Robyn Luthi set a personal best in New York. (Robyn Luthi/Facebook)
Luthi completes six majors

Melfort’s Robyn Luthi sets personal best in New York City to complete major marathon loop – for now

Nov 4, 2024 | 11:19 AM

A Melfort marathon runner is now a six-star finisher.

Robyn Luthi completed the New York Marathon on the weekend, completing all six major marathons across the globe.

“It was a really great experience,” Luthi told northeastNOW. “I’m really excited that I’ve done all of the six world majors (marathons) – it’s a really big accomplishment for me.”

Luthi completed the New York Marathon in just over two hours and 50 minutes, which is a personal best by nearly eight full minutes. She said she was thrilled with the result.

The results speak for themselves. Luthi finished seventh in her age class at the marathon and was 89th out of 24,000 women in the race, and she said New York is one of the harder major marathon courses.

“It’s a little hilly, the back side,” Luthi explained. “I was able to keep a very consistent pace the entire race, which is actually really hard to do in a marathon.”

Luthi called the New York marathon crowds “insane”, saying they were the best of any of the six major marathons.

What makes Luthi’s marathon results even more remarkable is having to deal with inclement weather. A marathoner in southern California has nice weather year-round to train, while Luthi and racers across Canada are forced to run in cold, icy weather for months at a time.

“The other thing that is a bit of a challenge is that it’s so flat where we live, that when you come to some of these races like New York that is hilly, it is a totally different terrain than what I’m used to training, so I have to try to adapt to that during the race.”

Meanwhile, Luthi plans to take a bit of a break before doing a half-marathon next year in preparation for the Chicago Marathon, which she plans to race again to try to improve her personal best time.

“Now that I’ve ran a 2:50, I think I can go sub-2:50 on that course,” Luthi said. “Chicago’s one of my favourite courses, and it’s really flat and it’s really fast.”

It was also recently announced that Sydney, Australia has been named a major marathon, and Luthi plans to tackle that marathon in a year or two.

Cam.lee@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @northeastNOW_SK

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