It's a 42 kilometer race that's draws runners from places like St. John's, Chicago and Houston.
But this is the last year for the Run for Heroes marathon in Amherstburg -- billed as Canada's southern most Boston Marathon qualifier.
Anna Vielecki was this year's first female to cross the finish line.
She's pleased with her personal best time, but not impressed with news of the marathon's future.
"Please don't let this happen, I don't want it to close."
Neither does her running team from Newmarket.
"That's hugely disappointing news, but I'm hoping someone will realize this is a great commercial opportunity that they can take advantage of and hopefully the marathon will run again next year," says Andy Horton.
But organizer Chris Uszynski says that won't happen.
"We use over 2000 pylons in this event that we pay $10,000 to rent for one day from Toronto to do this course."
Organizers say it cost an additional $25,000 to run this marathon, money they don't have."
Since the announcement of the closure a couple of weeks ago, a campaign to collect $45,000 to save the event was launched.
Only $13,000 has been raised to date and that's not enough to keep the race going.
"It's a very expensive and labour intensive course to put on," says Uszynski.
