Evan Dunfee walks Vancouver Marathon, beats all but 132 runners

Olympian Evan Dunfee, who finished fourth at the most recent Games in the 50K walk, completed the BMO Vancouver Marathon in 3:10:34 on Sunday morning. That sort of time ranks him very well among runners.

The Canadian 50K record holder walked the 42.2K at an average pace of 4:30 per kilometre to finish 133rd overall, 114th among men, and 25th among men aged 25-29. He says that he got a bit excited out on course and walked faster than originally intended. (Editor’s note: There was a discrepancy between live tracking and Sportstats results, as such, this article has been updated to reflect his final placing.)

RELATED: CR’s pre-race interview with Dunfee.

The 26-year-old local had his sights set on a 3:15-3:20 performance as a tuneup for the Pan American Race Walking Cup next weekend in Peru. Before the race, Dunfee told Canadian Running that the 42.2K effort would follow a 30K training day on Saturday.

Olympian Evan Dunfee walks a 3:10 at the @BMOVanMarathon pic.twitter.com/WmLCSR8vX6

— Canadian Running (@CanadianRunning) May 7, 2017

Race walk courses are unlike marathon courses as they are often looped, 2K for example, and without hills. The Vancouver Marathon meanwhile features some challenging terrain, which the New Balance-sponsored athlete says caused him to “lift” on course, an infraction if it were an official race walk event.

He covered the final 2.2K at a rather incredible pace of 4:18 per kilometre. His half-marathon split was 1:35:16, almost identical to his second 21.1K.

Marathon results
Half-marathon results

Per the live tracking page, there were 3,654 participants in the Vancouver Marathon, meaning Dunfee beat more than 3,500 of his fellow competitors. That translates roughly to Dunfee beating 96 per cent of the field.