Yarmouth Marathon in 2019 moving to May 5

Race being moved up to avoid schedule conflict with Blue Nose Marathon

One of southwestern Nova Scotia’s annual running events will be held a little earlier than usual next year.

Organizers of the Yarmouth Marathon have moved their event up from the second weekend in June to the first weekend in May.

The change means the Yarmouth race won’t be held at the same time as the Blue Nose Marathon in Halifax. Normally held on the Victoria Day weekend, the Halifax race – for 2019 at least – will be held three weeks later, on the weekend of June 9. It was rescheduled because of the 2019 Memorial Cup junior hockey tournament, which Halifax will host May 17 to 26.

Blue Nose organizers opted to move their event to June, given the logistical challenges and other issues they would have faced by holding their race while the Memorial Cup tournament was underway.

When the schedule change for 2019 was announced recently, a Blue Nose spokesperson said it remains to be seen whether they will go back to the Victoria Day weekend in 2020 or if the move to June will become permanent.

For the Yarmouth Marathon, meanwhile, moving to May 5 for 2019 will be the second schedule change in three years.

For its first half-dozen years – from its inception in 2011 until 2016 – the Yarmouth race had been a late-summer event, taking place in the latter part of August.

In 2017, the Yarmouth event was moved up two-and-a-half months or so to the second weekend in June, a calendar slot it occupied again this year.

The Yarmouth Marathon offers participants a variety of distance options, including 5K, 10K, half and full marathon. More recently, a marathon relay was added, whereby participants can team up with others to cover the marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres.

Almost 100 people took part in the Yarmouth event this year. (Three of them did the full marathon on their own while 28 took part in the marathon relay. Thirtythree people did the 5K, 19 ran the 10K and 13 did the half marathon.)

Proceeds from the race are donated to the Yarmouth Hospital Foundation in support of kidney care services, hence the slogan “bean there ran that,” which is used to promote the event.

ERIC BOURQUE An image from this year’s Yarmouth Marathon as runners make their way up Vancouver Street. The race was held June 10. Next year’s event date has been set for May 5. The race offers participants various distance options.