The 2014 B.C. 10-Kilometre Championship was no walk in the park. It was a run in it.
Three Whitehorse runners finished top-three in their divisions in the Summerfast series event in Vancouver’s Stanley Park on Saturday.
Logan Roots, Lindsay Carson and Logan Boehmer placed first, first and third in their age group at the championship.
“I really liked it, it was really well organized,” said Roots. “There was awesome post-race food.
“It was a little bit of a slower course because there are some tighter corners around the sea wall, but overall the race was really, really good.”
Roots placed fourth overall out of 417 participants and topped the men 20-24 division. The 21-year-old, who was running in the championship for the first time, crossed the finish line in 32 minutes and 42 seconds.
“I was hoping to go a little bit faster, but a couple factors slowed it down, like rain,” said Roots. “But I’m happy with my placing and on to the next one.”
Carson placed second for women, first for women 20-24 and 12th overall. She finished with a time of 34:47, just 49 seconds behind the top woman, Rachel Cliff, who also beat Carson in the Vancouver Sun Run in April.
Boehmer crossed the finish just a second behind Carson for 13th overall, 11th for men, and third for men 20-24.
All three Whitehorse runners had success at the 30th annual Vancouver Sun Run, the largest 10-kilometre event in Canada, with over 45,000 registered runners, this spring.
Carson, a native of Cambridge, Ont. who moved to Whitehorse last year, placed second out of 19,377 women runners with a time of 33:48.
Roots placed 20th overall, sixth for his age group, at 32:09.
Boehmer ran to 11th for males 19-24 and 64th overall with a time of 34:52.
“After Sun Run they invited us to it,” said Roots. “I think it’s a newer event, it’s only been around a couple times, and they are trying to get it up and going.
“It was an awesome event. I really liked it.”
Carson is fast on pavement, track and trail. She took fourth place in the senior women’s division Canadian National Cross Country Championships at the start of December. She also placed fourth in the 5,000-metre at the 2013 Canadian Track and Field Championships but missed this year’s track nationals because of an injury.
The two Logans competed for Yukon at the 2013 Canada Summer Games in Quebec. Roots became the first Yukon runner to reach an A final at the Games, taking 11th in the 1,500-metre.
Roots also came 16th at the British Columbia Cross Country Championships in the open division (men 20-34) last October. He won the 2012 Yukon River Trail Marathon in Whitehorse and is hoping to regain the title next month in what will be just his second full-distance marathon attempt.
“I’m really looking forward to coming home and racing that one,” he added.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com