Fewer walkers and runners laced up for the Mayo Midnight Marathon over the weekend than in past years.
A total of 144 runners and walkers took part in the 19th annual event, down from 207 last year and its record turnout of 230 in 2012.
A likely cause for the drop was a scheduling conflict with the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay on Saturday and the Sunstroke Music Festival over the weekend in Whitehorse.
“The marathon date has always been on the closest Saturday to solstice, the only years which easily gives our organizers a choice is those years it falls on a Wednesday,” said organizer Sandy Washburn in an email to the News. “That being said, we have been going over the overall participant numbers and have found that we have had high participation numbers even on years that it falls on the same weekend as the bike relay.
“What has been dropping significantly over the last few years is local participants… What we are finding is that we are losing local participants and volunteers due to fatigue.”
While 80 of the 144 were from Whitehorse, only three of the event’s 12 divisions were won by runners and walkers from the Yukon capital.
Runners from Mayo won the same amount.
Mayo’s Laura Erickson took first in the women’s half marathon, Jared Leary first in the men’s 10-kilometre and Asia Winter-Sinnott was the top female in the five-kilometre.
“There has been much discussion over the 20th anniversary but nothing formalized yet,” said Washburn. “One thing we are looking at is offering a charter service for the weekend from Whitehorse with Alkan Air who have been very supportive of the marathon over the last few years.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com
Top results
Marathon women
1st Anne Swearingen
(Maple Grove, Minn.) - 5:26:49
Marathon men
1st Brian Larkin
(Plattsburgh N.Y.) - 3:43:56
2nd Doug White
(Tampa, Fla.) - 3:49:40
3rd Jeff Mailloux
(Boise, Idaho) - 4:00:49
4th Dexter Macrae
(Dawson City) - 4:56:30
Half marathon women
1st Laura Erickson
(Mayo) - 1:41:57
2nd Terri Cairns
(Whitehorse) - 1:50:21
3rd Brianne Bremner
(Whitehorse) - 1:52:06
4th Jennifer King
(Whitehorse) - 1:52:07
5th Melissa Atkinson
(Dawson City) - 1:55:03
Half marathon men
1st Mario Rauber
(Cayley, Alta.) - 1:38:44
2nd Robert Saal
(Wielenbach, Germany) - 1:41:23
3rd Tommy Landry
(Stoneham, Que.) - 1:46:58
3rd Dany Jette
(Dawson City) - 1:46:58
5th Tom Sinclair
(Ottawa, Ont.) - 1:49:19
Half marathon walk women
1st Bonnie Love
(Whitehorse) - 2:37:06
2nd Becky Striegler
(Whitehorse) - 2:39:29
Half marathon walk men
1st Christopher Trollope
(Calgary, Alta.) - 3:13:46
10-kilometre women
1st Valerie Dube
(Dawson City) - 49:58
2nd Wendy Cairns
(Dawson City) - 50:30
3rd Kennedy Cairns-Locke (Whitehorse) - 52:15
4th Londa Oshowy
(Whitehorse) - 54:23
4th Jada Smith ( Whitehorse) - 54:23
10-kilometre men
1st Jared Leary (Mayo) - 44:30
2nd Stephen Mooney
(Whitehorse) - 45:02
3rd David Lapierre
(Whitehorse) - 45:26
4th Kenton Anderson
(Whitehorse) - 49:43
5th Peter Sinclair
(Ottawa, Ont.) - 50:23
10-kilometre walk women
1st Tanya Astika
(Whitehorse) - 1:10:19
2nd Christiane Vaillancourt (Whitehorse) - 1:10:20
3rd Jane Haydock
(Whitehorse) - 1:10:40
4th Susan Dennehy
(Whitehorse) - 1:16:15
5th Catherine Simpson (Whitehorse) - 1:16:18
10-kilometre walk men
1st Kevin Odwyer
(Leduc, Alta.) - 51:02
2nd John Storms
(Whitehorse) - 1:12:05
3rd Wesley Gillespie
(Dawson City) - 1:36:27
4th David Moses
(Whitehorse) - 1:51:19
5th Rick Moses
(Whitehorse) - 1:51:30
Five-kilometre men and women
1st Naoise Dempsey
(Whitehorse) - 22:00
2nd Sylvain Brousseau
(Dawson City) - 23:02
3rd Curtis Cash
(Whitehorse) - 23:29
4th Michael Vallieres
(Whitehorse) - 23:50
5th Sean Odwyer
(Leduc, Alta.) - 23:51
6th Asia Winter-Sinnott (Mayo) - 23:53
7th Ben Kishchuk
(Whitehorse) - 25:08
8th Oscar Burgess
(Whitehorse) - 26:12
9th Valerie Bussieres
(Whitehorse) - 26:20
10th Kelli Taylor
(Whitehorse) - 26:54