Runners brave extreme cold

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This article was published 23/02/2015 (4098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The MacKay family took running to a new high Sunday in the Winnipeg polar freeze at FortWhyte Alive.

The three siblings were among 500 who braved a wind chill in the range of -40 C to take in the annual winter run Sunday.

One had the flu, another flew in from Newfoundland for the race and the third could barely see past the icicles dangling from her eyelids to spot the finish line.

“This is the ultimate ‘I’m embracing winter activity,’ although this time it was winter embracing us,” joked Tim MacKay, as the family finished up a post-race breakfast at FortWhyte’s Buffalo Stone Café.

FortWhyte Alive pared back its Hypothermic Half Marathon due to extreme cold, cutting out the route through Assiniboine Forest and Assiniboine Park. Instead, runners ran a choice of loops within FortWhyte.

Running Room organizer Rachel Munday said the sponsors cut the course down to a third of its usual length the night before because of the cold.

Environment Canada issued an extreme-cold warning on the weekend, advising wind-chill factors across southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan would range from -40 C to -45 C.

However, many runners still ran the full 21 km or more, soldiering on through the cold.

“I ran 13.57 miles, longer than half a marathon, today in the Hypothermic Half Marathon,” said Caroline Wiebe.

“Almost every runner did run more than the expected distance of 13.1 miles. There were some who ran less due to the extreme cold, and the course was changed to three loops so a runner could drop out if in danger,” she said. Typically about 600 runners show up at FortWhyte for the annual event the duck and goose refuge sponsors with the Running Room.

The Running Room organizes similar hypothermic runs in cities across Canada.

Organizers here were impressed 500 registered despite the cold.

“It’s so cold that when I pulled open the tailgate, the handle snapped off,” said FortWhyte organizer Will Tarleton. “We have water in five-gallon jugs and they froze in about an hour. Now, the jugs are splitting open.”

Just about every runner chugged past the finish line with frosted eyelashes. “I could hardly see for the frost, because the sun was shining in my face,” said runner Jerri-Lee MacKay, Tim MacKay’s sister.

Their other sister, Jill Allison, flew in from St. John’s, N.L., for the second year in a row.

There’s a similar run back east, said Allison, but it is nothing like the endurance contest she experienced Sunday.

“At the hypothermic run there, we might have 100 kilometre-an-hour winds but it’s not -40 C,” she said.

Tim’s girlfriend, Lynn Carriere, said this was her first time at the local hypothermic race. “I’ve been training for this since November,” she said. “I was relieved to find out they’d cut it down.”

Each year, the race raises about $18,000 for public education programs at FortWhyte Alive.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca