Four fun storylines from Sunday’s Quebec City Marathon
The SSQ Quebec City Marathon was on Sunday and was one of four timed events on the weekend as some runners made a bid to qualify for Boston.
Les 21,1km ne devraient pas tarder à arriver! Plus que la moitié de fait! ?? pic.twitter.com/sqQqg4SazR
— Courir à Québec (@couriraqc) August 28, 2016
One of Quebec’s most popular races, and a signature late summer event, was held on Saturday and into Sunday in Quebec City. Providing one of the final chances for runners to run a Boston Marathon qualifier, the SSQ Quebec City Marathon was the highlight of Sunday morning in the province’s capital.
RELATED: Quebec City Marathon winner Ebisa Ejigu replicates Olympic medallist’s political protest.
The marathon is a point-to-point course which begins in Lévis and has runners follow the Saint Lawrence River and across the bridge into Quebec City. Both the half-marathon and 10K are run on the latter portions of the marathon course so all runners experience an identical finishing stretch.
Reverse kilometre markings
Interestingly, the kilometre markings are shown in reverse order to accommodate the half-marathon and 10K routes. For marathon runners, one would see 42K, 41K and 40K in the early stages instead of 1K, 2K and 3K, for example.
RELATED: Runner battles back from motorcycle crash to complete local Quebec 10K.
For the marathon runners, the first half of the course is net downhill. In the latter stages of the race, runners must ascend to make up for the early race assistance which provides a tough finish. More than 8,000 runners take part annually across all the race weekend events.
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Back-to-back marathon podium finishes on consecutive weekends
Ebisa Ejigu won the men’s marathon in 2:30:40 and Andree Paquet was the women’s winner in 2:50:47. The men’s third-place finisher, Brendan Lunty, ran his second marathon in as many weeks after winning the Edmonton marathon on his 38th birthday last weekend.
Podium des hommes!? Bravo pour vos performances! @OasisCanadaFr #marathonssq #marathonquebec pic.twitter.com/PJESy3YJTy
— Courir à Québec (@couriraqc) August 28, 2016
Do it for Boston
The race is known as a last-chance Boston marathon qualifier as registration for the April race typically takes place in early September. Registration for the 2017 Boston marathon opens on Sept. 12 at 10 a.m. EDT. Since runners need to hit a certain qualifying standard to be eligible to enter, those who wish to run in the April race may look for a fast, last-minute race.
As the race is point-to-point, runners hopped on a bus on Sunday morning to get shuttled to the start line.
Awesome (and bright) race medals
Results
Photos
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