Four Yukon runners are lacing up to face the best in Western Canada.

Logan Roots, Brittany Pearson, Logan Boehmer and Aidan Bradley will look to make their mark at the Western Canada Summer Games in Kamloops, B.C., from Aug. 5-14.

The four runners, along with head coach Don White and assistant coach Rodney Hulstein, will make six of the Yukon's 140 athletes, coaches, managers and mission staff heading to the Games.

All will have a tall order to compete against the best of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.

Each of Team Yukon's runners has a different story, but each has the same goal – run a personal best time.

Roots recently finished his high school career as arguably the best junior runner on Vancouver Island after winning the 16-19-year-old division of the Annual Chemainus Legion Shuffle five-kilometre race in June.

More recently, the 18-year-old picked up two bronze medals at a Kelowna, B.C., race at the beginning of July.

As the Western Games approach, Roots is growing in confidence.

"I feel pretty good. I wasn't sure how I was feeling before, and then I changed my events. Now I feel much better.”

Roots switched the 5,000 metre for the 1,500 and 800.

"With the training we were doing I felt better over the middle distance rather than the longer stuff,” Roots said.

With arguably the most experience on the small team, Roots is eager to test his meddle against the best around.

"The competition will be pretty good with guys from B.C. and Alberta, so I'm just going to go down, see if I can compete with any of them, and run personal best times in all the events I'm going to do.”

That aspect of his sport is something Roots keeps in mind.

"I got a long running career ahead of me, hopefully. For this one, I'm just running it mostly for myself, and hopefully I'll get better from there.”

The training schedule has been going three times a week for the past six weeks and included intensity mingling distances.

Pearson agreed with Roots' mentality about PBs.

"I'm going to make some times, hopefully, that I haven't before,” Pearson said.

The 20-year-old represented the Yukon nationally in cross-country skiing and represented Carlton University on the varsity ski team. During summers she always comes back to the Yukon cross-country running squad.

She's also competed in the 2009 Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island and the previous Canada Western Summer Games, held in Strathcona County, Alta, in 2007.

Needless to say, she's used to competing.

"For Yukoners – we don't have a track here – it's a big challenge for us to go and try running on a rubber track with spikes, so for us, it's like, if you don't get last – that's awesome.

"There was one where I didn't, so I was really excited. But hopefully things are different this time.”

Pearson finished in the middle of the pack in Kelowna in July.

"I know I'm going to have a faster time than I did at that point. But I think I'll be able to be competitive in the races I'm in now, whereas in previous years I haven't been able to.”

What's important for you in Kamloops?

"To be competitive with other provinces and territories, because we just don't have the population base in the Yukon to produce a big group of high-calibre athletes, so in order to compete with provinces that have big populations and big running teams, it's a good feeling.”

Usually Pearson would compete in the 5,000 metre, but organizers at the Games put the 5,000 and 3,000 on the same day, forcing her to choose.

She will now compete in the 3,000 and 1,500.

By contrast, Boehmer has never competed with Yukon Athletics.

He does, however, have experience at both the Canada Summer Games and the Western Canada Summer Games, as a basketball player.

In fact – after joining the squad more than a month ago – this will be the 19-year-

olds' first competition with the Team Yukon running team.

"Right now I'm just going to focus on personal best, just improving my times. I've been to Westerns and nationals for basketball, so I know what we're going up against,” said Boehmer, who will compete in the 3,000 m and 5,000 m.

White said that inexperience will affect the entire Yukon team.

"A lot of the kids down south end up getting over competed,” White said. "In our case, basically, there isn't enough. In some cases, and Logan Boehmer is going to be the prime example in this one – he's never had any race experience. So he's going to get down there, and he's got no idea how to push himself; he may start off going too light, he may start going too heavy, and that'll end up showing in the way he finishes.”

At 16-years-old, Bradley is also on the back foot, having to compete against 21-year-olds, White pointed out, adding that his youngest runner will be able to compete in the next Western Games and the 2013 Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, Que.

"He's the one that's got the longest period of progression (ahead of him). But he's also the one that, as a sprinter (competing in the 200 and 400), his improvement is going to be marked out in seconds and 10ths of seconds, whereas the other guys can make improvements of minutes because of the differences in their distances.”

"They'll all end up doing PBs, I expect that. Whether any of them are able to get into the medals, it's up for grabs. Logan Roots probably has the best potential. Even so, we've only had one month of speed work, and we should have had three.

"Whether they actually get into medals is hard to say.”