Ross Proudfoot dominates Peterborough Half in debut

For its 40th anniversary, the Peterborough Half-Marathon featured one of the top distance runners in Canada.

Sub-4:00 miler, sub-13:30 5Ker, two-time Canadian senior cross-country champion and 2014-15 Canadian university male athlete of the year Ross Proudfoot won the event’s half-marathon in Peterborough, Ont. on Sunday. He covered 21.1K in 1:09:33.

According to Proudfoot (via his Instagram post), he split 16:45, 16:28, 16:22 and 16:15 for each of the 5K splits through 20K as part of a “good progression.” The 25-year-old’s effort was good for a course record, eclipsing the previous mark from 2008 of 1:10:39, according to the Peterborough Examiner.

To put his performance into perspective, note this: his average pace for the half-marathon was faster than that of the ‘half-a-half’ (10.55K) and 5K. (Proudfoot’s reported first 5K split was however slower than the 5K winning time.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfoxB4Enu6d/

“I’ve been running through the winter through Peterborough so why not come out and do the biggest race they have and support the community,” he told the Peterborough Examiner. “I’ve always loved to join the running community anywhere I’ve been living. I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to run with everybody who runs in Peterborough.” The Examiner notes that Proudfoot slowed to 4:40 per kilometre pace at times due to the challenging hills. (His finish time averages out to 3:18 per kilometre.)

2/3 A few faves from annual @YMCA_of_Ptbo annual Half-Marathon during sunny 10C weather in #Ptbo #marathon #runners #startfinish pic.twitter.com/EXIScRofiS

— Cliff Skarstedt Jr. ?? (@cliffskarstedt) February 25, 2018

Proudfoot is a product of the University of Guelph during what was a cross-country and track and field dynasty. He was a 19-time national medallist during his Guelph tenure and is one of the most decorated athletes in Canadian university sport athletics history. The Sudbury, Ont. native recently moved to Peterborough from Guelph and has been relatively quiet since the summer recovering from an injury after the 2017 Summer Universiade (World University Games).

Kasey Walsh was the women’s YMCA Peterborough Half-Marathon winner clocking 1:31:01.