Genevieve Lalonde loses shoe in race toward Pan Am Games

Moncton's Genevieve Lalonde will make sure her shoes are well-tied as she competes in the 3,000-metre steeplechase next week at the Pan Am Games.

Last weekend she was competing in Madrid at the IAAF World Championships, running in 37degrees. Lalonde says the race had barely started when she lost one of her shoes.

"It was a really warm day and I was 600 metres into the race and someone stepped on the heel of my shoe."

Lalonde says she had two choices.

"So at that point I had to make an instinctive decision whether to continue the race with half of my shoe on or to stop and put it back on."

Lalonde decided that continuing to run with one shoe half-off didn't make sense.

"It would have been like running in high heels."

In fact, she decided it wasn't worth it for a race which didn't have much significance for her besides getting the experience of running in hot temperatures.

"I couldn't imagine jumping over the water barrier with half a shoe and that's where I was thinking I could probably injure myself. And seeing as there is a long part of the season left, I decided it was proabably best not to finish with half a shoe."

Lalonde finished ninth after losing 20 seconds while putting her shoe back on.

After the race she tweeted: "Sometimes you win, some other times you lose a shoe and stop to put it on."

Lalonde says she's looking forward to running next week in the Pan Am games.

She says this has been her best season yet as besides the Pan Am Game she has also qualified for the world championships in Beijing this fall.

She'll continue her jet-setting after the Pam Am Games as she heads to South Korea to train before heading to Beijing at the end of August.

Her long-term goal is to make the Canadian team for the Olympics in Rio de Janeironext year.