The Leading Edge Physiotherapy RunWild is back with a bang Sunday.
“This year is going to be even better than we’ve ever done,” declared Grant Fedoruk of the RunWild organizing committee for the five-kilometre walk/run, 10-km walk/run, 21.1-km half-marathon and the WildOnes MaraFun for four- to 12-year-olds.
“It’s looking like a good race day for everybody.”
The 2016 RunWild was restricted to the MaraFun because of the temporary loss of the race headquarters at the St. Albert 50 + Club and construction at the start/finish staging areas that affected the logistics of the routes.
“It gave us a new energy to take it to that next level which is our goal,” Fedoruk said of the event’s one-year hiatus. “It gives us the opportunity to take what we’ve already done and it gave us that year in between to sit back and say when we do this again what’s that next step and what’s the next level and we definitely took that year to do it.
“We didn’t want to stop entirely,” Fedoruk added. “We didn’t want to let those kids down. We’ve grown a really neat race as far as getting kids involved from the school level and with some of these schools their response was amazing. One of the greatest reasons why we didn’t stop last year was because those kids that started with us in the first year, six years ago, are now running the 10 K and it’s neat to see them literally starting with one-kilometre races in kindergarten and Grade one and now they’re up in grade five, six, seven and they’re actually running the larger race so it’s pretty amazing.”
Last year, 670 youths and 17 schools participated in the MaraFun.
Last month, youths from registered schools starting running or walking one km at a time before completing the 41-km marathon with the last 1.3 km at RunWild.
This year’s RunWild registration totals exceeded 1,250 runners and walkers, including the WildOnes.
“We’re ecstatic considering we took the year off from the other parts of the race so we kind of intended this to be the year that we were starting back up again,” Fedoruk said. “Anytime you can put on a race with over 1,000 people’s feet on the ground that’s a success as far as I am concerned.”
RunWild has also raised more than $365,000 for the Zebra Child Protection Centre and St. Albert Seniors Association since 2011.
The RunWild start times are 8 a.m. for the half-marathon, 8:20 a.m. for the 10 km and 8:30 a.m. for the five km in front of St. Albert Place on St. Anne Street
The Victory Lane finish line is the Lions Park parking lot.
The post-race awards ceremony will be staged in the event village at Lions Park where the popular beer gardens is located.
The MaraFun begins at 11 a.m. with the warm-up for all youths in front of the main stage at Lions Park, followed by the races for grades K-2 at 11:30 a.m., grades 3-4 at 11:45 a.m. and grades 5-6 at noon. Start times and heat order may change based on registration numbers.
On site will be four food trucks serving various delectable delights.
Individual artists for the Visionary Centre for the Performing Arts will also provide entertainment on the main stage and after the MaraFun organizers have secured the services of a band to rock the afternoon away.
“I know the race is the primary reason we’re all getting together but it’s also about providing an atmosphere for families to enjoy and getting together,” Fedoruk said. “Being active in the community and spending some time together afterwards is a home run for us so we’re looking forward to that other part of it as well.”
More than 400 volunteers have signed up to make RunWild a reality.
“Everyone has an important task,” Fedoruk said. “To see this community get around a race and the outpouring of support from the volunteer aspect is amazing.”
Organizing the largest athletic competition in St. Albert is a daunting task.
“We enjoy it. As much as it’s a big endeavour, what we get out of it is as much as what we put in for sure,” Fedoruk said. “That being said there are so many different things that have to be covered. Our dealings with the city been fantastic and with an event of this magnitude you have to prepare for every different thing that could come your way, including rain and handling flood routes, things like that, so being prepared for all of those takes a lot of extra time but the festival that we put on and that atmosphere, if it was just the run I would say it’s a large task, but with the fact that we like to have that family event after and during the day it just makes it that much more fun but that much work as well.”
The marquee distance at RunWild is the half-marathon and Marc Meunier, the winner of three out of four RunWild marathons, is the pre-race favourite.
In 2015, Meunier finished second behind Sean Seville in the half-marathon as Seville repeated with a course-record time of one hour, 15 minutes and 39 seconds.
Meunier, the Paul Kane High School athletic director, was clocked at 1:18:52.
Seville, an elite-level St. Albert runner, was undecided about defending his half-marathon crown when contacted by the Gazette two weeks ago.
The inaugural RunWild included the first marathon in St. Albert history and in 2015 it was dropped from the lineup of run/walk events.
“The half-marathon will not be an easy race and it never has been. It’s challenging but I also think that's why it brings so many runners back to it,” Fedoruk said.
Visit www.runwild.ca for more RunWild information.
