Athletes battled the heat to run in one of the more hotly contested Tuesday night fun runs where the race paralled as the Yukon Five-Kilometre Championships.

Lindsay Carson, posted the fastest time of 17:34, still a bit off her personal best.

Carson opted to take the summer off track racing and instead focus on her training after a poor showing at the Ottawa 10K in late May.

She is still building up her training base after a foot injury and is planning to race in the cross-country season this fall.

“This is just a good check-in for myself of where I’m at,” said Carson at the finish. “It’s still not my fastest, but it at least gives me a gauge of where I’m at in my training and where I need to be in the fall.”

Hot on her heels was Darby McIntyre, the Special Olympics up-and-comer who blazed out of the start, leading the race for the first couple of kilometres.

“I might’ve started out too fast,” he said after receiving his gold medal for men 16-17. “I still got a pretty good time, 19:17.”

About 20 people took part in the race, including walkers Bonnie Love and John Storms.

Storms was trying out different techniques and said he was about half a minute off his personal best time.

“To try and get a little faster, be a little more efficient, stand up a little straighter and gain hopefully another minute,” he said.

He’s hoping his time will continue to improve as he chases a Canadian record.

Love battled the heat to a time of 34:29.

Both Love and Storms competed in Kelowna last weekend at the BC Athletics Masters Track and Field Championships alongside the Yukon Athletics youth who were competing at the Jack Brow Memorial Track and Field Meet.

Love appreciated the rubber track as she raced her two events.

“It’s just fabulous,” she said. “It’s a bonus any time we got to go out there and do that.”

A highlight for Storms was having the whole Yukon Athletics team out to cheer him on during his 3,000-metre race.

“That cheering was really inspirational and unexpected actually, so it was a big bonus, a big lifter,” he said, “That was probably the highlight of the whole weekend.”

Love and Storms will both compete at the Canada 55+ Games in Brampton, Ont. later this summer.

McIntyre also attended the JackBrow meet, where he finished sixth in the 1,500-metre and fifth in the 3,000-metre.

“Times-wise they were pretty good,” he said. “It’s super hot there. I was a bit off my PBs, but not much.”

The Tuesday night fun runs will continue for the summer. They start at F.H. Collins School and are a toonie for the Yukon Athletics members, or $4 for the public.