Canadian trio achieves personal-best times in Houston Marathon, Half Marathon | CBC Sports

Elite Canadian runners Kinsey Middleton, Leslie Sexton and Ben Preisner set personal-best instances within the Houston Marathon and Half Marathon held concurrently on a cloudy and heat Sunday morning.

Middleton delivered the best putting, ending fifth amongst 2,397 feminine athletes in two hours 29 minutes 22 seconds, a 47-second enchancment from her earlier greatest final May 29 in Ottawa.

Middleton set a 1:12:15 half marathon PB three years in the past in Houston, 9 days after receiving a cortisone injection for an undiagnosed rotator cuff tear in her left shoulder that led to surgical procedure.

A local of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, she holds twin citizenship as her mom was born in Guelph, Ont. 

Montreal’s Élissa Legault, in her eighth marathon on Sunday, was eleventh in 2:34:02, 35 seconds shy of her PB. The 28-year-old former triathlete clocked 2:37:35 for twenty seventh on the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore.

The 35-year-old Sexton of Markham, Ont., who was thirteenth within the girls’s marathon at worlds final summer time, positioned seventeenth in a area of 6,685 feminine athletes in Sunday’s half marathon in 1:12:05, greater than a minute faster (1:13:13) than her earlier PB from Oct. 20, 2013. Hiwot Gebremaryam of Ethiopia posted a 1:06:28 profitable time in Houston, the place the race time temperature was 15 C with a 20 kilometre per hour wind.

Preisner, who plans to run a spring marathon, positioned thirteenth in a area of 6.271 males, masking the 21.1 km half marathon in 1:02:42. The 26-year-old’s earlier greatest was 1:03:08 from Oct. 20, 2019 in Toronto.

“I thought it was a good day. I wanted to get in a fast race and see where my legs were at with the recent heavy training,” the Milton, Ont., native who lives in Vancouver advised CBC Sports on Monday morning. “I was with the front group through roughly 10 km and there were a few of us that broke off and we worked together. I am still learning to deal with pace changes in races, especially when the wind is not favourable.

“The principal purpose for me was to take the momentum from the race into the following marathon coaching part.”

The 2020 Olympian will train at altitude (over 7,000 feet) through February in Flagstaff, Ariz., where up to 45 centimetres of snow was forecast for Monday.

“From late November, early December till now, issues have been clicking [in training] and I appear to have good momentum,” Preisner said. “All sides of my coaching have been ramped up [nearing] the marathon season.

Olympic qualifying window open

“Workouts have been going well and I’ve almost been surprising myself how well things are feeling. It’s good to have that confidence.”

With the qualifying window for the 2024 Olympic marathon in Paris having opened on Jan. 1, Preisner famous a spring marathon gives flexibility to race both on the Aug. 19-27 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary or within the fall.

“It gives me two solid shots at a marathon this year,” mentioned Preisner, who ran 2:11:47 for twenty eighth place at worlds final July 17. “That’s important because the [men’s automatic] standard [of 2:08:10 for Paris] is so tough that chasing [world ranking] points might be the way a lot of us will have to qualify.”

Ethiopia’s Leul Gebrselassie of Ethiopia gained in 1:00:34 on Sunday, passing Kenya’s Wesley Kiptoo (1:00:35) over the ultimate 60 ft.

Frustrated, unhappy, embarrassed, and offended to – once more – not present my health and arduous work.— Canadian runner Dayna Pidhoresky

Dayna Pidhoresky of Tecumseh, Ont., was ninth halfway via the marathon, 5:23 behind Japanese chief and eventual winner Hitomi Niiya, earlier than she stopped round 25 km. Niiya crossed the end line in 2:19:24 in solely her second marathon.

“Frustrated, sad, embarrassed, and angry to — again — not show my fitness and hard work,” Pidhoresky wrote in an Instagram publish. “When tough days happen, I always feel like I’ve let my team down, and that is what hurts the most.”

Wodak feeling ‘significantly better’

Last October, Pidhoresky’s 2:30:58 effort on the Toronto Waterfront Marathon was good for second to Malindi Elmore amongst Canadian girls and seventh total, however almost two minutes slower than her earlier Toronto marathon in 2019.

Fellow Vancouver resident Natasha Wodak withdrew from the half marathon on Thursday, two days after waking as much as a sore throat and physique aches. By Saturday evening, the 41-year-old native of Surrey, B.C., was feeling “much better,” she mentioned on Instagram.

It is her fourth sickness since contracting COVID-19 since late September when she took down Elmore’s Canadian marathon report with a 2:23:12 efficiency in Berlin.

“I haven’t seemed to stay healthy. Super annoying,” Wodak mentioned, including she did not start exercises post-Berlin till November and endured a nagging chilly in December. “None of the sicknesses have stopped me from training.”

Per week in the past, in what was meant to be a Houston tune-up, she gained the ladies’s race for a ninth time in 10 appearances on the forty fourth Harriers Pioneer 8K in North Saanich, about 25 km north of Victoria.

Wodak broke away from two-time Canadian Olympian Gen Lalonde midway via the race to win in 26:20, a nationwide report within the Masters (40-and-over) division. Wodak can be the Canadian report holder within the girls’s 8K (25:28).

Calgary-born Rory Linkletter, now primarily based within the United States, additionally pulled out of the Houston Half Marathon earlier this week.

“Unfortunately my December was riddled with illness and after considering the long game and my own personal expectations with a race like Houston I have withdrawn,” the 26-year-old mentioned on Instagram. “I am obviously sad as Houston is one of my favourite races.”

Short keep on high

Linkletter nonetheless competed Sunday, posting a half marathon time of 1:05:28 on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona occasion in Tempe.

A yr in the past, he clocked 1:01:08 in Houston to eclipse Jeff Schiebler’s 1:01:28 Canadian report from 1999. Linkletter’s mark lasted 9 months till Ben Flanagan of Kitchener, Ont., earned his third nationwide highway race report of 2022, finishing the Valencia Half Marathon in 61 minutes on Oct. 23.

Three months in the past, Linkletter was second (2:13:32) amongst elite Canadian males on the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Also Sunday, Elmore took the ladies’s half marathon in Tempe in 1:11:36, a 54-second victory over American Lauren Paquette and 28 seconds off her PB from June 16, 2019 in Winnipeg.

“It was fairly cold and windy,” she advised reporters, “so it was one of those days of just working on mental toughness. You kinda have to reset your goals mid-race when it’s not a perfect day. But every time you finish a race, it’s a victory.”

The 42-year-old from Kelowna, B.C., hadn’t raced for the reason that Toronto occasion three months in the past — her debut nationwide marathon — the place she was the primary elite Canadian lady to achieve the end in 2:25:14, good for fourth total.

A two-time Olympian, Elmore will race the Zurich Seville Marathon on Feb. 19 in Spain.

Elmore made her Olympic debut in 2004 and was thirty seventh within the girls’s 1,500 metres in Athens. She retired from skilled operating in 2012, solely to return seven years later after reinventing herself as a marathon runner.

On Aug. 7, 2021, she positioned ninth within the 2020 Olympic marathon in Sapporo, Japan, the very best Summer Games marathon end by a Canadian lady in a non-boycott Games.