Courses for the Yukon running championships will match those of the upcoming B.C. provincials.

Well, kind of.

The Yukon Cross Country Championships will kick off noon Sunday at the Mount McIntyre Ski Trails (upper parking lot), with the registration beginning at 11:30 a.m.

Athletics Yukon members have to pay $5 and non-members will have to pay $10.

Organizer Don White said the idea of the competition is to get runners on the team focused on the B.C. Cross Country Championships, at the end of October.

"And if there's interest, we've had people go on to compete in the national,” White said.

White will consult the B.C. Athletics website to see which distances will be used and adjust the Mt. McIntyre trails, which has been tricky, he added.

Due to the terrain of the local ski trails, the Yukon championship distances can be more severe than those at the provincials.

For instance, the Yukon's 1.8-km course was much more difficult than B.C.'s two-

km loop, White explained.

"So regardless of the number of loops that we end up doing, we run a harder race over a shorter distance. We call it eight km or 10 km or whatever it is but it's shorter,” he said.

Many of Whitehorse's top runners come out to the event, which White said was also a good time.

"It's as serious as the competitors want it to be,” White said. "Generally speaking, most people want to run it relatively well.”