Before Sunday, Whitehorse’s Lindsay Carson had never raced in the Athletics Yukon Cross Country Championships.
The fact she won the open women’s division couldn’t have been any less surprising.
The 25-year-old placed third in last year’s B.C. XC championships, eighth in last year’s national championships, and went on to represent Canada at the world championships earlier this year.
She’s one of the best XC runners in the country, but her work and race schedules have kept her out of the Yukon championships since she moved to Whitehorse in 2013.
“I was actually planning to be in the field (for work) this weekend. That got delayed, so I’m home, I might as well do it,” said Carson.
“It didn’t work with my work schedule (the past couple years) and I have a competition schedule down in Vancouver. I try not to over-race.”
Carson, who placed 59th at the worlds in China this past March, completed the eight-kilometre course in 31 minutes and 53 seconds at Sunday’s territorial championship at the Mount McIntyre ski trails.
Maura Sullivan placed second at 36:01 and Amelia Fraser third at 38:38.
“The course was very challenging. Two monstrous hills right at the beginning - and it’s a loop course,” said Carson. “You call it a cross-country race, but I prefer to call it a hill workout.
“I actually got lost on the course and that probably added a good 30 seconds, maybe a minute ... I took the wrong turn so I had to catch up.”
Whitehorse’s David Eikelboom regained the open men’s title on Sunday after also having scheduling conflicts the last couple years. The 28-year-old won the title shortly after he first moved to Whitehorse in 2012, but hadn’t run it since.
“The last two years I was out of town doing course stuff, so I had to miss it both times,” said Eikelboom, president of Athletics Yukon. “Fortunately this year, being on the board, I was able to strategically locate this on a weekend I knew was going to be in town.”
Is that true? “No, not really. We had the Terry Fox Run the weekend before and that’s an event we absolutely don’t want to be competing with.”
Eikelboom, who is a past winner of the Yukon River Trail Marathon, completed the 10-kilometre race in 36:44. Jordan Lindoff placed second with a time of 47:12.
“We used this course a few years ago and I think I was 39 high in that race, so I was definitely a lot faster,” said Eikelboom, who has won the Mount Lorne Mis-Adventure Trail Race the last three years. “I went out a bit quick today. My first lap, I went out probably 10 seconds faster than I should have and I paid for it in my third and fourth lap. But in my fifth lap I was able to bring it back down again, so I was happy for that.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com
Results
Boys age 4 (1 km)
1st Theo Yu Shott - 6:52
Boys age 5 (1 km)
1st Marc-Andre Gillis - 8:02
Boys age 6 (1 km)
1st Gregory Freeman - 6:41
Girls age 6 (1 km)
1st Callie Yu Shott - 7:08
Boys age 7 (1 km)
1st Nicholas Connell - 5:15
Boys age 9 (1 km)
1st Felix Maisson - 4:15
2nd Simon Connell - 4:15
3rd Louis Mouchet - 4:17
Boys ages 11-12 (2 km)
1st Noah Connell - 10:27
Girls ages 11-12 (2 km)
1st Kate Mason - 10:14
2nd Bella Mouchet - 10:32
3rd Lisa Freeman - 13:21
4th Emma Hamilton - 13:34
Boys ages 13-15 (4 km)
1st Darby McIntyre - 25:04
Girls ages 13-15 (4 km)
1st Sonjaa Schmidt - 25:04
Open men (10 km)
1st David Eikelboom - 36:44
2nd Jordan Lindoff - 47:12
Open women (8 km)
1st Lindsey Carson - 31:53
2nd Maura Sullivan - 36:01
3rd Amelia Fraser - 38:38
4th Jody Eikelboom - 38:52
Masters men (8 km)
1st Scott Williams - 32:53
2nd Jerome McIntyre - 36:23
3rd Tom Ullyett - 36:34
4th Ben Yu Shott - 39:46
5th Don White - 41:24
6th James Paterson - 43:27
7th Keith Lay - 47:14
Masters women (6 km)
1st Cynthia Freeman - 32:56
2nd Deb Kiemele - 37:57