Rob Wheatley put his best foot forward to win the Hypothermic Half-Marathon Walk on Sunday morning in Edmonton.
Wheatley, 46, completed the 21.1-kilometre route in two hours, 42 minutes and 43 seconds for his fifth consecutive victory in the annual Running Room competition.
“Normally when I walk I kind of go flat out a lot of the time,” said the St. Albert resident who averaged 7:43 minutes per km.
There were 20 finishers overall and Wheatley was one of four males in the race.
The runner-up was Stephanie Crafford of Spruce Grove at 2:50:46
Wheatley’s time last year was 2:34:40 to beat out 41 competitors.
His winning streak started in 2010 with a clocking of 2:37:55 and the event featured 70 walkers.
Wheatley was dressed for success for Sunday’s frigid 8 a.m. start time at the Highlands Golf Club.
“I think it was about minus 23-24, somewhere in there, but I wasn’t worried about the cold at all because just the moving kept me going pretty good,” said Wheatley, who didn’t break stride while wearing long johns, regular track pants and wind pants. “I also had my winter coat on and I wore a short sleeve and a long sleeve just because of the weather. By the time I finished the temperature was never an issue because there wasn’t much of a wind out and the sun came out later that day so it warmed things up a little bit.”
Game two in the best-of-three divisional semifinals were played Friday by St. Albert’s midget AA teams.
Scores were unavailable between the Blues (24-6-2) versus Sherwood Park Oilers (18-11-3) in the Inside Edge division and the Crusaders (22-4-6) versus the Wetaskiwin Ice Kings (13-16-3) in the Clean Harbors division.
In the series openers in St. Albert this week the Blues lost 4-2 and the Crusaders were victorious 12-5.
If needed, the third and deciding games will be played Sunday in St. Albert. Game times were unavailable at press time.
The Crusaders finished first in their division and the Blues placed second behind the league-leading KC Colts (28-0-4).
The best-of-three division finals start Tuesday.
The Northern Alberta Midget AA Hockey League consists of 29 teams split into four divisions.
Meanwhile, the Crusaders will represent zone 3 at provincials, March 20 to 23 in Wainwright.
Tyler Willner has been promoted to head professional at the Sturgeon Valley Golf & Country Club.
Willner replaces Jason Hnatiw, who accepted the same position at the Windermere Golf & Country Club after three years at Sturgeon Valley.
The selection process to fill the head professional’s position involved job postings on the PGA of Alberta and PGA of Canada employment sections. The competition closed Feb. 20. Of the 31 applicants from across Canada and beyond, seven candidates were shortlisted and interviewed.
Willner is a familiar face at Sturgeon Valley since 2010 and as an associate professional he learned the complete operation of the golf shop while serving as an important member of the pro shop team.
Willner, who excels working with junior golfers, was twice nominated as PGA junior leader of the year and once as PGA assistant professional of the year while at Sturgeon Valley.
The Len Sterling rink of St. Albert finished the masters 60-plus men’s provincials tied for fifth place with three wins and four losses last week at the Jasper Place Curling Club.
Sterling, third Neil Fleming, second Brian Kupsch and lead Doug de Bruijn qualified for provincials as the B-event winners at the Northern Alberta Curling Association playdowns in St. Albert.
In the provincial final Les Rogers of the Thistle defeated Orv MacDonald of Cold Lake 7-2 for the right to represent Alberta at nationals, March 31 to April 6 at Coaldale.
Two of Sterling’s losses in the round robin were setbacks of 8-5 to MacDonald and 6-5 to Rogers.
