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“I will not be slowing down at 23K this time.”
ERIC GILLIS ON CHASING JEROME DRAYTON’S CANADIAN MARATHON RECORD
More than 26,000 runners will take to Toronto’s streets for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, half-marathon and 5K on Sunday. Here are six marathoners to watch for in the crowd:
THE GUNNER RUNNER Julius Arile Lamerinyang, 32
Personal best: 2:10:03
A decade ago Arile was more used to running in the Kenyan countryside with a gun, raiding villages and stealing cattle, than racing on the road.
“I was in primary school when I got the gun,” Arile says in the documentary Gun Runners, by Montreal journalist Anjali Nayar.
Arile took up the Kenyan government’s offer of amnesty to turn in his gun for a pair of running shoes and was one of the few who made the successful transition from cattle rustler to marathoner. His career highlight came in 2013 when he finished fourth in the New York marathon. Since then he has struggled with injuries but says he’s back to his best form and looking for a podium finish and prize money to help support his family of seven children.
THE MARATHON MOM
Krista DuChene, 39 Personal best: 2:28:32
Nothing stops DuChene from running. She’s had three kids — Micah, 10, Seth, 8, Leah, 5 — and she’s gotten faster after each one. Even a broken leg couldn’t stop her for long.
In 2014, she hopped and limped her way to the finish line of the Canadian half-marathon championships after an undiagnosed stress fracture turned into a broken leg in the finishing stretch of the race. And she still claimed the bronze medal.
A year later, she ran a Rio Olympic qualifying time and, this past August, she and Lanni Marchant became the first Canadian women in decades to run in an Olympic marathon.
“I’m extremely proud,” DuChene said, on crossing the Rio finish line 35th in the swelteringly hot race in a time of 2:35:29. “It gives a lot of encouragement to moms out there who have kids and work.”
THE RECORD CHASER
Eric Gillis, 36 Personal best: 2:11:21
Gillis is hoping to take down Canada’s longest standing athletics record —Jerome Drayton’s 2:10:09 in the men’s marathon from 1975.
This will be Gillis’s sixth time running this race and it has always been a good one for him; he qualified for two Olympics and set his personal best here. And he’s more confident than ever finishing in the top10 at the Rio Olympics, the highest placing for a Canadian man since Drayton’s sixth- place result at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
Last year, Gillis was on pace for a record in the first half of the race slowed after 23 kilometres when he got a calf cramp. The far more important goal then was making the Rio Olympic standard, not risking everything for the record.
“I will not be slowing down at 23K this time,” he said.
THE OCTOGENARIAN
Ed Whitlock, 85 Personal best: 2:54:48 (at 73)
Whitlock is the only man over 70 to break three hours for the 42.2K distance and he’s running here to see if he can add the over-85 marathon world record to the numerous age group records he already holds.
Plenty of seniors talk about running for their health, but not Whitlock, he’s a competitor to the core.
“I hope to run for as long as I can, not particularly for my health but to be able to be something on the race scene,” he said.
After suffering some “mostly age related” aches and pains in recent years, Whitlock is back up to threehour training runs again and never thinks of quitting.
“The only time I did that was when I was 21.”
THE COMEBACK KID
Robert MacDonald, 29 Personal best: 2:21:04 (for a half marathon) Less than four years ago, MacDon- ald fell three storeys while on a holiday in Mexico. He was paralyzed from the waist down and given a five-per-cent chance of walking again. “I had the odds against me but I had amazing Canadian health care,” he said.
First he could stand with assistance, then alone, and four months after his accident he walked out of the Lyndhurst Centre where he was being treated. Now, some 400 hours of physiotherapy later, he’s running the marathon.
Last year he ran the half marathon, raising nearly $75,000 for the Toronto Rehab Foundation’s Lyndhurst Centre and, this year, he’s hoping to raise $150,000 by running the full marathon.
“There are a lot of stories out there that are the reverse of mine and I want to change that,” he said.
THE HOMETOWN GIRL
Rachel Hannah, 29 Personal best: 2:32:09
Hannah skipped her chance to run at the world marathon championships because she wanted to run at home during the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games. She crossed the line in fourth here but months later was awarded the bronze medal when the Peruvian winner was stripped of her medal for doping.
This time on Toronto’s streets, Hannah — who only ran her first marathon in 2015 and has already run the fastest Canadian women’s marathon this year — is part of the strongest field ever of Canadian women, including six runners capable of sub-2:35 times.
“I do think that because I am pretty new to (the marathon) — I have been doing it only a year and half now — I do think there is a lot in the tank,” Hannah has said. “I can go faster.”