As the season changes, temperatures drop and the cross-country season nears, Lindsay Carson is turning up the heat on the race circuit.
The Whitehorse runner cracked the top five at the Vancouver Eastside 10K on Saturday. The 26-year-old placed fourth out of 978 women at the Canada Running Series event, this year’s designated B.C. 10-kilometre road race championship.
“I felt really good about it. It was quite rainy. I have experience running in the snow from the Yukon, but not so much the rain. I think that’s a Vancouver thing,” said Carson. “The roads were a little bit slippery, but once I found my groove I tucked in with a nice pack of guys and girls and I was happy about my finish. I was able to reel in two girls at the end there and had a strong last three K.”
Carson, who was the only Yukoner in the event, finished with a time of 35 minutes and 21 seconds and was third in the females 25-29 division.
She placed 16th for women at the Canadian 10-kilometre Road Race Championships at the end of May with a time of 36:52, over three minutes off her personal best 10-kilometre road time.
The top three females on Saturday finished between 33:17 and 33:42.
“The three girls ahead of us, I’m hoping this season to run a similar pace as that and be competitive,” said Carson, who placed second at the 2014 championship. “Fourth is good but the time was a little bit slow. It’s not my personal best.”
Carson took first overall – for men and women – at the Yukon 10-kilometre Road Race Championships in August. She did the same thing at the Yukon five-kilometre championship the previous month.
But the approaching cross-country running season is where her biggest ambitions lie.
Carson hopes to qualify for a third IAAF World Cross Country Championships with a strong performance at nationals this November in Kingston, Ont.
She placed eighth at the 2014 nationals to earn a spot on Team Canada at the biennial worlds, going on to place 59th at the championships in Guiyang, China.
“I’m hoping to build on it. I’m feeling strong in my training, starting to ramp things up again so I can peak in November for the national cross-country championship,” said Carson.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com