The winner of the first marathon in St. Albert history is back and looking for a repeat finish.
Marc Meunier will defend his title Sunday morning at the second annual RunWild Leading Edge Marathon.
"I want to put in a good time and a good showing," said the Paul Kane High School athletic director. "It doesn't matter what level or what race you're doing, it's always nice to see the winner come back and try to defend the title and I think everyone kind of feels the same. Whether you are in the best shape or not, or peaking for that race or not, it's important to make an appearance."
Meunier's winning time last year, in the eighth marathon of his career, was two hours 58 minutes 21 seconds. His personal best is 2:44 on a flat course in Chicago on a fall day with some head wind.
"The St. Albert course is definitely challenging. I'm not going to say that's probably a race where you would go to achieve a personal-best time but I don't think every race should be about achieving a personal best time," said Meunier, 39, a five-time Ironman competitor and the 10th fastest Canadian at the 2008 worlds.
The marathon starts in front of St. Albert Place and winds its way up through the ravines before going down Sir Winston Churchill Ave., and past the Sturgeon Valley Golf & Country Club. Runners return to St. Albert along Bellerose Drive and continue through the Oakmont neighbourhood before joining the Red Willow trail system through the core of St. Albert. The finish area is located on Taché Street.
"St. Albert is scenic and that's what makes that race unique," Meunier said. "There is definitely lots of variety and it breaks it up a bit. You get some trails, some roads, some sidewalk, some good downhills and obviously you get some uphills."
The course was altered this year so runners could avoid the taxing hill on Bishop Street.
"Last year because of the floods they had to detour us up Bishop and that's a tough hill. At Paul Kane at the end of work I always run that hill so I know it like the back of my hand. I don't know exactly where it is in terms of kilometres, but it came at a pretty tough spot so to be able to just go straight on that trail along the river instead will be a nice feeling," Meunier said.
Meunier's last race was the St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race on April 15 and he finished 17th overall at 59:40.
"I didn't have my best 10-miler this year so for overall speed it was a bit of a concern going into this weekend but I do have enough mileage in the legs so I think it will be a decent day."
In January, Meunier completed a marathon on a flat course in Phoenix in 2:45.
"That went well. I really tried to peak for that one and I worked hard through the winter months. You basically pick one or two races that you know you can peak for and really go for it and get the best time possible and that was the one I was really gunning for."
Next weekend Meunier will join eight local runners at the starting line at the 75-kilometre Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim Race.
"That will be challenging. I'm just hoping with seven days in between I will have enough recovery time. I know it will be a lot of ice baths and a lot of massages. I will definitely stay off the legs for seven days and see how it goes but I'm still going to push this weekend."
Last year 1,650 registrations were processed for the 42-km marathon, 21.1-km half marathon and the 10 km, five km and WildOnes Marafun events.
"The amount of people who turned up to race in St. Albert was amazing. I told a co-worker the other day it's one of those races that I wanted to be there," Meunier said.
This year's post-race Celebration Village is at Lions Park.
"It was amazing how much hype there was at the end last year. There are very few races that you finish where you have live music and food and kids' activities. It's very family orientated, which is what St. Albert is all about," Meunier said. "If nothing else, if people are not quite ready or quite in shape they are still going to have a heck of a fun time out there."
Large turnout
The final registration total for this year's RunWild is 1,605. There are 103 marathoners, compared to 153 last year, 477 half-marathoners, 421 for the 10 km, 276 for the five km and 328 youths from ages six to 12 for the WildOnes Marafun.
"We are thrilled to have that many people," said race director Anita Cassidy. "We are very excited about Sunday and looking forward to it. We have one year under our belt so we have an idea how things are going to play out on race day."
Cassidy spent Monday night processing late registrations after the April 26 cutoff date for online entries.
"People were still banging on our door, so it was nice to have that kind of response to get in," she said. "Participants in general like to leave it until the last minute to register so we did leave it open for those extra few days to allow as many people as we could."
The marathon kicks off at 7 a.m., followed by the half marathon at 7:30 a.m., the 10 km at 7:45 a.m. and the five km at 8 a.m. from in front of St. Albert Place.
The WildOnes Marafun starts at 11:30 a.m. from the airplane display on Taché Street.
Visit www.RunWild.ca for the course maps.
The RunWild is hosted by Leading Edge Physiotherapy. All proceeds will benefit the St. Albert Senior Citizens' Club and the Zebra Child Protection Centre.
