Women's Winner: Genet Gebregiorgis

The 24th edition of the Vancouver Sun Run, held on April 20th, set a new record for a road race in Canada.

Already the largest race in the country (with almost 55,000 participants in 2007), the 2008 race had an incredible 59,179 participants! Next year, on its 25th anniversary, run organizers hope to surpass the 60,000 runner/walker barrier.

The Sun Run has long been one of the most competitive races in Canada, featuring some of the top runners from around the world.

This year, Calgary’s Lisa Harvey, a former Canadian Olympian at 10,000m, earned a spectacular 2nd place finish behind race winner, Genet Gebregiorgis of Ethiopia.

The top two were separated by only 23 seconds, with the winner clocking 33:35 over the 10km distance. This isn’t the first time Harvey has finished second at the Sun Run, though it’s been a while. In 1993, running her first Sun Run, Harvey finished second to another Olympian, Vancouver’s Leah Pells.

Men's Winner: Festus Langat

On the men’s side, Kenya’s Festus Langat kept alive an African tradition of winning the Sun Run, becoming the ninth African runner in the last ten years to win the race. His winning time of 29:26 was a comfortable victory over countryman Philiph Koech, who battle Vancouver’s own, Ryan Hayden to the wire, beating Hayden by only 2 seconds.

This was the second straight 3rd place finish for Hayden, who was pleased to be racing the Kenyans down the stretch. Jeremy Deere, a native Calgarian and Strides co-owner, ran his fastest 10km race in three years (30:16), in finishing 7th overall and first in his age group (30-34).