The Silver City Days Gericks Sports Fun Run welcomed a record number of participants to the starting line at Gyro Park on Sunday.
Under sunny skies, 299 runners and walkers registered for the race that wound through Sunningdale and back to Gyro for the five-kilometre run and continued into East Trail and downtown Trail and back to the park for the 10-km race.
“That’s a record for registrations,” said organizer Dan Horan. “It was a good turnout, and a good day too.”
In the end, a familiar list of runners topped the podium. Mike Zahn won the men’s five-km race in a time of 19 minutes and 32 seconds, while teenager Abbegale Teasdale claimed top spot in the women’s five-km race in 21:40. Heather Johnson of Fruitvale captured the women’s 10-km race in 42:47, and Rossland’s Dallas Cain took almost a full minute off last year’s winning time by capturing the men’s 10-k in 36:42. His brother, Ryan, deferred to Dallas in the last few metres, as both were running side-by-side coming to the finish line.
“We had a gentleman’s agreement, we always do,” said Dallas following the race. “If there’s an opportunity then it’s open game. If someone gets out in front, then the other guy is more than welcome to go. But if we both end up right around the same area for the last kilometre or two, then we usually finish together.”
The win was a repeat-victory for Cain, and Johnson returned to the race to reclaim her 2014 title. Zahn, meanwhile, won his eighth straight race an unprecedented run for the Teck employee whose workout regimen started in March where he’d run from Walmart up the cutoff to his home in Montrose.
“My goal is just to try to maintain a good time,” said the 32-year-old Zahn, whose only race of the season he usually reserves for the Fun Run, although this year he participated in the Dam Run in April.
Cain and Johnson are both high-level athletes. Cain has competed in Iron-man triathlons for a number of years and will return this year to compete in the Penticton Ironman Triathlon, while Johnson is an ultra-marathoner and Trans-Rockies Run competitor - a six-day marathon that covers 120 miles. Teasdale from Rossland is a 12-15 age-group runner who qualified to compete in the BC Summer Games in Abbotsford in July.
Marcella Zahn won the $200 gift certificate from Gericks in the special draw for early registration.