Tenth Anniversary Highland Games Road Race draws crowd of participants
Aleisha Laureijs, July 18th, 2008
ANTIGONISH, N.S. - Overcast skies and an evening temperature of 24 degrees were the conditions tolerated by particpants in the Antigonish Highland Games Road Race. The five mile race began and ended Friday night at Columbus Field with over 300 participants of all ages and athletic abilities.
This summer marks the tenth anniversary of the creation of the road race, and the number of participants has grown steadily each year. In its first year, there were 84 participants in the race. It has grown in size to this year’s 344 participants. “It seemed like every year we went up 20 from the previous year, until last year, when we jumped about 50 participants,” explained Kevin MacDonald, Director of the road race.
Shorter road races are generally a five kilometer race, not a five mile race. MacDonald’s initial intent was to use the Antigonish Landing as part of the running route. “That’s been our running location for years,” he explains, referring to local Antigonish runners who train on the Landing. However, the Landing was not long enough for the race, so the route evolved around a Columbus Field beginning and ending.
“What we did when we first started was run laps around the track,” recalls MacDonald. “And it was okay when you have a hundred runners or a hundred and fifty runners, but when you get close to three hundred, it’s too congested, and somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Congested would be an accurate description of the runners at the start of the race. The turnout for the tenth anniversary of the road race was exceptional.
“We certainly get a lot of the elite runners in the province, and we tend to attract a lot of the university runners,” agrees MacDonald. “But what it seems to have turned into is a homecoming for a lot of people coming home to Antigonish. The majority of the runners are recreational runners, and this is for some of them their first event. They run to get the t-shirt and then socialize afterwards.”
Runners competed in various divisions, including men’s, women’s, junior male and female, master male and female, and senior masters. Winner of the men’s division was local runner Lee McCarron. Winner of the women’s was Erin MacLean. Both runners broke field records with their wins.
