Niagara Results

Today was the Niagara Falls Marathon and another strong run from Kevin O'Neill who ran a new Personal Best 2:54, finishing 12th overall amongst 817 marathoners and 4th in his age group.
Here is a list of the Barrie finishers in the Half Marathon

Half Marathon results

Niagara This Weekend

This weekend is the Niagara Falls Marathon so good luck to everyone. Whether you are doing the full marathon or the half.

A Midsummer Night's Run - Disney 2009

James Rooney is attempting to raise $2500 to support paediatric research in arthritis for children. The following is his letter with links to sites where donations can be made or more information found. Please help support James in this great effort.




Normally these types of runs go to centralized Fund Raising units and the money is distributed evenly across North America. There is nothing wrong with that format and I applaud their ongoing efforts. This opportunity gives me the ability to support a local cause and see the money go to local use.

Please help me reach my fundraising goal by making a donation. My goal is to raise $2500 so please help me on this wonderful journey of giving back what has been so freely given to me.

Thank you in advance.

James (Marathon Kid) Rooney
Team Midsummer Night


I wanted to make you aware of an event being held to support paediatric research in arthritis for children in Canada and around the world.

With your support, we can help advance the research even further and give children the opportunity to better treatments, and maybe some day, a cure.

Secure on line donations can be made with VISA, MasterCard or American Express and an electronic tax receipt will be sent to you by email. You can make an online donation now at:
http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2007952
You can learn more about A Midsummer Night's Run - Disney 2009 at http://www.amidsummernightsrun.ca/disney.htm

Thank you for your support!

More weekend results

Its hard to keep up with all the races this past weekend. Apparently, according to MarathonGuide.com this weekend was the busiest race weekend of the year.
Anyway Scott Whynot completed the Vulturebait 50k race near London, in 5:35.
There were a lot of runners enjoying the Zoo in the Oasis ZooRun 10k and the results can be found here:

Oasis ZooRun results

Indy Marathon Report

Well, Indianapolis is a beautiful city and hosts a very nice race through the suburb of Lawrence. This scenic race starts & finishes in Historic Fort Harrison and on Saturday October 18th myself and Brendan Kavanagh lined up to take part with 5600 others competing in the various events, including the half and relay. After a total of 9 hours driving over 2 days we arrived safely and went to the expo, probably the most dissapointing part of the weekend. Not very big at all, but still a few freebies. That night Brendan found his Garmin not working and all attempts to find a remedy failed. So Brendan was to rely on a regular watch and a pace band, how old school! Luckliy I still had my Garmin. So between us we both planned to run sub 3 hour marathons. In the morning we grabbed our Starbucks coffee and headed to the start, set up my Garmin virtual partner to run 3 hours and we were ready. It was a cool and partly sunny morning, perfect for a marathon.
Shortly after 8:30am we were off and running, maintaining a "comfortable" 4:10/km pace through the first 8 miles or so through some nice subdivisions and other parts of Fort Harrison, we then entered Fort Harrison State Park and some nice paved tree lined bike paths. This is where my Garmin crapped out, a "memory full" alert came up and I had to delete everything including my virtual partner. This left me with only my pace and Brendan for support. A few hills through the park slowed the pace a bit, but we got back up to speed before leaving the halfers as they cut off to the finish. We headed on to the out and back through more parks and tree lined streets. Still the pace was good a couple of gut checks and some support from each other and we were good. The turn around was at 19 miles and we turned into an unsuspected head wind. From here it was going to be where we would either fail or go on to new heights. Brendan let me know at 19 miles we were about 40 seconds back of 2:58 pace, still doing well. We maintained that through 21 miles, but at 22 we had dropped to 1:00 minute off pace, but still under 3 hours. At 23 miles I asked Brendan what our time was, 2:37. We would have to maintain at least 4:30/km to come in under 3, so I picked it up a bit. I didn't realize it at the time, but Brendan had stopped to water the bushes. Eventually I noticed his presence no longer there, but I did not dare look around. At 25 miles we came up to the last hill and that slowed myself down, but I got to the top and tried to put the hammer down (at least as much as possible at that point). Couple of turns and back towards the finish area, I knew it was going to be close. A few weeks ago I had a dream of finishing this race in 3:00:01 and was hoping that wasn't a premonition. I turned the last corner to see the time as 2:59:30 with about 100m to go, although I ran as fast as possible at that point I cam across the line at 3:00:04! What would my chip time be? At last I looked around. No Brendan yet, he came around the corner in a couple of minutes and finished in 3:02:24. Surprisingly we both felt good, Brendan's wife Marie joked about us feeling so good we should drive to Columbus and run the marathon there on Sunday.

Not a chance. Later that evening we finally got the chip times and I had finished in 2:59:59.5, unbelievably .5 seconds under 3 hours. Brendan came second in his age group and I came 5th. Although Brendan set a Pb by 1 minute, missing the sub 3 goal left a bit of a bitter taste. We both know that there was more in us.After re checking the results it seems we came 28th & 32nd, but even more impressive was that we moved up from 39th & 40th at the half. Otherwise a great day at a great race, and I would recommend this to anyone who is interested. Indianapolis Marathon link

Toronto Marathon

There were a lot of Barrie RoadRunners taking part in the Toronto Marathon and Half Marathon on Sunday. Including Kevin O'Neill as part of the Team Diabetes relay team. They came 2nd over all in 2:36. Otherwise we had some outstanding performances on a great day for racing. See below for results:

Marathon Results

Half Marathon

Indiannopolis Marathon

Keith Lascelles & Brendan Kavanaugh from Barrie rock! Two hard ass runners from Barrie went to Indy this past weekend with a mission. They did it. The filed of runners was 1134. Brendan finished 35th with a time of 3 hrs 2 mins 5 secs. Amazing. Keith Lascelles finished 31st with a time of 2 hrs 59 mins 59 secs. Holy Fudge!
Keith & Brendan truly remarkable. From everyone here in Barrie we salut you.