12-year-old wins Vancouver’s Summerfast 10K

12-year-old Sidney Swierenga took the win in the women’s race at the Summerfast 10K in Vancouver on Saturday. The elementary school student held 3:41 per kilometre over the 10K race to take the title in 36:52.

Canadian records aren’t kept for runners under 18 on the roads, but it’s certainly rare to see a 12-year-old who’s able to hold a pace like that for 10K. Swierenga was 29th overall, an impressive spot to be in considering she’s yet to enter high school.

Andrea Lee was second in 36:56 and Lissa Zimmer was third in 37:06.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0JQIR6neeh/

In the men’s race, Caleb De Jong was the winner in a new course record, finishing in 29:51, well ahead of second-place Nathan Wadhwani in 31:21 and Rob Watson in third in 31:23.

Came 3rd place in a race today. Got beat by a couple millennials. They are just the worst!

— Rob Watson (@robbiedxc) July 20, 2019

Watson is having a strong season and hoping to run one more sub-2:20 marathon. “I want to do it one last time,” he says. His marathon personal best is 2:13:29 from 2013, and he’s not looking to get back into that kind of shape, but something similar. “I want to continue to run healthy and maintain a base level of fitness, and then I can fine-tune that fitness towards specific races. I want to try some of the longer stuff. But first, I would love to go under 2:20 one more time in the marathon.”

Full results can be found here.