Guest post from Wayne Crowe:
Cam Levins and Comox Valley Runners Dominate the First Half Marathon
Local runners travelled to Vancouver on February 8 to take on more than 2000 other athletes on a perfect day for racing at the 2026 First Half Marathon. They were lead by Black Creek’s three time Olympian and Canadian Marathon record holder Cam Levins. He dominated the field, finishing 2 minutes in front of second place finisher Justin Kent in a time of 1:01:46. Levins was using this race as a tuneup for the Tokyo Marathon on March 1 where he set the Canadian record of 2:05:36 in 2023. With the very competitive field and a fast course he hopes to lower that mark this year. Natasha Wodak, also an Olympian, was first over woman in a very fast time
of 1:11:50.
Comox Valley Road Runners were well represented at the race, with a number of excellent finishes, including five podiums, three personal bests and an age group record. They were lead by Nic (Dough Boy) Samsom who continued his journey to the top with an excellent time and personal best of 1:19:34. This placed him 21/136 in the very competitive M25-29 age group.
The next local racer was rising star Alex Du Boulay who out duelled teammates Rob Kelly and Leon Heath in a fight to the finish. He ran a perfectly paced race finishing in a personal best time of 1:28:23 and 44/136 in the M25-29 age group. Kelly finished strongly in 1:28:38 and a second place finish in the M6064 age group with Heath following closely with a time of 1:28:44 to place 64/195 in M30-34. Chasing him in was elite runner Andrea Wilson who once again reached the podium finishing in 1:29:57 and third W5054.
The run of the day went to novice racer Gabby Swan who set a huge personal best of 1:30:31 to place 18/117 in the very strong W2529 age group. This result is only a sign of things to come for Gabby. Meghan Bringleson ran a gutsy race and got everything out of herself to finish in 1:35:24, 11/45 W2024. Veteran Danny Keyes showed he still has the wheels as he pushed it in to win the M6569 age group in 1:35:56. Next in was Wayne Crowe, who will be racing Boston Marathon with Keyes in mid April. He ran a strong race with a finish time of 1:38:09 and second place M7074. Next up was Coco Elgood who also showed excellent pacing and finished fourth W5559. Cabiri Calisto had a great day running 1:45:08 and 39/108 W4044. Roslyn Smith continued her domination of her age group by breaking the course record and finishing first W7579 in 1:52:40. She was followed by local running legend Janet Green who showed her determination by getting across the finish line in 2:42:06.
