention and a rediscovered love for the sport. Once one of Canada's top middle-distance runners, she ran the 1,500 at the 2004 Athens Games, missing the semifinals by one spot. She didn't qualify for either the 2008 or 2012 Olympics and retired from track, both disillusioned and disheartened.
“To look back on the highs and lows of my track career, it is just really really special to feel like the door didn't entirely close, and that I'm kind of paying myself back for a lot of the hard work and heartache that I went through in my past life, with track and then just loving it again is fantastic,” she said Sunday.
She’s been running amazingly well, but sees all this success as a bonus to an already full and rewarding life:
Had Elmore not tried a marathon, she said she would still be satisfied with “the way my life has turned out and really grateful for so many things that are going on.
“I think that's partly why I'm able to run really well right now, because we're doing this on our own terms, we're doing this because it's a fun challenge. Because I love to race and compete but I feel very fulfilled with how things have gone in the last few years regardless.”
The whole profile is excellent and worth reading.
This means four Canadian women have qualified for the marathon for the Tokyo Olympics — but only three get to be named to the team.
Dayna Pidhoresky is on the team as the Canadian national marathon champion. I’m assuming Malindi, as the new distance national record holder, will be offered a spot. The other two qualifiers are Rachel Cliff (qualified with her record-breaking run last year) and Lyndsay Tessier (qualified by finishing 9th at the world championships in Doha).
Before the race, Malindi was on a panel covered by the Houston Chronicle about balancing running with raising her two sons, a 5-year-old and a one-year-old:
Elmore said running makes her a better parent.
“I find that I have more patience to deal with them if I’ve had that outlet,” she said. “Some days, I have to get up at 5 in the morning and run even if I know I have a busy day with them. Kids know how to push your buttons, but if you have something out of the way, it’s like ‘OK now I’m taken care of, and I can be all about you.’”
Anne Johnston ran 2:36:41, a PB by six minutes, to place 15th overall. It was the third time the Newfoundland athlete had raced 42.2K, she previously ran Toronto in 2017 and Boston in 2019.
Natasha Labeaud was on the start list, but doesn’t appear in the results.
The top Canadian man in the marathon was Trevor Dickie, who ran 2:35:33 to place 85th overall.
Trevor’s based in Toronto and I found him on Strava.
Natasha Wodak runs 1:09:41, breaks Canadian half-marathon record
The other Canadian record to fall in Houston was the Canadian women’s half-marathon record.
Natasha Wodak ran 1:09:41 to finish 17th overall. Her run broke Rachel Cliff’s previous record of 1:10:06, which Rachel just ran in December, and makes her the first Canadian woman to run under 1:10.
Natasha is also Canada’s 10,000m record holder. The 38-year-old from B.C. had a stellar year in 2019, winning several races (including the Canadian 10K and 10,000m national championships) and representing Canada internationally three times — at the world cross-country championships, at the PanAm Games (where she set a meet record and won gold in the 10,000m) and at the world championships in Doha.
Several other Canadian women ran the half-marathon.
Rachel Cliff ran 1:10:13, a few seconds off her personal best, to place 23rd overall. Rachel started the day with two Canadian records and finished it with none, despite running pretty well.
Scottish runner Sarah Inglis, who trains in Canada, ran 1:10:24 to place 25th overall. The time is a two-minute personal best, she ran 1:12:23 in November.
Emily Setlack, who is listed as an American in the results, ran 1:11:40 to place 35th overall. The time is also a personal best. Her previous mark was 1:12:34. Setlack has had a big few months, she was the Canadian marathon championship runner-up in Toronto in October and was seconds away from qualifying for the 2020 Olympics.
Kinsey Middleton ran a personal best of 1:11:48, to place 37th overall. The 2018 Canadian marathon champion will be running the London marathon on April 26. I have more on that below.
Dayna Pidhoresky, the 2019 Canadian marathon champ, started the race, but splits after 5K were not recorded. I haven’t seen anything on online about what happened, but before the race, she said on Instagram that her fitness was not there.
Rory Linkletter runs second fastest Canadian half-marathon of all time, Cam Levins and several other Canadian men run half PBs
Rory Linkletter made his half-marathon debut in Houston. He ran 1:01:44 to finish 15th overall. The time is the second fastest half-marathon ever run by a Canadian man. The current Canadian record is 1:01:28, which was set by Jeff Schiebler in 1999.
Rory runs with NAZ Elite in Arizona, one of the strongest long-distance training groups in North America. He made his marathon debut in the fall in Toronto, running a respectable 2:16, and is focusing on shorter distances in 2020 as he believes it’s his best shot at the making the Tokyo Olympic team.
Athletics Canada profiled Rory before the race:
“I feel stronger mentally and physically after having raced the marathon,” said Linkletter. “I know I can do very hard things now and that no matter how bad I hurt, I can keep going. It really changed my relationship with pain.”
Cam Levins also had a strong race in Houston, running a half PB of 1:02:14. He placed 31st overall. After setting the Canadian men’s marathon record in 2018, Cam struggled in 2019. He still needs to qualify for Tokyo. He recently changed coaches and is supposedly running the Rotterdam marathon on April 5, so this Houston performance should give him a boost of confidence.
Canada had seven men finish in the top 100 in the half-marathon. After Rory and Cam, the top Canadians were:
Tristan Woodfine ran 1:03:30 to place 41st overall. The time is a PB, he set his previous mark of 1:04:46 in Winnipeg in June 2019. Woodfine was the second place finisher at the Canadian marathon championships in Toronto in October. Tristan is also running London this year, see below for more details on that.
Phil Parrot-Migas ran 1:03:53, 51st overall. Another PB! My Googling says that Phil’s previous best was 1:05:46 from Toronto 2019. Phil works at the Canadian race registration company Race Roster.
Kevin Coffey ran a three-second personal best of 1:05:53 to finish 73rd overall. Kevin placed 10th at the Canadian marathon championships in October.
Chris Balestrini did not run a personal best. The Western University PhD & medical student ran 1:06:03, 76th overall, but shared on Strava that he went for it and came up short.
Adam Hortian ran a six-second personal best. The run coach in Kitchener, Ont., ran 1:06:28 to place 78th overall.
The London marathon will feature five Canadians and the GOAT showdown everyone wanted
The London marathon announced their elite field this week and it is bonkers.
The women’s race features five of the fastest women marathoners ever, including current world record holder and defending London champion Brigid Kosgei. NYC marathon champion Joyciline Jepkosgei will be running her second 42.2K in London. Sinead Divver will be going for the Australian marathon record. U.K. Olympic berths are on the line.
The men’s race features seven athletes who have run under 2:05. And the race the world was asking for.
The London marathon takes place on April 26, 2020.
Five elite Canadians to run London
This is the strongest Canadian field London will have since I started caring about professional running. 2020 being an Olympic year and the bonus of finishing top 10 working as an Olympic qualifier probably helped when these athletes were making their spring race decisions.
Kinsey Middleton, who just ran a half-marathon PB in Houston (see above) is the only Canadian woman on the list. Kinsey was the 2018 Canadian marathon champion. London will be her third attempt at the distance. Kinsey’s PB of 2:32 is from her debut in Toronto 2018. The Canadian women’s race to be on the Olympic marathon team is already too full, with four qualifiers. Canadian women now need to run around 2:26 to be in the mix for the team, if we assume the faster you are, the better the chances Athletics Canada selects you.
Tristan Woodfine, the Canadian 2019 national runner-up, is the top Canadian man on the list. His marathon PB of 2:13:16 is from Toronto this year. His 2019 was strong, starting the year with a half-marathon PB in Houston, winning the Canadian half championships, and capping if off running a two-minute marathon PB in Toronto. 2020 has started the same way. Can he shave even more time off his marathon to score an Olympic qualifying time? We only have one male Olympic marathon qualifier, Trevor Hofbauer, so there’s space for two more. The 26-year-old is trained as a paramedic professionally, but has put pause on that career track to focus on his running. Meanwhile, he is working with his father as a carpenter in his hometown to pay the bills.
Evan Esselink is tackling the marathon for the second time in London. He made his 42.2K debut in Toronto in 2019, when he decided to compete in the Canadian marathon national championships. In Toronto, he ran 2:18:38 for seventh Canadian, 20th overall. Evan, who is from Vancouver, trains with the British Columbia Endurance Project. He spent his NCAA career at Indiana University.
Ben Preisner is making his 42.2K debut in London. Ben graduated from University of Tulsa last year and has been tearing up the Canadian road racing scene ever since. The 23-year-old won the Vancouver and Toronto half-marathons. He was also the top Canadian at the world cross-country championships at the beginning the year, placing 77th overall.
Josh Cassidy is the lone elite Canadian in the wheelchair race. He won the London marathon in 2010 and has also won Boston (2012) and Los Angeles (2019). He’s represented Canada at three Paralympic Games: 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Kipchoge v. Bekele
The big story coming out of the London elite field announcements is that the world will see the head-to-head race we’ve been waiting for since Berlin 2019. The world has to 2:01 marathoners: Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele. And they will race each other at London 2020.
Eliud holds the marathon world record and captured the world’s attention when he ran 1:59 at an exhibition race in Vienna last fall. Bekele was once considered the greatest runner ever, but then struggled with injuries and his career was up and down for a while. Then he ran 2:01:41 in Berlin in 2019, only two seconds off the world record Eliud had set in Berlin just the year before. And two storylines emerged: Bekele was BACK! And, who would win if these two raced each other?
We’re going to find out. And it’s going to be awesome.
Evan Esselink, Trevor Hofbauer Ben Preisner ran Arizona Rock & Roll half-marathon
Houston wasn’t the only race yesterday. The Arizona rock & roll half-marathon featured an impressive elite starting list.
Unfortunately, Erin Strout of Women’s Running discovered that a cone was misplaced, and the course was 286.5m short. It’s unclear what is going to happen, the results page was down when I was writing this on Sunday night.
Three Canadians were there, Evan Esselink, Trevor Hofbauer and Ben Preisner. I’m going to wait to see what happens and will report on it and these results next week.
Reid Coolsaet parts ways with New Balance, will run in Nike Vaporflys
Reid Coolsaet wrote a piece for his blog about parting ways with his long-time sponsor, New Balance. Reid has been with the company since 2008, they saw him through the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
The first reason Reid is mixing things up is because New Balance offered him less money than they’ve had in the past. The second reason is Reid wants very advantage he can get as he chases a Tokyo 2020 qualifying spot, and he’s going to give the shoes that have changed the running game in recent years a shot. Yep, he’s going to run in Vaporflys.
As you know the Nike Vaporfly has changed the face of marathoning. You can look at the World Records, Area Records, WWM podiums, Olympic qualifiers… and you can see the shift in performances. A few years ago I wasn’t so sure about the hype. In 2018 I started to realize that the Vaporflys were helping some athletes. And then in 2019 it was blatantly obvious that the Vaporflys are on another level.
The way I see it I have one shot left at qualifying for the Olympics (I need to run sub 2:11:30 and be “ranked” top 3 in Canada) and I don’t want to second guess it. New Balance has some marathon racer prototypes that I used in 2019. They came out with a better version in November 2019, that is really good. But there is something about the springiness of the Vaporfly foam that sets it apart. I think other shoe companies will eventually come around with comparable shoes. I bet NB comes out with a competitive model but that model isn’t going to be ready for this spring when I try and run an Olympic qualifier.
Ailsa Macdonald wins Bandera 100K ultra
Two weeks ago, Canadian Ailsa Macdonald won the Bandera 100K ultra. Her time of 9:16:38 was the second fastest time ever by a woman on the course.
She placed seventh overall and beat the second woman by nearly 30 minutes.
The third woman across the line, Arden Young, is also Canadian.
By winning Bandera, Ailsa scored an invite to the exclusive and prestigious Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile race that takes place in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in June.
You can see the full Bandera results here.
Ailsa is a 39-year-old ultrarunner who grew up in Nova Scotia and currently lives in Alberta. She’s a professional ultrarunner who has won national championships in the 50K and 100 mile. She’s also done triathlons, winning Ironman Canada in 2018.
In March 2019, Canadian Running spoke to Aisla about how she made it to the top of the ultra world. Her secrets include embracing the grind, the solitude and the Canadian winters:
MacDonald always does a run training focus in the winter. “When I spent my winters in Canada, I would always do a big run focus in the winter for several reasons. You can run in almost any weather and when it’s too crappy to run outside, I would move my training indoors and focus on speed. Running in winter conditions builds a lot of character and can prepare you for anything. I found running on icy/snow covered trails is great agility training. Even though my pace was much much slower, my stabilizer muscles, which are often neglected, are fully engaged working to keep me upright. I believe the Canadian winter running conditions made me a stronger, better runner both mentally and physically. And even though I now spend my winters in Phoenix, I still love to focus on running during these months. On the one day a month I do spend at my home in St Albert, I try to get outside for a run. There is something refreshing about the cold Canadian winter air that I truly love.”
Canadian Running is profiling the PanAm Cross-Country Cup team members
The PanAm Cross-Country Cup will be held in Canada on Feb. 29, 2020. Canada is sending a team of 12 runners.
The women’s senior team is comprised of Geneviève Lalonde, Natasha Wodak, Maria Bernard-Galea, Victoria Coates, Kirsten Lee and Hannah Woodhouse.
The men’s senior team is comprised of Connor Black, John Gay, Brandon Allen, Jean-Simon Desgagnés, Mitchell Ubene and Kieran McDonald.
Canadian Running is doing a series where they are profiling team members heading into race day. So far I see three profiles up: John Gay, Natasha Wodak and Geneviève Lalonde.
Mississauga Marathon wrote about David Mutai in their newsletter
David Mutai, the Kenyan runner who won seven Canadian marathons in 2019, was profiled in the recent issue of the Mississauga Marathon newsletter. David won the race last year and will be returning to defend his title in 2020.
Mutai spent seven years running in Asia before coming to Canada, according to an interview with the Journal de Quebec. (That article is in French.) The article also says his family still lives in Kenya, and he lives and trains alone here.
Coming from a family of athletes, David notes that it is his two older brothers who inspired him to take running seriously. Wanting to compete with his older siblings, David acknowledges them as one of the reasons for his success. Another source of inspiration for David has been his parents. Having been encouraged to be active by his parents for his whole life, it came as no surprise to him when he found out that both were athletes during their time in school. It’s safe to say that athletics is in the Mutai family’s DNA.
Sage Watson was on the Women Run Canada podcast
Sage Watson is the Canadian record holder in the 400m hurdles — she capped off her 2019 season by setting that record in her semi-finals heat at the world championships in Doha. Watson, who grew up in Alberta and ran for Florida State University and the University of Arizona (where she currently still trains) talked to Women Run Canada about finding inspiration, why she wears lipstick when she competes, what it was like to break the Canadian record — a long-time dream of hers — and more.
You can listen to the episode here.
Melissa Bishop-Nriagu wins her first race of 2020, was on The Shakeout podcast, talked about balancing motherhood and racing with Sportsnet
Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, the Canadian 800m record holder and 2016 Olympian, is aiming to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympic team after having her first child. She took some time off and returned to competition in 2019, but struggled a bit. 2020 is off to a better start. She won her first race of the year, the 600m at the University of Michigan Wolverine Open two weekends ago. She dominated the field, finishing in 1:29.89, three seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.
Melissa was also a recent guest on The Shakeout podcast. She talked about returning to racing after becoming a mother, why she became a coach, injury (she shut her 2019 season down early because of one) and what she’s doing to make the 2020 Olympics.
You can listen to the episode here.
Finally, Melissa was one of three female athletes profiled by SportsNet who are balancing new motherhood with competing at an elite level. The other two were Canadian hockey player Meaghan Mikkelson and American basketball player Tayler Hill.
Her goal in 2019 was to compete at September’s world championships, but Bishop-Nriagu’s best time was nearly a second off the qualifying standard, and four seconds slower than her personal best. The fitness was there — it returned quicker than she expected, as it does for many women post-pregnancy since an increase in blood volume and a surge of hormones can make for good aerobic capacity. “But my body just wasn’t ready,” Bishop-Nriagu says. “My body literally couldn’t keep up with the speed — my joints and my muscles and all my tendons, because they hadn’t really firmed up [again after] pregnancy, with all the hormones and things.
“That was the hardest part,” she continues. “It took me time to learn that I was working with a different body.”
World Athletics talks to Gabriela DeBues-Stafford
Gabriela DeBues-Stafford had a hell of a 2019. She ran 11 personal bests and broke eight Canadian national records. That’s why I ranked her #1 on my list of top 10 Canadian running moments of the year.
This profile came out on the last day of 2019, but I missed it over the holidays. World Athletics talked to Gabriela about her remarkable year and what it was like to be in one of the greatest races of all time. Gabriela made the finals of the women’s 1,500m at the world championships in Doha. She ran 3:56, breaking the Canadian record by three seconds and the world championship record by two seconds. And she came SIXTH. That’s how lit the race was.
It also covers Gabriela’s background: growing up in Toronto, being raised in a running family and how she managed the leap from junior runner to becoming competitive on the world stage and how she’s adapted to training in Scotland with British runner Laura Muir under coach Andy Young.
No longer simply “surviving” many of the workouts as she did last year she is adopting a day by day approach to a huge 2020 campaign highlighted by the Tokyo Olympic Games.
“I would love to PB again and become a better race tactician,” she says of her hopes for 2020. “I’m just working hard on getting fitter and targeting that Olympic final. At the end of the day, it is just about improving and seeing how good I can become.”
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