Sheila Poole 10K part of RNS Performance Series

Barrington half marathon also part of series, which features 11 events over five months

Yarmouth’s Sheila Poole 10K is part of Run Nova Scotia’s Performance Series once again.

The series consists of 5Ks, 10Ks and half marathons across the province and, to be eligible for cash prizes at season’s end, participants must run at least one series race at each distance. The final placings are based on accumulated times from the runners’ best races (one time for each distance).

Nancy Bishara, co-race director of the Sheila Poole 10K, says being part of the Performance Series is good for the Yarmouth race, as it helps draw runners from outside the local area.

“We’re always so thankful when we find out we’re a part of that,” she said.

The series is scheduled to start April 18 with a half marathon in the Liverpool area and conclude Sept. 13 with a half marathon in Sydney.

There are 11 events on this year’s Performance Series schedule.

“I think they try to spread them out geographically and over the running season, so that they’re not (all) one weekend after another,” Bishara said.

This year’s Sheila Poole race is scheduled for Saturday, July 18.

The race is one of Nova Scotia’s oldest annual running events, having been held each year for three-and-a-half decades.

Introduced in 1985, the event was first known as the Human Race and went by that name for 13 years.

It was renamed in memory of Sheila Poole, a Yarmouth County native and former Human Race champion who died of cancer in the fall of

1997 at the age of 35. Poole was Nancy Bishara’s sister.

At the time of her Human Race victories in the early

1990s, Poole was one of Nova Scotia’s best distance runners.

At the elite level, over its 35year history, Yarmouth’s annual summertime 10K has drawn some of the province’s top runners, including multiple winners Denise Robson and Mary Anne Wear on the women’s side and Norm Tinkham, Smartex Tambala and Bryan Hipson on the men’s side.

Another event in the tricounty region on Run Nova Scotia’s Performance Series is the Barrington half marathon, which is offered as part of the Nova Scotia Marathon.

Even older than the Sheila Poole race, the Nova Scotia Marathon is scheduled for Sunday, July 26. This year will be the event’s 50th edition.