Fighting to get his breathing under control after crossing the finish at the PhysioPlus 10K Yukon Road Racing Championships, Brendan Morphet is quick to praise local running star Lindsay Carson.

“Lindsay is phenomenal,” he said as his watch beeped intervals out. “It was hard just keeping up with her.”

Carson beat the rest of the field at the Tuesday night race, which featured two loops on the typical 5K Fun Run course. Starting at F.H. Collins School, participants raced down the sidewalk, past the skatepark and joined Millennium Trail, which they followed up to the Fish Ladder, before returning on Nisutlin Drive to the school.

Carson’s time of 36:47, isn’t a personal best by any stretch of the imagination, but the 27-year old runner is still happy with the effort, especially considering two weeks ago she wasn’t planning to do this race.

“My coach strongly suggested I do this race,” she said at the finish, “so here I am, being a good athlete.”

After the mass start, Morphet led the race for about one kilometre before Carson took over.

They stayed together for the 10-kilometre course, which Carson finds tough.

“Just mentally and you’re dodging walkers and the hill at the fish ladder,” she said. “So to be able to say I’ve done this loop twice in a row with a hard effort, I’m proud of that.”

As they hit the backstretch and returned to the finish via Nisutlin on the second loop, Morphet said he tried to pull Carson back in.

“We were neck and neck,” he said. “As soon as we got to Selkirk, she was a bullet.” Carson pulled away and grimaced to a tough finish. Morphet wasn’t far behind, finishing in 36:53.

For Carson, her win was a redemption as Morphet narrowly beat her at the Trail Half Marathon earlier this month.

Neither is particularly happy with their time, but for Morphet, a lot of it comes down to gaining more race experience. A runner most comfortable on the trails, this is his first year attempting competitions.

“I’m still trying to figure out a (race) strategy,” said Morphet. “I was asking her (Carson) if she could give me some pointers.”

Morphet will get to put her advice into practice next week at the Claim Pre-Skagway race, a 10-miler tune-up ahead of September’s Klondike Road Relay.

Running in his first 10K race, Joe Parker finished third-overall and smashed his goal of going under 40 minutes. He finished in 38:49.

“It was my first 10K race, so I was pretty happy with what I finished with,” he said.

Breaking the race into two parts, Parker wanted to run each 5K in around 19 minutes.

He said he may go the B.C. Cross-Country Championships in October this year and is “getting more comfortable with racing.”

Masters walkers John Storms and Bonnie Love finished the race in 58:08 and 1:10:17, while Thomas Bakica (21:20), Clark LaPrairie (23:12) and Isaac Obrien (23:28) did a 5K loop and Lisa Freeman (18:12) did 3K.

Rounding out the 10K field was Anett Kralisch (44:10), Sue Bogle (45:38), Cindy Freeman (48:44) and Ross King (49:04).