Canada Running Series

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. GRAND MERCI. MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS. 

We cannot say it enough. 

2022. What a year it’s been. A true marathon as we raced our way back to in-person events TOGETHER. Let’s be honest, at times it’s been a challenge, but it’s one we’ve met full on thanks to your resilience, passion, energy, and determination. You showed up this year and made it wonderfully successful in so many ways. Almost 50,000 of you showed up across our 10 events, most in-person with some virtual to keep us connected when we couldn’t get to the races. The energy has been electric and everyone at Canada Running Series is enormously grateful.

This year feels like it has been a wonderful combination of old and new. We’ve revelled in the moments together on the familiar hills of High Park, dashing down Vancouver’s Spanish Banks, revving our engines on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal and cruising the Toronto Waterfront. The old stomping grounds… TOGETHER AGAIN. The magic of those Starting lines, and the joy  mixed with exhilaration of crossing Finish lines. With friends, rivals, suppliers, our absolutely amazing volunteers and our 18 CRS team members. Thank you to our sponsor partners who kept us whole during the darkest days of the pandemic so we’d reach a bright new tomorrow.  

And in many ways, YOU, our community, have given us a re-energized, new beginning this year. Together we’ve made a renewed commitment to “building community through running”, our mission since the 1980s.   

With remarkable numbers you showed you cared for those in need. Through our Charity Challenges you contributed a magnificent $4,206,215. New partners in TCS, Asics, Garmin and Athletic Brewing joined old friends like Oasis, Running Room, Under Armour, and Nuun as we surged back on familiar roads and new directions. 

At every turn we embraced diversity and inclusion to build out the community:  

• with the new Scarborough 5K built locally through the awesome leadership of Melanie @little3women,  Anoke @ahh.noke and Black Runners of the GTA. It was a race on home turf that also gave back to the Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough & Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.;  
• by partnering with the Running Physio and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital to help us better understand and champion Accessibility in not only this race, but all our races. 
• In addition to continuing our work with Native Women Running, we collaborated with Rising Hearts and embraced the Running On Native Lands Initiative, to make land acknowledgements a common practice at CRS events, to further our respect and understanding in a united community. 

A determined commitment to sustainability emerged throughout the year, but especially with our new partner TCS who even developed a “sustainability footprint calculator” in the world-class race app for the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon. You pledged more than 700 trees to be planted along the marathon route by new charity partner Trees For Life, and supported the Trans Canada Trail. Your Finishers’ medals included the oak tree adopted as Toronto’s Official Tree in May and together we made it a priority to become the first marathon in Canada to achieve Evergreen status with the Council For Responsible Sport (still pending). 

2022 saw us put on our first-ever international race as we embraced a commitment to build community globally. The Rumbo a TCS Toronto Waterfront 10k en la CDMX, is a collaboration in México City with the amazing team at Emoción Deportiva, supported by Ambassador Graeme Clark and the Canadian Embassy in México, plus Alma Leal and TCS Latin America.  

From the titanic achievements at National Championships, to the heroics of everyday heroes and leaders you have given us SOOOOO MUCH to celebrate. Most of all we have been struck by the energy, passion and excitement you shared with us in 2022. This was no more evident than in our CRS Ambassador Program, the Building on Belief video features produced for us by Tenfold Productions and Quinton Jacobs, plus the return of BTGYYZ (Bridge The Gap) hosted by Mike Krupika and Parkdale Road Runners who brought some 400 runners from 40 crews in 8 countries to TCS Toronto Waterfront. This year’s Canadian-race-record 22 Cheer Sites on the course personified COMMUNITY.

All of this underscored the fact that we can’t build community through running on our own. You are the stars, the talent, the SHOW. AND WE ARE BACK. It took 50,000 of us TOGETHER to make it happen.   

You’ve left us breathless! But now it’s time to pause, catch our breath, rest and recover. 2023 is just over that next hill, brimming with challenges and accomplishments. But for this moment we pause to say THANK YOU. Together you make our community, our country our world a better place. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!