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Whitehorse runners off their game at B.C. XC championships

Two Whitehorse runners produced very respectable finishes with fast times at the 2015 B.C. Provincial Cross Country Championships in Nanaimo on Saturday.
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Two Whitehorse runners produced very respectable finishes with fast times at the 2015 B.C. Provincial Cross Country Championships in Nanaimo on Saturday.

But given a chance, it sounds like they’d like a redo.

“The race conditions were absolutely perfect, it was a very fast course, but I just wasn’t able to put it together on that day for whatever reason,” said Lindsay Carson. “All in all it was a pretty solid performance and it was against a pretty stacked field, so it does give me greater motivation to keep on training hard for nationals.”

“Honestly, the race was a bit rough for me,” said Kieran Halliday. “I sort of lost focus halfway through the race and it sort of unraveled from there. But that’s OK. I’m really looking forward to the next race, which is regionals in two weeks. Hopefully I can make the team there and move forward from this.”

Carson placed seventh out of 57 participants in the women’s race and was sixth for open women. The 26-year-old completed the six-kilometre course in 19 minutes and 39 seconds, just 51 seconds behind the winner.

As great as seventh place is, Carson placed third at last year’s B.C. championship in Abbotsford. She then took eighth at the nationals, earning the opportunity to compete for Canada at her second world championships. She placed 59th at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China, in March.

More recently, Carson won the eight-kilometre women’s race at Victoria Marathon for a second year in a row this month. In Victoria she beat Saturday’s second place finisher Hilary Stellingwerff.

“So I know I have it in me, I just didn’t have a good day,” said Carson.

“I had an off race. Work has been kind of busy lately, so maybe that trickled into my running.”

Amazingly, all top 10 runners broke the 20-minute mark in the women’s race on Saturday. Or maybe it wasn’t so amazing…

“The course was definitely short. People were running insane times, so it wasn’t a true six kilometres,” said Carson. “It was probably short by 200 metres.

“I’ve only broken 20 minutes once in my running career.”

Halliday placed 57th overall and 22nd for junior male in the 88-runner men’s race in Nanaimo.

The 19-year-old finished the eight-kilometre course in 26:22.

“Some races it all clicks and you run great, in other races it’s at your fingertips and you can’t get a hold on it and the race doesn’t go your way,” said Halliday. “You always try to have the same sleep schedule, same eating patterns, get your head in the game the same way every time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Halliday was racing for the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbirds cross-country team on Saturday, helping the men’s team place third overall.

The Thunderbirds will next race the Association of Independent Institutions in Colorado on Nov. 7 followed by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championships on Nov. 21 in Charlotte, N.C.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com