Melanie Myrand aiming for Olympic standard this weekend in Waterloo

This weekend is the Fast is Fun Marathon in Waterloo. Organizers are putting together a racing opportunity for Canadian elites who haven’t had one in months. This 14-person field is filled with Canadian talent, including London’s Chris Balestrini and Montreal’s Melanie Myrand. 

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After steadily improving over the course of three years, Myrand had a great 2019. She had her breakout year in 2017 at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, where she ran a 25-minute personal best to go from 3:04 to a blazing 2:39. She has since lowered her personal best to 2:33, the time that qualified her for the 2019 World Championships. There, she finished 27th in one of the most gruelling marathons in world championship history. 

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Now, one year later, she’s hoping to run Olympic standard. Myrand says her goal is Olympic standard (and not the actual Olympics) for a few reasons. “First, there won’t be doping control at the race this weekend, so even if I run under 2:29:30, it won’t count for qualification. This was not my initial goal race for the fall, the goal was to run a race in Quebec that got cancelled two weeks ago. Then we pivoted.” Myrand explains that doping control is expensive, about $1,000, and she decided to run the event too late to secure it either way. 

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Despite this setback, she says her workouts have pointed to being able to run under 2:30, and that remains her goal. “There are so many fast marathoners in Canada right now. Malindi’s run 2:24, Lyndsay achieved standard at worlds and Dayna is already on the team. My goal isn’t to make the Olympics anymore, my goal is just to run the standard. I achieved everything I wanted to at worlds in 2019.”

She says she’s going to go out at 3:30 per-kilometre pace and see how she feels from there. If all goes well, she’ll finish around 2:29:00 – a big personal best and provincial record. “I’m the fittest I’ve ever been. I’m just going to put it all out there and see what happens.”

The entries

Chris Balestrini – London
Jean Francois Bemeur – Montreal
Jeff Costen – Toronto
Daniel Fournier – Waterloo
Arnaud Francioni – Montreal
Adam Hortian – Kitchener
Stephaney Hortian – Kitchener
Simon Lambert-Lemay – Montreal
Elissa Legault – Montreal
Marco Li – Toronto
Andrew MacMartin – Westmount
Melanie Myrand – Montreal
Ryan Schafbuch – Pincourt
Robert Wood – London

How to follow

The event gets underway at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday and will be streamed on the FastisFun instagram page. Results on Canadian Running to follow.