The Overlander Half Marathon, this year known as the Mini-Overlander Sports Marathon, is awaiting approval from the chief public health office to host Yellowknife’s first in-person race of the summer.
Organizer David MacMillan, from the Yellowknife Multisport Club, hopes runners can still enjoy the annual event while being able to adhere to physical distancing restrictions.
“I think it’d be great to get that in-person race, even if it doesn’t have all the same things we typically have in past years,” said MacMillan.
“Getting people to run on the same route and have an official start and finish, it just brings it up that extra little notch. I think people enjoy that.
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If the race goes ahead, runners would be responsible for their own water and supplies instead of water stations along the route. There would be a three-hour start window instead of a mass start and a maximum of 120 participants.
“It’s going to be a stripped-down event. It’s not going to have all the bells and whistles it usually does. It will just be a half-marathon and 10 km this year,” says MacMillan
“It’ll be a little bit more free-flowing, but participants will still be able to get their chip time and we’ll have accurate results for them at the end once they finish the race.”
MacMillan hopes people will still mark the date on their calendars – August 16 – though formal approval for the race is yet to be given.
“We would like it to be in person, but we want to make sure it’s safe and we won’t go ahead unless we get official approval,” he said.
“As soon as we know we can go ahead, we’ll be advertising and hoping to drum up a lot of last-minute runners and participants and have a fun day.”
