Male winner: Brendan Lunty; 2:46:58
Female winner: Tobi Rempel; 3:18:33
This year’s event will be remembered as having perhaps the worst weather (at least in recent memory). A constant fairly cool temperature was accompanied by a moderate wind and cloud, drizzle and even rain.
The course had a unique start and finish in the University of Saskatchewan’s historic “bowl”, near the College Building. That was quite popular, but the windy, hilly last two kilometres wasn’t! A return to at least running part of the marathon through campus is always on the drawing board of the course designers.
The marathon had a very special visitor: Martin Keino, son of renowned Olympic gold medalist, Kip Keino. Martin himself is an accomplished distance runner. A special bond developed between half-marathon winner, Jason Warick (1:15:19) and Martin Keino (1:15:42), after they met when Warick visited Eldoret, Kenya in 2004. Warick lived and trained with Kip Keino during his stay in Kenya. Warick helped raise nearly $40,000 to help Keino build a high school in Eldoret, after he returned to Canada. “The final amount’s not in yet, but we are well on our way to building Kip Keino High School in Eldoret”, said Warick. Martin Keino went home with happy memories: “I’ll go home with great memories of your wonderful city”, he told the crowd gathered at the finish.
Wendy Benson was the winner in the women’s half marathon, with a time of 1:33:43.
For the first time in its history, the Saskatoon Road Runners Association determined that the event was becoming too big to be organized by strictly volunteers. For the 2006 event, the SRRA hired Shawna Jardine as the race director and she did an excellent job. Jardine subsequently went on to be race director for the Saskatoon Star Phoenix’s annual “Bridge City Boogie”.
rain
9am wind: northeast 20Kmh, 7am: 8°C, 11am: 8°C
For 2007 and 2008 and likely beyond, the race direction has been handled by On Purpose Leadership, Inc., with Kim and Shad Ali at the helm.
2006 Medals
Warick (left) and Keino at Start
2006 Event Logo
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