THUNDER BAY — While a little cooler than normal, roughly 870 runners hit the streets for the Firefighters Ten Mile Road Race on Monday morning.
The race was split into 589 individual runners and 57 relay teams. It began near city hall, where runners set out down Simpson Street toward Marina Park and then looped back.
Herb Daniher, the road race director, has run the race around 20 times over the years and said the race has some history and prestige.
“It’s something that anybody can do at any time. Anybody can do a 10-miler. There are all sorts of opportunities. We know you can even walk the course if you had to within the three hours,” said Daniher.
“So, there’s lots of opportunity (for) all different skill levels and that’s what makes it great. You can be out here with your child or your grandchild or whatever the case is. Grandpa’s running, Grandma’s running and the grandkids are running as well and everywhere in between that. So, it makes it pretty, pretty unique.”
Daniher said the race had a good number of entries this year and is about 10 per cent higher than last year.
“It’s a great event for the community. It’s the biggest, second-oldest running event, 10-miler, in Canada, so something to be proud of and… with the volunteers and the runners and everybody else that makes the city click, it’s a successful event over and over again,” said Daniher.
“And we have the right recipe and the right formula. It’s just Thunder Bay. It’s just what it is.”
Daniher said they’re really happy to see the race continue to not survive, but thrive.
“We still got about 40 per cent newbies that haven’t run the race before, so they’re up to the challenge,” said Daniher.
“So that’s always good to see a good intake. That seems to be pretty standard and traditional as well. And again, it’s good weather.”
He said they had a good response once they put out a call for volunteers.
“We were short for a bit, but Thunder Bay really stepped up, they always do, so we’re pretty happy with this and there’s a lot of spectators out on the road today from what I see. So, great day, great race, and tradition continues,” said Daniher.
Daniher added all the running clubs in the city bring in a lot of people.
“It’s all a big community. It’s all about fitness for the community (and) getting people moving,” said Daniher.
Next year, the road race is planning to get an organizing committee to plan for a big community celebration for its 90th weekend.
“We don’t know what exactly it’s going to look like, but we’re hoping to have 900 runners next year and 90 relay teams, so we have an aggressive sort of target,” said Daniher.
“We’re going to get… the course certified and these types of things. So, there are a number of steps we’re going to do and we’re going to see what we can do by engaging the community,” he added.
Daniher said to stay tuned and they want to get the word out early that now is the time to climb on board for the volunteers, the participants or anybody thinking about doing it.
