Top running stories of the year: Marchant breaks the record

We’ve been counting down our top stories of the year this week and we’ve made our way down to number two.

We chose Lanni Marchant’s Canadian women’s marathon record as our number two story in 2013.

After a stellar season that included a Canadian 10K championship win and a world championship appearance, Marchant broke Sylvia Ruegger’s 28-year-old women’s marathon record at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront marathon.

The London, Ont., native ran 2:28:00 on the flat, fast course in October to break the previous mark of 2:28:36.

Related: 10-questions with Lanni Marchant

Krista DuChene, another Canadian marathoner who represented Canada at the world championships, dipped under the previous record but finished a place behind Marchant.

The record had held since Ruegger set it in 1985, shortly after being injured in a car accident and never returning to her top marathon form. Ruegger was on hand at Scotiabank to talk about the event.

Another big story in Canadian records this year was Matt Hughes’ men’s national steeplechase record from the world championships. After setting a PB in the qualifying rounds, Hughes ran 8:11:64 to break  Graeme Fell’s national record, also from 1985.