By Paul Gains
All marathoners face adversity in one form or another but Thomas Broatch has had more than his share. Yet, he returns to the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon October 18th aiming for a place on the Canadian Championship podium.
Once again, the race doubles as a World Athletics Elite Label race and the official Athletics Canada Canadian Championships.
“I will have to see who shows up but I definitely want to get on the podium,” says the 27-year-old Vancouver naive. “It’s a pretty small Canadian road racing community and I race against the same people a lot of times; a bit of extra motivation to beat them on race day. That’s why I like coming back to Toronto – you get a lot of familiar faces.
“I think if I could run around 2:12 that would be a pretty good result. I don’t know exactly who is in the field – I have a rough idea – if I can get in 2:12 or 2:13 shape I will be competitive; enough to go out with the top Canadians and be competitive. That’s the most important thing.”
In his marathon debut he claimed the 2023 Canadian Championship title finishing a solid 6th place overall at Toronto Waterfront. But it was his personal best recorded at the 2025 Houston Marathon which truly signaled his potential on the world stage.
Finishing 8th overall he ran 2:10:35 which makes him the tenth fastest Canadian of all time over the classic distance.
A year ago he was confirmed to race Toronto Waterfront again but just two weeks before the race he found himself in a Vancouver hospital with suspected appendicitis.
“I was in hospital for four days in total,” he explains. “Basically, there was something revealed in the CT scan near my appendix. They didn’t know what it was. They didn’t want to do surgery. The upshot was that I was just in hospital for four days with antibiotics. I still had to have a few more hospital visits, one colonoscopy and then a few follow-up visits.”
In December 2025, once he was feeling comfortable again, and had regained a semblance of fitness, he ran 2:13:43 at The Marathon Project in Chandler, Arizona. Things were looking up but then came a disappointing result in Ottawa earlier this year where he struggled home in 18th place 2:19:00 – his worst marathon performance.
“I went out at 2:12 pace,” he remembers, “And I knew going into it I was not in great shape but I thought I could still run in the 2:12 – 2:14 range which I would have been pretty happy with considering it was a challenging course.
“It was kind of the classic story, you don’t have the fitness then at 30k you crumble and limp your way home.”
These days he is back training as much as 190 kilometres in a week in preparation for TCS Toronto Waterfront. A graduate of the University of British Columbia he is still coached by Vancouver Thunderbirds’ coach, Chris Johnson, and, after training most of the summer alone, he is enjoying the company of club mates who have returned to Vancouver.
“I think in the last few weeks I have been on the right trajectory,” he says. “I still have (four) weeks to go. I am doing the Eastside 10k (September 27) which I have done the last four years. It’s kind of my ‘go to’ race before Toronto Waterfront to see where I am at.
“I think if I can run a solid result on that course then that would give me a lot of confidence with three weeks to continue fitness. The last two or three weeks I have got some good momentum going.”
Broatch has worked these past four years as a software developer for a Vancouver-based clean energy company called CLIR. He goes into the office a couple of times a week but mostly works from home.
On weekends he sometimes plays golf but much of his spare time is spent reading mystery novels or magazines at his local library. His ‘go-to’ magazine list includes a wide array of interests ranging from ‘National Geographic’ to ‘The Economist’. Earlier in the summer he moved apartments within the Kitsilano area and there is a library right next door.
A strong Canadian field is expected, as always, with $8,000 CDN awarded the national champions as well as World Athletics points which are useful in qualifying for World Championships and Olympics. Broatch is due for some good fortune.
