These are the dog days of the running season. Many of the big events of the season are over.

Marquee events like the gruelling Dome Run, the 10 km Road Race Championships, the challenging War and Peace run, the exciting Mt. Lorne Misadventure and last weekend's tough Yukon River Trail Marathon have come and gone for another season.

There is a bit of a lull in the running calendar until the Chocolate Claim 10-miler on Aug. 24 that runners may use as their final test for the iconic Klondike Road Relay set for Sept. 5 and 6.

The 23 participants in last Tuesday's Intersport 5 km run and walk may have thought that they were in a midsummer night's dream. With a temperature of 24 C. and sun all around they could be forgiven for thinking they were no longer in Whitehorse.

Many of the times were a bit slower than usual owing to the strong south wind and the fact that many of the participants had run in the Yukon River Trail Marathon just two days previous.

Rodney Hulstein, who is preparing to leave for Brock University for another season of cross country running as a "Brock Badger", re-claimed first place (17:06) after giving it up last week to the always beaming John Parry.

This week, Parry fell off the radar screen and into second place (18:54) perhaps under the pressure of having both his parents watch him race.

But by holding on to second place, Parry was able to hold back a group of seven surging masters runners who all ran under the 20 minute mark.

This group included the irrepressible Keith Thaxter (19:07) in third place, the wily veteran Bill Parry in fifth place (19:20), Don White who overtook Bill Matiation to claim sixth place (19:40), the normally speedy Matiation suffering from a cramp in seventh place (19:43) and Tom Ullyett in eighth (19:50).

In the midst of these masters runners was the youthful Sebastien Markley who placed fourth and ran a PB for the season (19:16) in spite of having completed a hard half marathon on Sunday.

Josianne Marley did it again. Even though she was a bit tired from running a half marathon last Sunday, she convincingly took first place amongst the women with a time of 21:38.

Running in her father's shoes did not hamper Kaitlyn Urquart as she placed second (25:29).

Sprinting the last 30 meters to keep her time under 27 minutes, Vanier graduate Coralie Ullyett took third place (26:57). Not too far behind Ullyett was the remarkable Lena Neilsen in fourth place (27:45).

The fifth place runner Jean Planderleith (30:33) was closely pursued by the former nationally ranked mountain biker Jennifer Whipple (30:34) who placed sixth. In seventh place, Pascal Bedard rounded out the women's category with a time of 31:40.

It was a "mother and child" reunion of sorts in the 3.5 km distance with Ginny Macdonald (21:20) running with and beating her son Dan Macdonald (21:21).

Both of them participated in Sunday's marathon with Ginny running the half marathon and Dan still aching from running the many hills of the 42 km marathon.

On the walking track it was man against woman that saw Ruth Hall and Phil Gibson cross the finish line together in 36:50.

Article submitted by Tom Ullyett on behalf of Athletics Yukon