Sweat, friends and hot dogs: Thousands hustle through Hamilton for Around the Bay road race

Around 10,000 runners hit the Hamilton pavement Sunday morning for the 125th Around the Bay race — and some even downed hot dogs in the process.

Runners travel from a range of places for the annual road race, which has a 30 km or 5 km route.

The fastest 30 km runners were a pair of friends and training partners from Kenya.

"It was a very beautiful race," said Panuel Mkungo, who came second with a time of 1:34:07. 

Winner Daniel Kemoi ran almost three minutes faster than anybody else, with a chip time of 1:32:56.

Mkungo came second last year as well, and convinced his friend Kemoi to join for round two. Today was competitive and the conditions were tough, Mkungo said, but the friends are feeling good — and are ready to spend a few days in Ontario before heading back to the U.S. for more races.

The women's winner, Mengistu Emebet, had a chip time of 1:45:55.9 — more than three minutes faster than the second place time.

Emebet, who recently came to Canada as a refugee from Ethiopia, said she doesn't usually run long distance — her specialty is middle distance, running 5 km.

Hot dog running is 'horrible'

Jeff Rowthorn ran the entire 30 km in a fleece Christmas onesie, and he ate a fully-loaded hot dog at the 25 km mark.

"It's a little bit wet inside here right now," said Rowthorn, who ran the Hamilton marathon in the same attire.

About 20 people ate a hot dog on the course as part of the "Easterbrooks challenge," he said.

"It's absolutely horrible," Rowthorn said. "We had to have a hot dog, a pop and then three Lindt chocolates. So it's not sitting too well." 

Rowthorn, who is from Mount Hope, is doing a 100 mile race in two weeks and wore the onesie to have some fun during the training run.

Runnning 'solo'

For the 125th anniversary of Around the Bay, Geoff Sheppard decided to wear 125 red solo cups.

Sheppard, who's from Burlington, said he attached about 15 cups a day for a couple of weeks.

"It's just to put smiles on people's faces," said Sheppard, who always wears a costume for the Around the Bay race.

Around 10,000 runners

Race director Anna Lewis said about 10,000 people ran on Sunday. There were about 7,500 people running the 30 km and relay race, and about 2,500 people running the 5 km course, she said.

Sunday was a cool morning, after a snowy night. But Lewis said it was colder last year — and today's conditions were "perfect for running a 30K."

Some runners ran the 30 km as a relay, including the "Legs for Days" team of two purple tutu-wearing runners.

"We did this three years ago and we thought it would help to identify each other if we wore tutus during the relay," said Taylor Whittamore, laughing with her team after the race.

This is the 125th anniversary of the Hamilton road race, which calls itself the oldest in North America.