St. Clair College is playing host to the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association Cross-Country Running National Championships this weekend at Malden Park.
The main competition takes place on Saturday, November 9 and will feature roughly 100 female runners and 100 male runners from across the country.
Paul Boots is head coach of St. Clair's cross country team and says athletes competing are representing colleges from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Atlantic Canada.
He says there's always a different energy on race day.
"We have a couple of good runners as well with Carter Free and Tori Horrobin," he says. "Those are our best male, female respectively but there's a lot of fast runners I'll tell you from across Canada. That's probably the most impressive thing is how fast these people do actually run."
Boots says the local athletes are excited and ready.
"They're understanding this week the significance of the meet here in Windsor and how special it is and how many friends and family they're going to have here," says Boots. "So I think in the last couple of days it's starting to hit them."
He says it's an exciting time for the city and college.
"I think it's great for the school that we're having it," says Boots. Obviously the community as well and the time for us to show off a little bit of Windsor, Ontario to people from coast to coast and more specifically St. Clair College.
The women's race begins at 12 p.m. and is a six kilometre run.
The men's race is expected to start at 1 p.m. and is an eight kilometre run.
Opening ceremonies begin Friday at 6 p.m. at St. Clair Centre for the Arts.
The closing ceremonies which includes the official results and awards is set for Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. at the St. Clair College Sports Plex.
St. Clair College last hosted the national championships in 2003.
That event also took place at Malden Park.