Canada’s fastest-ever feminine marathoner, Natasha Wodak, has revealed her fall marathon plans. The Vancouver native, who’s a two-time Olympian, will line up for the 2024 TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Oct. 20, which doubles as each a World Athletics Elite Label occasion and the Canadian Marathon Championship. This may mark Wodak’s first look at this race in 11 years.
“I believed, Why don’t I’m going run the Canadian Marathon Championships in Toronto?” mentioned Wodak. “I haven’t been there in 11 years, and that’s the place I began this marathon journey. It’s an Asics occasion, I’m the Canadian document holder, and I haven’t gained the Canadian Marathon Championship. I simply actually needed to run in my nation, surrounded by family and friends.”
Regardless of a difficult 12 months the place she missed qualification for the Paris Olympics, Wodak’s setbacks proceed to gasoline her world-class performances at 42. In 2023, she withdrew from the London Marathon after falling sick simply days earlier than the race, and later positioned fifteenth on the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, the place she had hoped to realize the Paris Olympic normal of two:26:50. She additionally confronted difficulties on the 2024 Houston Marathon, the place a hamstring pressure derailed her run. Though initially dissatisfied about not making her third Olympic workforce, Wodak was optimistic concerning the alternatives forward.
“The Olympics is particular for a cause—it’s very arduous to get there!” she mirrored. “I didn’t make it this time round, however I had a enjoyable journey making an attempt, and different doorways have opened. I obtained to do the CBC broadcast for the ladies’s Olympic marathon, which was an incredible alternative.”
Not sure of her fall racing plans, Wodak had initially thought-about focusing on the nationwide half-marathon document on the Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon, however determined to change to the total marathon after consulting together with her coach, Trent Stellingwerf.
Profitable the Canadian Marathon Championships may additionally assist Wodak qualify for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo subsequent September, by incomes her World Athletics factors. “If I win and run decently in Toronto, it’s actually good factors, and I may not must run the usual (2:23:30),” she defined. “I may presumably run a marathon in Japan in early March.”
The qualifying window for the marathon on the 2025 World Athletics Championships opened on Nov. 5, 2023. Up to now, no Canadian athletes have achieved the ladies’s normal of two:23:30 or the lads’s normal of two:06:30. Wodak holds the Canadian marathon document at 2:23:12.
The TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon, to be held on Oct. 20, is Canada’s premier operating occasion and the grand finale of the Canada Operating Sequence (CRS). Since 2017, the race has additionally served because the Athletics Canada marathon championship and Olympic trials.
