On the eve of Sunday's big race, inquiring minds want to know if Marc Meunier will three-peat at the Leading Edge RunWild Marathon.
“People in my endurance world and at work and my family are talking about it a lot. The race is growing in size and it’s growing in popularity so people are always kind of wondering who is going to win it,” acknowledged Meunier, the winner of the only marathon in St. Albert history. “Three times would be nice for sure so there is a little more pressure this year.”
The pre-race favourite was the fastest marathoner last year in two hours, 49 minutes and 15 seconds after running away with the inaugural RunWild at 2:58:21.
“It’s important for me to go back out there and see if I can have a good placing and a good showing,” Meunier said. “It would definitely be nice to defend and have a good race.”
The Paul Kane High School athletic director finished 32 seconds ahead of Bryce Stewart of Edmonton last year while averaging a swift 4:01 per kilometre.
Two years ago he was the only runner to complete the 42-kilometre layout in under three hours while maintaining a 4:14 pace to finish 6:42 ahead of runner-up Andrew Forrest of Edmonton, last year’s fourth-place finisher at 3:06:21.
This year Meunier will be challenged by 117 contenders after beating out 90 hopefuls in 2012 and 120 the year before.
“Last year was a big surprise when I got pushed really hard right to the very end. The gentleman who pushed me hard I had no idea who he was so I don’t take anything for granted anymore when I go into these races,” he said.
Meunier’s last race in preparation for the 14th marathon of his career was last month’s St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race and the 40-year-old crossed the finish line with an impressive eighth-place time of 58:05.
This year’s RunWild is Meunier’s first marathon since early December, when he was the 52nd fastest male at the California International Marathon in Sacramento at 2:43:35. It was his second fastest time despite pouring rain, 40 km-per-hour winds, a sore ankle and tough November training conditions. It was his eighth race and fourth marathon in 2012.
Meunier’s personal best is 2:42:01 as the 10th overall finisher at the 33rd annual Victoria Marathon in October.
“Since my last marathon in Sacramento everything has been Ironman-based training. The bike and the swim have taken over a large chunk of my training so I don’t have my usual marathon run miles but I have my speed work in. With the cycling and the swimming you do have to cut back on the run miles, but I still feel good going into Sunday,” said the five-time Ironman competitor and the 10th fastest Canadian at the 2008 worlds who is focused on doing Ironman Canada in August at Whistler.
Meunier recently tackled portions of the course to get himself up for speed.
“Last weekend I went and hit 13 miles of it. I hit a lot of the hills out by Heritage Lakes and Riel Business Park,” he said. “It’s very important to have a mental visual image in your mind of what’s coming up and what to expect, whether it’s a 10-miler in St. Albert or any shorter race or longer race.”
For the second time in three years the marathon course was re-routed to bypass the Boudreau, St. Albert Trail and Perron Street bridge underpasses because of flooding by the Sturgeon River. The half-marathon and 10-km courses have also been altered by the flooding.
Last year slight changes to the winding course through the streets of St. Albert and the Red Willow trail system made it possible for faster marathon finishes in the same type of sunny and windy weather conditions as the 2011 race.
Visit www.runwild.ca to view the marathon course.
“I have a feeling we’re going to be back to the first year when we had that flooding and that will make the course substantially tougher,” Meunier said. “Last year they took out a few hills and put us back on the trails where it was supposed to be and that was nice, but I guess we have no real choice (because of the flooding) but to re-route. When you start re-routing in St. Albert it’s hilly so it’s going to be a real character builder if we’re back to the first year route map again.”
The marathon starts 8 a.m. on St. Anne Street and ends with victory lane on Taché Street.
The RunWild awards ceremony goes at 12:30 p.m. at the Celebration Village in Lions Park.
“It’s going to be a good day. The weather forecast is looking good,” Meunier said of projected warm temperatures and no wind.
