Around 1500 runners laced up their sneakers Sunday in Red Deer for the annual Woody's RV World Marathon, Half Marathon and 10k.

For Red Deer's Jeff Strong, who ran the half marathon following double bypass heart surgery just over a year ago, it was quite the accomplishment.

He had run 53 marathon's in the past and 2 iron man triathlons before realizing something just wasn't quite right, discovering blockages in his arteries.

Strong says he was definitely worried it may have marked the end of his running career.

“Usually when you hear about bypass surgery you hear about them taking arteries from your legs so I did some research and they ended up taking an artery out of my arm instead of my leg and at first it gave me a little bit of trouble because it didn’t have the same blood flow, but it worked out ok today. Extremely happy, it’s something I’ve done for so long and the thought of losing it was intimidating”.

It was the best weather on record in recent years for the annual race.

Race Director Jason Hazlett says they continue to draw people from all over the country.

“When I see Dusty our winner of our half came down from the island, and Brendan Lunty from Camrose and Craig Schmitt from Red Deer that won our marathon, fantastic to have than and all over Canada we have people that come for our race”.

Schmitt won the marathon with a time of 2:44:37, crossing more than 9 minutes ahead of 6 time winner Brendan Lunty of Camrose.

Dusty Spiller of Duncan, BC won the Men’s Half-Marathon followed closely by Red Deer’s Brett McPhedran in 2nd.
 
There were two other local winners, Kristen Spady of Red Deer won the Women’s Half-Marathon and Kieran McDonald also of Red Deer won the Men’s 10 K.