Former Beer Mile world champion wins Manitoba Marathon

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This article was published 16/06/2018 (2287 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Corey Gallagher has won another big race, but this time, he didn’t have to chug a couple beers along the way.

Gallagher is a former beer mile world champion and record holder, a sport where you run four laps around a track and have to down a beer after each lap. But no beer was required on Sunday at the 40th annual Manitoba Marathon and the 31-year old Winnipeg native still led the pack, despite the fact it was the first time Gallagher had ever ran a full marathon. But the lack of experiene was no problem, as he was the first to cross the finish line inside Investors Group Field to win the men’s full marathon at 2:37:48.5.

“This is pretty high up there,” said an exhausted Gallagher, ranking his marathon victory to his 2014 Beer Mile world championship. “I was always scared of a full (marathon). I’m just happy to get it done and check it off the bucket list.”

Gallagher ran the half marathon at the event for years, before missing the last three or four due to several injuries. Gallagher was just happy to finally be healthy enough to be competiting again, although he’s not so sure if he will defend his title at next year’s marathon as he said “nothing can prepare you for (a full marathon) properly.”

“I don’t know if I want to do another one in the forseeable future,” said Gallagher, who works in the city as a postal carrier. “That was much, much, worse than what I had expected.”

Gallagher might be new to full marathons, but the winner of the women’s race is no stranger to them. Amy Feit made the trip up to Winnipeg from small town Luverne, Minnesota and she made sure it was worth the trip, as she won the 42-km race in 3:02:51.6. The 38-year old American has run over a dozen marathons all over the world, including Berlin, Chicago, and Boston, but this was her first time competiting in Canada.

“It was a great race, a nice flat course, lots of shade, I loved the course — it was beautiful,” said Feit, a first time visitor to Winnipeg.

Feit came into the weekend with the intention of winning the race and it clearly showed, as she led the entire way.

“That was the number one goal today. I’ve won a marathon before, but I’ve never felt the tape across my stomach so that was a wonderful feeling. I love that,” said Feit, who won a marathon back in Minnesota.

Feit competed at the 2013 edition of the Boston Marathon, the year of bombing attacks that killed three people and injured hundreds. Feit finished the race 20 minutes before the bombs went off and was at a nearby subway station when she heard the explosion — which she thought at the time was a canon or something similar going off in celebration of the marathon. She said it was a surreal experience and something she still carries with herself to this day, but she refuses to let it slow her down and stop her from travelling to compete. She plans to race in Boston again at some point and would also like to run at the New York and London marathons.

“Boston is very special. It’s even more special to me after 2013,” said Feit. “I have every intention to go back, take it all in, enjoy it, and be able to celebrate it after the way you should.”

Two familiar faces won the half marathon races on Sunday. Abduselam Yussuf — who set the men’s half marathon record in 2015 with a time of 1:05:05 — won the men’s half marathon for the fourth time, this year at 1:08:31.2.

Yussuf won the race in ’14, ’15, ’16 but wasn’t able to go for his fourth in a row last year as he missed the race due to stress fractures in his toes, which also forced him to miss a season with the Bisons’ track team

“I was extremely fit before I got the stress fracture. It’s rough knowing that you can’t run it. But eventually, it gets into your head that you’re doing the right thing,” said the 24-year old on missing last year’s half marathon.

Yussuf, born and raised in Ethiopia before moving to Canada 15 years ago, has to train for the Manitoba Marathon during Ramadan — the Muslim holy month of fasting where you can’t eat or drink anything from dawn-to-dusk. Ramadan ended only three days before this year’s race, but Yussuf believes it helps him in his preparation every year.

“I love training during Ramadan,” said Yussuf, who recently graduated with a degree in landscape architecture. “Every other year, I get a week or two weeks into Ramadan and then I got a race, but this year, I got the full month. It makes you mentally stronger. When you’re in the race, you got no excuses.”

Darolyn Walker, winner of the women’s half marathon, also came back from a year out of action to win the race once again. Walker, now a three-time winner of the event, missed last year’s race as she gave birth to her third child, a baby boy named Grayson, two weeks before the marathon. Walker ran through the tape on Sunday at 1:25:18.6.

“It’s awesome. My goal was to come out today and see if I could still do it and I did it,” said the 36-year old stay-at-home mom.

Walker couldn’t do the half marathon last year, but opted to still take part in the action by doing the Super Run, a non-competitve race, with all three of her kids, Braedan, 6, and Jaelyn, 4.

“We were dead last,” said Walker with a laugh, who also ran track for the Bisons in the early 2000s.

With several first place finishes in the half already on their resumes, Yussuf and Walker both said they will try the full marathon in the future.

“I’m going to keep training and keep going,” Yussuf said. “Maybe I’ll throw my luck at the full next year and see what happens. Maybe a little more of a battle, but I want to know how much more pain I can take.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
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Eighteen years old and still in high school, Taylor got his start with the Free Press on June 1, 2011. Well, sort of...

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