Our 2018 season is off to a seasonable start with our 21st annual Re-Fridgee-Eighter. Thanks to everyone for braving the conditions to race with us today.
We host this race because it’s winter, not in spite of it. We welcome the snow and appreciate the challenge that the conditions provide. Here’s to a great spring of training and racing!
Enjoy this album of over 1,000 race photos, always for free!
Results
As athletes prepare for spring races of varying distances, this race is used by many runners of all levels as an opportunity to shake off some rust and get into a race environment. Congratulations to all finishers! We have been fortunate to see talented athletes join the field over the years and throw fast times despite the conditions.
The 8 KM was won by Evan Esselink of Guelph’s Speed River track club, and Jessica Kuepfer of Health+Performance. The next time you see Evan might be the world half marathon championships in Spain in March – good luck!
Josh Bolton and Tanis Bolton of Grand River Endurance took top spots in the 8 miler. Josh was 21 seconds shy of his 2016 course record, which was set on dry roads!
Olympic Inspiration
The customary snowshoes jokes are more vivid every four years, as this race has the extra excitement factor of overlapping with the winter games. When this race was rebooted in 1998, your faithful race reporter remembers watching bobsleigh on Nagano time in the bar at the old Fed Hall. More recently, who can forget the 2014 edition, when hundreds gathered pre-race to watch Canada outskate Sweden to men’s hockey gold? This year – as Olympic fever is starting to set in – runners can’t help but find an extra wintry motivation to get out and get their heart rate up! (Go Canada Go!)
Some Snowy Storylines
- Considering the roads recently, we can’t even complain about the course conditions today. Huge thanks to the City of Waterloo for keeping them as scraped as possible!
- Re-Fridgee-Eighter runners fundraised $700 so far for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Thank you to all donors and fundraisers!
- We were also super happy to welcome Lloyd Schmidt to the 8k field today – our RD’s first race since 2011!
- Congrats also to Kailey Haddock and Trevor Boss, who ran this race for free by winning entries from Michael Hewitson – My Next KW Race! Be sure to participate in the next contest by February 13th for a chance to win a free relay team to our next race, the Laurier Loop!
Beauty morning out running the @runwaterloo Refridgee-Eighter. We had some great races and some wins! #runStrong #GoRarebits #nuunLove #runnerbliss pic.twitter.com/HRzsTUAEdV
— The Running Rarebits (@RunningRarebits) February 12, 2018
RW Membership launches RW Boost
In case you missed it – we launched a major upgrade to our membership program this week. RW Boost: Run Fast – Run Often – Get Points. It’s a rewards program that you didn’t even know you wanted. Check it out and congrats to the members who got the first leaderboard spots in 2018!
3 Comments
Lloyd again you and your staff did an outstanding job this morning. and it was a pleasure Lloyd for me to stand just behind you at the start. hope Lloyd we will see you in a couple races this year. I would love to have a copy of that photo Lloyd if I could. thank you.
Thanks Robert – great to see you too! We will look into it and get back to you!
Check out the first photo in the slideshow above!
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