Barber captures female crown

The second slowest time for the fastest female in the history of the St. Albert 10-miler was unexpected for Kendall Barber.

“I was actually doing a marathon pace workout so I was just trying to hit my marathon pace for the whole race,” said Barber after finishing the Tech Shop 10-miler in one hour, six minutes and three seconds for 13th overall on a sunny Sunday morning.

“I was just trying to run a 4.10 kilometre so that’s why I’m surprised that it was the winning time,” added Barber of beating out 76 females in the race. “I’m happy. I did what I wanted to do, which was just simulate my marathons.”

Barber’s performance was faster than Krissy Dooling’s 1:08:41, when the Edmonton runner won the 2008 female crown.

Emily Setlack of Cold Lake was the first female since Chantell Widney of Edmonton in 2007 to complete the 10-miler in under one hour with times of 59:50 in 2014 and 59:34 last year.

“I would expect this race to be won by under an hour or right around an hour. If I was coming out to race that’s more where I think the time needs to be,” Barber said. “If I had run it like a race I would’ve been hoping to be like 1:02, 1:03.”

Barber, 33, wasn’t sure she was the first female to cross the finish line after trailing Kat Stone and Jessie Lilly, a pair of 20 to 29 division racers from Edmonton, while crossing Sir Winston Churchill Avenue after completing the southern loop of the race.

“Going up to the grain elevators (on Mission Avenue), that was the last time I passed women and I actually just assumed there were more in front of me,” Barber said. “I think if I was racing this I would’ve been asking people on the route if there were people in front of me but today I was really focused on my marathon pace.”

Barber and Lilly overtook Stone, the first female down St. Anne Street for the northern leg of the course.

“I knew (Stone) was breathing pretty hard. She went out pretty fast so I knew she would slow down so I stayed on her shoulder for a little bit and then once I felt I could go past her I passed her on the downhills,” said Lilly of Stone, the third-place female at 1:09:20 for 24th place.

Lilly, a fifth-year Edmonton Triathlon Academy athlete, was later passed by Barber and wound up finishing as the second overall female at 1:07:41 for 18th place in her first outdoor race this season.

“My goal was just to beat my time from last year and run a strong race. I just focused on myself,” said Lilly, the fifth-place female in 2015 at 1:06:41 for 28th place. “I’m really happy with my time. I felt really good. In previous years I’ve blown up so it was nice to be able to finish strong today.

“The first part of the race was pretty difficult. I felt like I went out a little too hard but then I saw girls go ahead and I knew from doing this race previous that eventually I would catch back up if I just held my pace so I just tried to hold my pace for as long as possible and make sure I could pick it up in the last few Ks.”

Visit www.resultscanada.com for race results.

Lilly, 23, first raced the 10-miler at age 16 and is big fan of the re-jigged course, a figure-eight rolling route of two uphills and two downhills that ran north to south before last year’s reversal in direction.

“It’s a really fun local road race. I always look forward to it,” said the Edson product who is specializing in psychology at the University of Alberta. “I do like this course a lot better because you get the hard hills out of the way first and before it was really hard going down the steep downhill at the end.”

Barber had previously run the 10-miler a few times but was unaware about the course change until race time.

“I like it because it’s usually a competitive field so there is lots of fast runners that show up,” said Barber, whose first race was the 2006 10-miler. “It’s a beautiful course and it’s a challenging course, which I like. It’s got the nice hills and it’s always such a great route. The timing in the season is also perfect. It’s like the first one where usually you’re not worried about ice or snow and you can actually get a really good gauge of where your fitness is at going into the race season.”

Barber kicked off the outdoor season as the top female at the Mountain Equipment Co-op Race Two (Pace Setter) 10 km the previous Sunday in Edmonton. The member of the River City Runners finished fifth out of 263 participants, including 153 females, at 42:03.

The former Sir George Simpson student and Prince George resident who now lives in Edmonton is gearing up for the Ottawa Marathon at the end of May. Her personal best is 3:02:37 for 169th overall at the 2015 Toronto Waterfront Marathon and is hoping to run a 2:57 marathon and 1:23 half-marathon this year.

“I’m really focused on hitting those times,” said the co-founder of Poppy Barley, a stylish footwear company on Whyte Avenue.