Still more room at Around the Bay

Hamilton’s Around the Bay is a month away and there’s still room for more runners– 2,000 of them to be exact. This is the first time the race has been this empty.

“This year is the first year where we’re probably not going to reach our cap,” race director Mike Zajczenko told the CBC in a recent interview.

He says last year’s winter might be to blame. Runners are just not quite in the spirit says Zajczenko. And a second harsh winter doesn’t help. This year’s temperatures have been brutal, possibly discouraging runners from racing early in the season. In Hamilton, weather was colder than normal even breaking decades and century-old cold records.

Around the Bay is big enough to host 9,000 runners in the 30K and 2,500 in the 5K. There are less than 400 spots available in the 5K.

It’s likely not going to fill up and that’s going to impact the race’s charity goal most of all. Their target this year was $475,000. The race itself will be fine though and Zajczenko says he’s not planning on pushing it back in future years. The past two winters have been a glitch he says and it will continue to run at the same time.

This is the second time the race has made news recently. A few weeks ago, Zajczenko announced that the iconic hill would not be included in this year’s route. Construction on a bridge at the hill’s bottom makes it too dangerous. The steep incline will be back on the course map for 2016.