Race conditions for the 28th annual St. Albert 10-Mile Road Race were better than predicted Sunday morning.
Instead of snow and below zero temperatures at start time, runners were greeted by a slight chill in the air, a faint breeze and dry pavement as the sun tried to peak through the hazy cloud cover.
“With weather being weather it’s the only job in the world where you can be right 50 per cent of the time kind of thing. Obviously they were wrong today,” said race director Mark Fraser. “It could be a little warmer but it’s still a good course for the runners. I’m happy with it.”
There were 385 finishers in the 10-miler and 23 runners completed the second annual six-kilometre fun run.
The largest age group turnouts for the 10-miler were the 50 to 59 males with 54 runners and the 30 to 39 females with 51.
Fraser was thrilled with the numbers despite the late spring and gloomy pre-race weather forecast.
“It’s great that it turned out as well as it did this year,” he said.
Last year 425 runners went the distance in the 10-miler.
“It’s such a runner’s high when you finish,” said Fraser, while surveying the steady stream of finishers in Sunday’s race. “As they come around the corner they see the finish line and you can just see them give it a hard push to the end where they’ve got family and friends waiting for them. It’s great to see.”
The 10-miler, hosted by the St. Albert Road Runners and Triathlon Club, is part of the provincial Timex road race series.
See page 74 for a list of the top 220 finishers in the 10-miler, or visit www.resultscanada.com for complete race results.
