Dayna Pidhoresky believes she has something to prove on Sunday when she steps to the start line as the top-ranked female racer in the 34th sa国际传媒 10K and looking for her third career victory in the event.
Her experience in the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, in which she was the 73rd and final marathon runner to cross line, still gnaws and fuels her passion and drive to make amends at Paris 2024. Unknowingly sitting near a passenger with COVID on the flight to Japan meant that Pidhoresky was forced to quarantine for two weeks before the Olympic race and unable to train.
“It’s hard for me to even look back at those Olympics,” said the back-to-back sa国际传媒 10K women’s champion from 2017 and 2018.
“There’s a sense of unfinished business and motivation to make it to another Olympic Games. It’s made me hungry for the future. So in a way, maybe it was a good thing, because I may have hung up my shoes if I had had a successful Olympics.”
The qualifying window for the 2024 Paris Olympics is open and the 36-year-old from Tecumseh, Ont., who lives and trains in Vancouver, will use the sa国际传媒 10K as early-season speed work to build up her marathon.
“It’s close to home and a short trip and a good test of the legs in what is always a challenging race,” said Pidhoresky, who has a 10K personal best time of 33:20.
“The scenery is beautiful and I’ve had some good races in the past in Victoria and will try to channel that. The target is making the Olympic standard in the marathon by next spring.”
The second-ranked female runner, defending-champion Jen Millar, also had Olympic dreams but they were long ago for the 43-year-old. She was part of the heady early days of the national triathlon training centre in Victoria with Olympic-champion Simon Whitfield, Ironman Hawaii world champions Peter Reid and Lori Bowden and the likes of Olympians Brent McMahon, Sharon Donnelly and Carol Montgomery.
“There have been career ebbs and flows,” said Millar.
Although she never got to the Olympics in triathlon, her elite-level athletic talent was obvious, and she kept running. But in 2014 Millar was told she would never run again due to a rare and dangerous vascular condition of the pelvis known as May-Thurner Syndrome and which caused a 40-centimetre long blood clot. Millar proved the prognostications wrong and has gone on to win three Canadian Masters cross-country championships and last year’s sa国际传媒 10K.
“I still have symptoms and am on blood thinners, but I truly mean it, when I say I now run with gratitude and privilege,” said Millar, a pediatric occupational therapist by profession.
“Especially on a 10K route like Victoria’s, which is so stunning and beautiful.”
The joy of running Sunday will be complete for Millar when, after the main race, she joins her 11-year-old daughter Charlie and nine-year-old son Eamonn in the 1.5K Thrifty Foods Kids and Family Race.
Past winners of the sa国际传媒 10K have included, from the Island, Olympic track-medallist Angela Chalmers, three-time Olympian Debbie Scott and two-time Olympic marathoner Bruce Deacon. The women’s champion in 2017 and 2018 was Pidhoresky with Malindi Elmore of Kelowna second in 2019. Elmore placed ninth in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics.
The top-ranked male racer is Matthew Travaglini, with a personal best of 29:34. About cracking the magical 10K road-race barrier of 30 minutes, the 30-year-old engineer and former University of Calgary running star said: “Everything has to come together for it to happen.”
That’s for the elites like Travaglini to aim for. The rest of the heaving pack of duffers, huffers and Sunday runners, strollers and walkers will be content with more modest personal goals of health, activity and fitness as the resurgent sa国际传媒 10K continues recovering from the pandemic. The 2020 race was cancelled and the 2021 event was held virtually. About 5,500 participated in its in-person return last year with more than 7,500 registered for Sunday.
About 9,600 participated in the last pre-pandemic race, in 2019.
“We are successfully growing back to that level, and beyond, and that is a huge win for the community,” said Mark deFrias, producer of the event for the non-profit RunSport society.
About 400 volunteers have signed up to help stage the race, which has raised more than $42,000 this year for six charities.
The race begins at 8 a.m. in the legislature precinct with the finish line in front of the legislature on Belleville Street. The route travels Government Street, Wharf Street, Yates Street, Cook Street, Richardson Street, Moss Street, May Street, Memorial Crescent, Dallas Road and Erie Street to the finish line.
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