Caroline Pomerleau wins Canadian Marathon Championships in her debut

Caroline Pomerleau of Quebec City, who was also the surprise third-place finisher at this year’s Canadian 10K Championships in Ottawa, seemed to come out of nowhere, passing and didn’t realize she had won when she crossed the line first among the Canadian women in the Canadian Marathon Championships, hosted by the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Sunday, in her first marathon. Her time was 2:34:44, and she was 10th overall.

On the final corner, Pomerleau overtook 2018 Olympian Anne-Marie Comeau, who had been leading the Canadian women for most of the second half of the race, and beat her by seven seconds; Comeau finished as second Canadian, in 2:34:51, a six-minute personal best. Dayna Pidhoresky rounded out the Canadian women’s podium for third, finishing in 2:35:50.

Who said marathons were hard?

Debut ✅
Sub-2:35 ✅
🇨🇦 marathon champion ✅

What a run for Caroline Pomerleau of Quebec City!#chooseTORun pic.twitter.com/8I2kogjR7m

— Canadian Running (@CanadianRunning) October 15, 2023

“I can’t believe what happened!” she told Canadian Running at the finish line. “I ran to beat 2 hours, 35 minutes, and I was on that pace the whole time–3:40 per kilometre. I just stuck to that, and it was really easy for me until the last 5K, when I had to push a little bit more…

“It was my first marathon. So I knew the distance was going to be a big challenge for me, but I was feeling strong all the way. I didn’t know I was first until someone told me at the end.”

Emily Setlack had pulled ahead of Pidhoresky by around 10K and was on course for the win for a significant part of the race; she was passed by Comeau around the 30K mark, and appeared to have stopped on the course shortly afterward; she ultimately dropped out. 

At the post-race press conference, Pidhoresky mentioned that her build had not been ideal; she’d been dealing with shin pain and had had to do a lot of cross-training on the bike. Ultimately she still hopes to compete at another Olympics and complete “unfinished business” from Tokyo 2020, where she had a disappointing race after being forced to quarantine even though she never became ill or tested positive for Covid.

Comeau competed in cross-country skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. She was the top Canadian woman at the 2023 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Innsbruck, Austria. 

Broatch takes Canadian men’s title

Another newcomer to the marathon scene, 24-year-old Thomas Broatch of Vancouver, took the Canadian men’s title, finishing in 2:16:25, in sixth overall. Broatch ran alone for most of the race, having surged ahead of Sergio Ráez Villanueva, with whom he had traded the lead for the first half of the race, at halfway. Broatch is coming off a win at the Vancouver Eastside 10K, where he beat three-time Toronto champion and previous Canadian Marathon Champion Trevor Hofbauer, who did not race on Sunday. Benjamin Raymond finished as the second Canadian man, in 2:20:15 (eighth overall), with Ráez Villanueva rounding out the Canadian podium, finishing in 2:20:48, improving on his fourth-place finish in 2022. (He was ninth overall among the elite men.)

“I felt really good the first 30K or so, and it got very tough the last 10K, but I was really happy that I could hold on decently well in the final 5K,” Broatch said after the race. The 24-year-old software engineer told Canadian Running his build had gone well and that he was confident he’d run a good time.

For the elite men’s results, click here. 

You can view the full results from the 2023 TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon here.

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