The 2017 Athletic Alley Iron Horse Mini came down to a very close finish for first place on Saturday, with Andre Chauvet of the Rusty Sneakers relay team pounding across the Elk Point finish line a mere 20 seconds ahead of Beata Swiegocka of the Kenya Catch Us, Chauvet clocking in at 12:20.20 p.m. and Swiegocka at 12:20.40 p.m.
“I looked back and she was gaining on me, taking long strides,” Chauvet panted as he handed in his card to volunteer D’Arcy Evans at the final check-in point.
The first of 12 solo runners, Jonathan Heinz of Calgary, was the next to complete the 45 km run at 12:30.00 p.m., with local running enthusiast Victor Stepa of the third-place Hawks team and Lucille Penz of the fourth place Trail Pounders close on his heels, Stepa and Heinz sharing their encounters with the low point of the run, an area west of St. Edouard staging area where Stepa said they encountered a 75-yard stretch of thigh-deep water – which in fact, kept one of the soloists from finishing the race as she slipped and injured herself in the water.
“I’d been skirting the puddles until then,” Heinz said, “trying to keep my runners dry, but at that point, there was no escaping getting them very wet.”
Unlike last year’s Mini, however, these were the only wet conditions the runners encountered, compared to last year when competitors dealt with pouring rain that turned the trail to mud in many spots, and when Evans was huddled under an umbrella in effort to keep her stopwatch and competitors’ lists dry. This year, her bright orange Athletic Alley umbrella was just to keep bright sunshine at bay.
Teams and solo runners were welcomed with cheers and hugs from teammates and family members, and with waving pompoms and castanets by a contingent of Elk Point Elementary School ambassadors, the latter group practicing their welcoming skills prior to the Mini runners’ arrival when brother and sister competitors, Logan and Lillyen Swedgan, crossed the line just 32 seconds apart at the end of their five-kilometre Micro run for participants under 12 years of age. Logan’s finish stopped the timer’s watch in 33 minutes, 53 seconds, while his sister clocked in at 34:25.
The Swedgans weren’t the only youngsters to hit the trail, however. Kurt Poulin and Liam Michaud were part of the Running For Shelter relay team that made the much longer Mini trek in support of St. Paul Animal Shelter, with another young teammate, Eve Michaud, sidelined by an injury earlier in the week, waiting at the finish line to add her voice to the cheering section. The team, made up of youth, raised about $250 in support of the local animal shelter.
The final runners checked in at the finish line shortly after 2:30 p.m., five and a half hours after leaving their St. Paul starting point.
