Shawnigan Lake’s Logan Roots came second best out of about 350 runners in Chemainus’ Twilight Shuffle on June 14.
Roots was only about a minute behind number one finisher, Victoria’s Sean Chester, in the 27th annual 5 km jaunt.
Roots squeaked in at 16:52.
Race director and Chemainus native Phil Nicholls said the Legion Twilight Shuffle is the second oldest running event on the Island.
This year’s event only attracted about 350 participants compared to a peak 1,000 runners in a previous year.
“The numbers were off a bit this year. Usually numbers settle around 550-600,” he said.
But the popular evening trot isn’t near fizzling out, Nicholls said.
“It’s definitely nice to see the local support of the event. That’s the direction we want to continue to keep it going,” he said of the majority of participants being central Islanders.
The biggest prize dough, $100, goes to the first male and female Chemainiacs to cross the finish line.
Top Chemainus gal was Chemainus Secondary’s Emily Adams at 35th place with a 21:44 finish time.
The head Chemainiac guy was young buck Jeff Boudreau with a 14th place finish at 19:45 minutes.
The first female to storm across the line was national status runner Lucy Smith of Sidney with a 5th place, 17:39 minute stop time.
“She’s a repeat winner, defending champ and she ran well on it,” Nicholls said.
Local products in the Top 10-finish group also include Shawnigan Lake’s Ian Searle taking 4th spot at 17:38.
Kevin Searle of Shawnigan placed 7th with an 18:05 finish.
Duncan runner Andrew Murphy made it into 8th spot at 18:09.
Funds raised from the run are dispersed to the local community and Island charities. Proceeds from this year’s run will be given to the Archie Courtnall Centre for mental health in Victoria.
The grand-prize draw is a custom, framed golf shirt from the first Courtnall Classic signed by all of the celebrities who took part.
Island Runner in partnership with Oakley Canada was the Platinum level sponsor of this event again.