Since we couldn’t get together to celebrate our year of running we did it a new way this year. We jettisoned most of our trophy awards, which related mostly to racing, and came up with a bunch of new categories, more relevant to the past year. Here are your 2020 Victors Awards winners, and others, in photos they took at the Reveal Run! Full bios of the winners below as well.

• LONGEST MILE AWARD: KURT HUNDECK

Kurt Hundeck was determined to run an ultra this year, and even to make up for having to drop out of the Sulphur Springs 100-mile race in 2019. He did two virtual ultras this summer: first, a numbing “Tail Chaser” 80 KM+ run that involved doing 10+ KM every three hours, continuously for 24 hours. And then he tackled the big one in August, a 100-miler that consisted of 8 x 20 KM all-trail loops from his Suffolk home to the far reaches of Guelph Lake and back, over about 28 hours. Congrats Kurt!

• Virtual victors awards: Stephanie Seebach and Larry hardman

For nearly five months after Covid-19 hit, our only Victors workouts were virtual, following a 30-week program that we emailed to our members in instalments every Monday. Over the summer, they reported doing over 700 workouts, and these two stalwarts led the pack, barely missing a week: Stephanie Seebach reported 24 runs (often doing both of our suggested workouts) and Larry Hardman reported 25 times. Congrats Stephanie and Larry!

• SPIRIT OF THE ARB award: BERNADeen MCLEOD

Once August rolled around, we were granted a gift venue by the good folks at the U. of G. Arboretum. We began doing socially-distanced workouts on the challenging 1.5K loop. And after 12 weeks of this, some members said they liked it better than the Stadium track for speed workouts! According to coach Taylor Milne (who devised all our workouts this year), the most consistently hard-working Arb runner was Bernadeen McLeod. Congrats Bernadeen!

• strivin’ for Strava Award: Holly Dolan and greg cantlon

Strava is like a Facebook for runners, where you can keep tabs on your friends’s workouts (and they can look at yours)! Not for everyone, but kinda handy this year, when we don’t see our fellow members and wonder what they’re up to. We selected the two highest-mileage Victors on our Strava group for 2020, Holly Dolan and Greg Cantlon. Holly (who also swims) had run 2,900 KM by early November and Greg is at 3,200 KM! Congrats Holly and Greg! 

Note: Greg Cantlon is also a Victors rookie, just joining us in August and quickly becoming a regular at workouts and time trials. We’re glad to have you with us Greg.

Join the Guelph Victors Strava group here, and show us what you’re up to!

• rookie of the year Award: Rebecca BAldwin

Like Greg above, Rebecca Baldwin only just joined the Victors recently, when we returned to group runs at the Arboretum. But she quickly became one of the Tuesday night gang, showing up religiously and showing great promise as a younger runner. She also turned up at some of our fall Time Trials, not afraid to race against some of the veteran Victors. Congrats Rebecca! We’re thrilled to have you training with us.

• Local Legend Award: Shawn Gillan

Long-time Victor Shawn Gillan has been at this game a long time. It turns out, he celebrated his 50th “runniversay” this year! He even produced a newspaper clipping from 1970 to prove it: his first race at 5 years of age, the half-mile, in Guelph. Congrats Shawn!

• TEam spirit Award: Robert Winckler

Robert Winckler has been a high-profile racer for years — setting two GUINESS WORLD RECORDS at the Scotiabank Half-Marathon in recent years. But in 2020 he stepped back from racing, and mostly from running as well. He was content to cheer from at the time trials, at workouts, and on our Facebook group, urging people on virtually. He returned to race the half-marathon time trial recently, and we’re glad to have him back there as well. Congrats Robert!

• (Not)parkrun award: Aidan Kelly

Covid-19 halted Guelph’s newest running venture quite abruptly last March, and we don’t know when it will return. The weekly 5K, free and timed event for walkers, runners, pets and kids had grown to over 100 regulars, and they had nowhere to go. So the UK parkrun organization established (not)parkrun, a virtual event where you could run a 5K and upload it to their website, to be aggregated with (not)parkrunners worldwide. Our local champion of this event is Aidan Kelly, who has logged 58 of these runs since last spring. Congrats Aidan!

• vic Matthews Award: Taylor Milne

We wanted to award one of our regular trophies to our head coach for the past five years, Taylor Milne, who has become a friendly fixture at workouts, and a backstop this past, difficult year. Taylor recently told us that he has applied to his employer Canada Post for a transfer back to his home town of Callander, Ontario — which will be a big loss for us. We don’t know when he’s leaving, but we’ll come up with some sort of tribute when he does, Covid-permitting, starting with this award. Congrats (and thanks) Taylor!

(Vic Matthews was our founding coach in the 1970s, the club is named after him, and we present an award in his name each year for outstanding service to the Guelph Victors.)

• Other nominations

Three of the awards above were submitted as nominations from Victors members; the rest were devised by the club’s Leadership Committee. We received several nominations for Victors leaders, but alas we didn’t like the idea of presenting awards to ourselves! Nonetheless, here are three of the leaders nominated for recognition by Victors members. Thanks for the votes of confidence!

• Art Kilgour, who communicated the weekly Virtual Victors program with emails and web updates, and also led the initiative to resume group workouts at the Arboretum. (“A beacon of leadership with the Victors, more than normally this year.”)
• Tim Uuksulainen, a Victors coach who spontaneously organized an amazing series of time trials over the summer and fall — safe, free, timed races for Victors members — plus volunteered regularly at the Arb. (“His time trials are a nice low-key atmosphere blending fun with serious running.”)
• Wendy Greenfield, the club treasurer, who also became a reliable volunteer for all the extra things we did this year, including taking photos at the time trials. (“She always has encouraging words and a bright smile; I feel better after talking with her.” — nominee, Jerry Greenfield, WTF?)