Lanni Marchant returns to the Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon June 22nd with the heavy mantle of being the new Canadian marathon record holder.
Last October at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon Marchant beat the 28 year old standard with a time of 2 hours 28 minutes to raise her already growing profile. She has resumed training following her recent 14th place finish at the Boston Marathon, a result of which she was immensely proud.
Now her attention is focused on the Vancouver race and defending her stature as the country’s preeminent female distance runner. The course record of 1:10:46 (Lioudmila Kortchaguina 2003) is secondary to her thirst for victory.
“I ran Vancouver last year and I was second to Krista (DuChene) and the year before I ran it and I broke my ankle,” she recalls. “It’s a good tricky, technical course. I mean you can run really fast. Krista ran 1:10:52 and I ran 1:11:38 on it so you can run fast.
“I think it’s like Boston or Toronto with a downhill at the start and you put some wear and tear into your quads and then you have rollers and some turns. And then you have to go over Burrard Bridge back to the finish. It’s definitely a technical course. It was fun – well the first time I did it it wasn’t fun. But I had a lot of fun last year.”
Marchant, 30, faces a field of younger contenders bent on providing an upset.
