Almost 1,300 participants turned out for Abbotsford’s annual Run for Water on Sunday (May 29) as it returned to an in-person event.

The event started out at Mill Lake Park and included both a five-kilometre fun run and a 10 km run.

Also returning was the Run for Water trail race on May 28, which saw participants take on either a 10 km or 25 km challenge on the rugged single track of Sumas Mountain.

This year marked the 15th year of the event, which raises money to help build clean-water projects in some of the most remote and marginalized areas of Ethiopia.

The pandemic was rough on the event, as the 2020 event transformed into the Alone Together Run – a virtual format race that saw runners submit times online and choose a distance to run.

RELATED: Abbotsford’s Run for Water returns to traditional format for 15th edition

Last year saw the Upstream Challenge concept come into effect, as participants were given a number of different competitive and non-competitive outdoor activities to complete.

There were a total of 837 participants in the 5 km portion of this year’s event. The top three runners were: Russell Gilroy (in the M20-24 category) of Abbotsford with a time of 17:31, Amber Morrison (F40-44) of Bellingham with a time of 17:46 and Oliver Teer (M14-16) of Abbotsford with a time of 18:34.

The 10 km run drew 438 participants. The top three finishers were Kris Warkentin (M40-44) of Abbotsford with a time of 33:56, Travis Vugteveen (M30-34) of Chilliwack in 34:39 and Thom Peters (M30-34) of Vancouver in 35:04.

In Saturday’s trail races, there were 171 racers. The overall winner in the 10 km event was Vincent Pagot with a time of 1:01:19.7.

In the 25 km event, the top racer was Jenny Quilty with a time of 2:53:23.1.

Visit runforwater.ca to view complete race results or for more information.

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