Top running stories of 2013

With the year wrapping up it’s a great time to look back on all the top stories of 2013 in the Canadian running scene and around the world. We’ve compiled a list of the biggest and most popular moments from the past 12 months. We’ll be counting them down to our top story beginning today with numbers ten through seven, and a few honourable mentions:

Honourable mention: Boogie the dog

Boogie the dog got away from his owner and ran a half-marathon in Evansville, Ind. The race organizers even awarded Boogie a finishers medal, and he was reunited with his owner. Then the story took a sad turn, when he died only a few days later of a heart attack. It started as a link on our Facebook page and unexpectedly grew into one of the most popular posts we made all year.

Honourable mention: United by Running splits

A story that will surely affect the East Coast running scene, Michelle Kempton and Stacey Chesnutt, co-founders of United by Running, have parted ways. All the events will still be organized by one of them. It’s unclear if or how the split will affect runners in 2014. Hopefully everything runs smoothly.

10. The Oscar Pistorius murder case

South African 400m runner Oscar Pistorius, who rose to celebrity-status during the 2012 Olympics as the first paraplegic athlete to compete with the able-bodied athletes at the highest level, shot and killed his supermodel girlfriend early on Valentine’s Day morning. The story involved guns, drugs and alcohol and the media had a feeding-frenzy. The trials begin in March.

9. How young is too young to run a long distance race?

There was a lot of debate this year amongst our readers surrounding what is a safe age for children to start running long distances. Eleven-year-old Tyler Heggie made some noise when he ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and there were five- and six-year-olds in the United States who ran half-marathons.

8. NYC Marathon back and bigger than ever

After being cancelled in 2012 because of Hurricane Sandy, the New York City Marathon returned in style in 2013. Smashing the record for largest marathon in history, it featured a star-studded elite field chasing huge prize pots alongside all the other stories that come with a 50,000-participant event.

7. Ed Whitlock breaks three age-class world records

Milton, Ont. masters runner Ed Whitlock continued to break age-category records this year, from the 4x800m relay with three other octogenarians to the marathon. He also broke his own half-marathon record. He’s become a crowd favourite at Toronto road races and in the Canadian running scene.

We’ll continue to count down the rest of the top 2013 stories as the new year approaches. We’ll also be running a few more end-of-year pieces in the coming days.