Two age-group records were broken at The Q’s Victoria Run Series’ final meet of the 2013 season at UVic’s Centennial Stadium on Saturday.
Running diva Marilyn Arsenault (the opera singer) crushed the main event, the Maude Hunter’s B.C. Championship 10,000-metre race, with a Canadian age-group 40-44 record time of 34 minutes 18.21 seconds. That effort shaves four seconds off the previous record, set by Arsenault at last year’s event.
She is currently in training for the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon, where she hopes to run under 2:40 and qualify for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Saturday also saw two-time Olympian Bruce Deacon of Victoria set the 45-49 age-group record for 10,000-m with a time of 31:55.92.
The top three men in the 10,000-m were all master-age (over 40) runners, as Deacon was second overall in the event to fellow over-40 Victoria runner Jim Finlayson (31:31.12) and former UVic Vikes athlete Craig Odermatt was third (32:20.60).
The event also hosted two 5,000-m races, which were won by Frank Towler and Martha McNeely, in the men’s and women’s 60-69 divisions, respectively. Towler ran 21:44.99 and McNeely finished in 26:54.70.
Chris Galley won the open men’s 5,000-m in 17:01.74 and Courtney Cameron won the women’s in 19:56.19
The series is introducing a new road race, the Synergy Shuffle, on Sept. 15 with an 11 a.m. start time. It has three distances, 10, 20 and 30 km, all starting at Lochside Trail and Island View Road, next to Michell’s Farm Market. Visit victoriarunseries.com to register or for more information.
