Canada’s fastest-ever feminine marathoner, Natasha Wodak, has printed her fall marathon plans. The Vancouver local, who’s a two-time Olympian, will line up for the 2024 TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Oct. 20, which doubles as each a International Athletics Elite Label match and the Canadian Marathon Championship. This will likely mark Wodak’s first look at this race in 11 years.
“I believed, Why don’t I am 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 adventure. It’s an Asics match, I’m the Canadian file holder, and I haven’t received the Canadian Marathon Championship. I simply in point of fact sought after to run in my nation, surrounded by way of family and friends.”
In spite of a difficult 12 months the place she ignored 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 sooner than the race, and later positioned fifteenth on the International Athletics Championships in Budapest, the place she had was hoping to succeed in the Paris Olympic same old of two:26:50. She additionally confronted difficulties on the 2024 Houston Marathon, the place a hamstring pressure derailed her run. Even if first of all disenchanted about no longer making her 3rd Olympic staff, Wodak was once constructive concerning the alternatives forward.
“The Olympics is particular for a reason why—it’s very exhausting to get there!” she mirrored. “I didn’t make it this time round, however I had a a laugh adventure making an attempt, and different doorways have opened. I were given to do the CBC broadcast for the ladies’s Olympic marathon, which was once an awesome alternative.”
Not sure of her fall racing plans, Wodak had first of all regarded as concentrated on the nationwide half-marathon file on the Toronto Waterfront Part Marathon, however determined to modify to the entire marathon after consulting together with her trainer, Trent Stellingwerf.
Profitable the Canadian Marathon Championships may just additionally lend a hand Wodak qualify for the 2025 International Athletics Championships in Tokyo subsequent September, by way of incomes her International Athletics issues. “If I win and run decently in Toronto, it’s in point of fact just right issues, and I would possibly no longer wish to run the usual (2:23:30),” she defined. “I may be able to run a marathon in Japan in early March.”
The qualifying window for the marathon on the 2025 International Athletics Championships opened on Nov. 5, 2023. To this point, no Canadian athletes have accomplished the ladies’s same old of two:23:30 or the boys’s same old of two:06:30. Wodak holds the Canadian marathon file at 2:23:12.
The TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon, to be hung on Oct. 20, is Canada’s premier operating match and the grand finale of the Canada Operating Collection (CRS). Since 2017, the race has additionally served because the Athletics Canada marathon championship and Olympic trials.