by Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
Mountains come in all shapes and sizes.
For Deanna Trzeciakowski, 28, the Jasper Canadian Rockies Half-Marathon on April 7 was another 21-kilometre challenge she proved to herself she could pass.
After a 10-year battle, she was finally diagnosed with epilepsy on her 27th birthday.
“Being ready for a marathon is like overcoming a challenge, like overcoming my disease is,” she said.
Trzeciakowski has completed five half-marathons and two full marathons. She was one of more than 1,100 runners who showed up ready to hit the road in Jasper on Saturday to take part in 21-, 10-, 5- and 1-kilometre runs on a brisk spring afternoon.
“It was absolutely beautiful, I loved it,” she said after finishing. “It was very well supported, the route was well-marked.”
Danielle Thiel no doubt found the route well-marked since there was no one in front of her to obscure anything. Wearing bib #1 the Regina-born runner and University of Alberta medical student left the field in her dust with a time of 1:20:41, beating Shane Andersen (1:26:21) by nearly six minutes.
The rest of the top 10 was separated by less than seven minutes. In all 383 runners finished the half-marathon, another 364 completed the 10K and 217 ran the 5K. Ben Wilks won the 10K (38:15) while Aric Kucey won the 5K (19:58) and Jade Gerrard took the 1K in a not-unlike-the-blink-of-an-eye four minutes and 19 seconds.
