There were no new course records Sunday as runner tackled the Yukon River Trail Marathon course and the temperature hit 26 degrees.

“It was hot out there, said marathon winner, David Eikelboom. “Twenty-five and sunny is just not ideal for a marathon.”

But the defending champ battled through the pain to finish in 3:21:08.

“Through Leg Four I could just feel my body temperature getting higher. I started to get dizzy. That was not pleasant out there,” he said. “But you don’t run marathons to feel good and you don’t run marathons to give up as soon as things get hard.”

Instead, Eikelboom “knuckled down” for the win.

He knew it was going to be hot and thought maybe he could run a bit faster on legs one and two, when it would be a bit cooler.

“I don’t know if that was the best strategy, but I was going to get caught in the heat regardless,” he said. “It was maybe a little risky given the temperature, but hey, sometimes you have to take risk too.”

Also battling the heat was half marathon winner Brendan Morphet.

“Hot, really hot,” he said of the course conditions.

Morphet, who won the 8.75-kilometre Air North Family Fun Run earlier this summer, has spent most of his summer visiting family in Ontario and doing races out east.

For the first half of the race, he kept pace with Lindsay Carson, the female winner of the half, who finished only a few seconds behind Morphet.

“I knew she was going to have a strong first 10 kilometres, so I just tried to pace myself and keep up with her for the first eight,” he said. “Once we got into the single track trails, that’s where I like to be and I was able to to gain some ground on her there.”

Carson, who normally doesn’t race anything longer than 10 kilometres, said she was happy with the race.

“Today I give myself a B plus,” she said. “It was hot, but I didn’t let that affect me.”

She said she felt strong, especially considering she had tweaked her calf earlier in the week and couldn’t run trails leading up to the race.

“For the amount of effort I put into this race, I’m pretty happy with the time I got out of it,” she said. “It felt like a strong long run.”

The female marathon winner was Denise McHale.

The race cap of 325 participants was hit early this year, not long after registration opened in April.

Since the course changed in 2013 to start at Rotary Peace Park from Shipyards Park and to include the Hidden Lakes loop, the course record was set by Logan Roots in 2014 in 2:50:49. Roots didn’t race this year.

With runners finishing around 1p.m., some chose to go for a quick dip in the Yukon River.

“I’ve finished this race in the past and someone said, ‘Oh do you want to go in the river,’ and I thought hell no,” said Eikelboom after a soak. “Today I would swim in that river for half an hour. That was probably the best feeling thing I’ve experienced in a very long time. Yeah, that was nice.”