If you were up early in Watson Lake recently, you might have caught a glimpse of Whitehorse’s Lindsay Carson out on a training run.
The 24-year-old was in Watson Lake for work, but found time to train in the mornings leading up to a sixth-place finish at the 2014 Canadian 10-kilometre Road Race Championships held Saturday in Toronto.
“I have a grueling work schedule in the fall so just trying to fit in races with my work is a challenge,” said Carson.
“I was working two weeks in the bush just prior to this race. So early morning runs in Watson Lake for two weeks straight and then I had this race, so I didn’t know what to expect. To come sixth in a very competitive field, I was pretty pleased about it.”
Carson placed sixth for elite women with a time of 34 minutes and 33.4 seconds at the Athletics Canada championship held in conjunction with the Oasis Zoo Run at the Toronto Zoo.
“It was an incredibly deep field,” said Carson. “Between fourth and sixth, there was four seconds between us. So I was kind of frustrated that I was sixth and also a couple spots away from the prize money and also the recognition of top five.”
Not only was she four seconds behind fourth, she was 6.1 seconds behind third in a field that saw Americans take second, third and fourth place finishes for elite women.
It was Carson’s first time at championship and just her third time running an official 10-kilometre race.
She placed second out of 19,377 women runners at the Vancouver Sun Run in this spring with a time of 33:48.
“The first couple kilometres were pretty straight forward, but then when we got into the zoo - five kilometres into the race - it was very twisty, very turny,” said Carson. “If you’ve been to a zoo, we’re basically running through it. A lot of animals, a lot of switchbacks, a lot of turns. That was very challenging and it shows as well.”
“It’s not your average road race course,” she added. “People aren’t there to get fast times.”
Carson, who moved to Whitehorse a year ago from Cambridge, Ontario, placed second for open women, and first for women 20-24, at the 2014 B.C. 10-Kilometre Championship in July.
She then won the half-distance in the Yukon River Trail Marathon for a second year in a row in August.
Carson took 60th at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Poland and fourth in the 5,000-metre at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in the spring of last year.
She plans to next run the eight-kilometre event at the GoodLife Victoria Marathon and then the Canadian National Cross Country Championships at the end of November.
Carson came fourth at last year’s cross-ountry nationals.
“My main goal for this season is the Canadian Cross Country Championships,” said Carson. “I’m doing these road races in between just to maintain my race focus, to stay in touch with my competition.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com