Toronto Waterfront Marathon / Canadian Marathon Championships – News – Pidhoresky Seeks Second Athletics Canada Marathon Title at TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon

PIDHORESKY SEEKS SECOND ATHLETICS CANADA MARATHON TITLE AT TCS TORONTO WATERFRONT MARATHON
By Paul Gains – Race Results Weekly, used with permission.

(10-Aug) — Elite marathoners have many options to chase fast times each fall. Olympian Dayna Pidhoresky has chosen the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon on October 15th, where she will seek her second Athletics Canada title in four years.  The 36-year-old Vancouver resident was the first Canadian finisher at this event in 2019, crossing the line in a then personal best 2:29:03 and was rewarded with an automatic position on Canada’s Tokyo Olympic marathon squad.  She loves running in Toronto.

“I think for me it’s helpful that it’s familiar,” Pidhoresky said in an interview.  “The travel is familiar, the course is familiar, so it sort of takes the guess work out of that part.  If you are doing an overseas fall marathon that can be part of that stress which is from just not knowing what to expect.

“In this case Toronto is a race I have lined up for many times in the past. And also, it’s not a slow course; I know I can run fast there. I have run fast before. I do hope to run faster than I have before.”

Originally from Tecumseh, a town near Windsor, Ontario, she and her husband Josh Seifarth have been living in Vancouver for ten years now. Although she has raced many times in the U.S. and represented Canada at the 2017 World Championships as well as at the Tokyo
Olympics, domestic races have been a large part of her curriculum vitae. Indeed, she won both the 2022 and 2023 Vancouver Marathons, the latter in 2:34:27.

Pidhoresky realizes that winning a Canadian title earns an additional 45 World Athletics Ranking points on top of points awarded for a finishing time. Those extra points could be worth more than four minutes to her. In other words, if she equals her personal best in Toronto and wins the Canadian title she would earn 1187 WA points – the same as if she had run 2:24:35 at another race.  That would put her in contention for a spot on Canada’s team for next year’s Paris Olympics. It would mean everything if she were successful.

“Yeah, absolutely. I feel that is one of the reasons I am working so hard,” she said. “It’s really to try and get on another Olympic team. I feel I have unfinished business at the Olympics. It’s not about placing it’s about leaving there feeling I was able to do my best on the day.”

On her flight to Tokyo for the Olympic Games two years ago she and Josh were seated near someone who…