Defending 2023 women’s champion Dayna Pidhoresky won’t be at the start line Sunday for the 35th Times Colonist 10K — but she has a good excuse.
Pidhoresky, the 2020 Tokyo Olympian who was also the back-to-back female champion of the Times Colonist 10K in 2017 and 2018, is in Hamburg for the last-chance marathon qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
That leaves the gate open Sunday in Victoria for women’s favourites Christine Bant, Jennifer Erickson and Carly Gering, who are expected to finish in 30 to 35 minutes.
Defending TC10K men’s champion Thomas Nobbs, however, will be on hand to defend his title after placing fifth last weekend in the massive 45,000-participant Vancouver Sun Run with a personal best 10-kilometre road or track clocking of 29 minutes, 16 seconds.
While that is impressive — only a select few of the participants expected Sunday on the streets the capital can even dream of cracking 30 minutes — top athletes always strive for better.
“I am always tough on myself and was expecting a bit more,” Nobbs said.
That the former University of Washington Huskies and UBC Thunderbirds runner is even in a position to become a two-time TC10K champion is a study in perseverance after a condition known as RED, relative energy deficiency, threatened to derail his career.
“Five years ago, I could not make it one mile. Building back from that has been a process,” said the 24-year-old.
Past Island winners of the Times Colonist 10K have included Olympic-medallist Angela Chalmers, three-time Olympian Debbie Scott and two-time Olympic marathoner Bruce Deacon.
Although raised in Vancouver, and now living in Ottawa, Nobbs can count himself as an honorary Islander with family ties in Victoria that will give him a built-in cheering section along the route.
“There is a lot of indoor treadmill running in winter in Ottawa, which makes it much different than training here on the West Coast in winter like I was used to,” he said.
“When the opportunity came up to return to B.C. and do the Sun Run and TC10K back-to-back, I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” added Nobbs, who is preparing to race the 5,000 metres in the Canadian track and field championships and Paris Olympic trials this summer in Montreal.
Although his goal in Victoria is to break the tape first this morning in sub-30 minutes for the second consecutive year, Nobbs can relate to the heaving wave of humanity that will come across behind him.
“Running is an open, accessible sport and that’s what I like best about it,” he said. “It is personally empowering for anyone at any level. People are discovering that again and that is contributing to the current post-pandemic running boom.”
Sunday’s race will attract about 9,000 participants along a course from Government to Wharf to Yates to Cook to Richardson to Moss to May to Memorial to Dallas Road to Erie and back down Belleville to the start-finish line.
That is up from the 7,500 last year and the 5,500 in the first race after the pandemic in 2022. The 2020 race was cancelled due to COVID and the 2021 event was held virtually.
“You can see the upward trend,” says Mark deFrias, producer of the TC10K event. “People are returning to participate in community events and looking more and more for things to do in a larger group setting.”
Road runs — such as the Times Colonist 10K in the spring and Royal Victoria Marathon in the fall — have become integral parts of civic vibrancy in cities around the world.
“These races are part of the fabric that makes a community,” deFrias said. “It brings people together and creates a vibe showing what a downtown should be like.”
The pandemic cancellations decimated these sorts of mass-participation events. But the road back to road running is steadily on the rise post-pandemic, as the increasing numbers of participants this month in both the TC 10K and Sun Run attest.
“It’s a bounce back from COVID in a big way,” says Island running guru Chris Kelsall, who is in charge of the organizing the elite section of the TC10K.
The 10K will begin this morning beside the legislature, in waves. Elite runners will take off at 7:55 a.m., second-tier racers at 8:15 a.m. and walkers at 8:55 a.m. The 1.5-kilometre kids’ race is at 11 a.m.
